What a strata report costs in NSW, and what’s actually in one

Strata reports in NSW generally sit somewhere between two and four hundred dollars. The number matters less than what sits underneath it and what you get back.

What’s inside the price

Two costs make up a strata report.

The strata company’s search fee. Managing agents charge for granting access to the records, commonly $60 to $65, sometimes more, occasionally with a card surcharge on top. This is paid to them, not to the inspector. Check whether a quoted price includes it, because a fee that looks low sometimes doesn’t.

The inspector’s work. Obtaining the authority, booking the search, inspecting the records, and writing and checking the report.

Genesis charges $330 inc. GST, and the search fee is included in that. A review of a report you obtained elsewhere is $165 inc. GST.

What a report should contain

• Up to five years of committee and general meeting minutes.
• The full special levy history, every set of minutes, not just recent ones.
• Financial statements: administrative and capital works fund balances, income and expenditure, arrears.
• The ten-year capital works plan, and whether it accounts for works the scheme is facing.
• Defects and building issues, wherever they are recorded.
• Litigation, disputes, and NCAT matters.
• Insurance, building, public liability, office bearer’s cover, and claims history where recorded.
• Fire safety compliance, including Annual Fire Safety Statements.
• By-laws, including any special by-laws affecting the subject lot.
• The strata plan, common property boundaries and exclusive use areas.

How to tell a thorough report from a thin one

Four things separate them, and you can check all four in the finished document.

Does it give figures, or adjectives? “Significant upcoming works” is a characterisation. “$412,000 tendered, lot share $8,240” is a finding. Where the record gives a number, the number should be in the report.

Does it say what wasn’t sighted? Records are frequently incomplete. A report that lists what it could not find is more useful than one that quietly omits it, and an absence of documents is not the same thing as an absence of issues.

Does it cover every set of minutes, or only recent ones? Special levies and defect history live in older minutes. A report that starts two years ago has missed the part that matters most.

Does it separate the scheme from your lot? A thousand-page defect schedule covering every unit in the building belongs in the detail. What belongs in the summary is what affects the lot you’re buying.

Independence is worth asking about. A report is only as useful as it is unafraid. If a finding has been softened to make it read more comfortably, you have been steered just as surely as if it had been overstated.

What a report won’t do

It won’t tell you whether to buy. That is your solicitor or conveyancer’s role, and any report offering a recommendation has stepped outside what a records inspection is.

It won’t give an opinion on the physical condition of the building, that’s a building inspection, and a different professional.

And it won’t predict a future levy. It can tell you what has been foreshadowed, what has been quoted, and what the funds currently hold. The arithmetic between those figures is a finding. A forecast is not.

Common questions

Related guides

• Special levies: what they tell you that the fund balance doesn’t
• Cooling-off and strata reports: the timing trap
• Reading a ten-year capital works plan, and knowing when to ignore it