What Is The Role of The Condo Board and Strata Council?
Strata Councils and Condominium Boards play an important role in keeping the strata and condo community organized and harmonized. They are responsible for management and decision-making on a daily basis. Issues tend to come up on an everyday basis and board or council meetings are inevitable. Most boards will hold a meeting every month apart from an Annual General Meeting (AGM). A proper meeting every month ensures that condo management stays smooth and benefits all unit owners.
Some strata or condo boards will choose to hire a property manager so that they benefit from professional management. However, even if a strata council or condo board has delegated most of its powers to the property manager, the board or council remains responsible for fulfillment of its duties. For this reason, all the condo boards hold a monthly condo board meeting to ensure they are always aware of what’s going on with the management and community wellbeing.
Unit owners, representative of corporate owners, and tenants with owner’s right to vote can sit on strata council and condo board. All the council or board members are elected from among the strata or condo owner during an Annual General Meeting.
During an Annual General Meeting, or AGM, the condo board or strata council has to elect its president, vice-president, treasurer, secretary and any other directors required for the board. Attending a meeting means you can influence these elections and play your role to select the right person for each position. This way, you will be applying an important role to take your strata or condo community in the right direction.
Although many unit owners don’t think strata and board meetings are important, this is where most important decisions are made. If you ever want to be a part of your strata council or condo board, you will have to attend these meetings. By attending these meetings, you will always be aware of any issues that may come up and be able to make the proper decision for the wellbeing of everyone.
During the monthly meeting, the topics may vary depending on the problems, issues, or request that may come up in the past month. Typically, the meetings have an active discussion on important issues, committee reports and achievements, a look at future works reviewing the budget, and financial activities and output during the last month. During the monthly meetings, such boards usually focus on committee reports, works, and management decisions. So if your community has been pushing for another park, renovations, or upgrades, the strata council and condo board will be discussing these issue in its monthly meeting.
At times, the boards may require an opinion or decision from its owners. If most of the unit owners are present on a condo board meeting, it will be easy for board to take the direction that community desires. Without the community being active and responsive on these meetings, it will be hard for condo board to grow in the right dimension. This is a huge obstacle as it's complicated to schedule a date for a meeting that works for most owners especially on a short notice. A workaround to these problems may be an online message forum discussion with all the owners prior to a monthly meeting.
Strata and condo meetings are for the benefit of the entire community. If owners stop taking interest in these meetings, there will be problems. It is important that every strata or condo unit owner understands importance of these meetings. These will influence the way a strata community grows.
