Inventory the Invisible

The financial statements of a body corporate show what the scheme has in the bank and what owners owe in levies. They do not show that the waterproofing on the flat roof is near the end of its life, or that the gate motor has been repaired so often the technician now just shakes his head. Those things are liabilities just as real as an unpaid bill. They simply live outside the books.

Say a buyer is choosing between units in two different schemes, with similar levies and similar prices. On paper they look the same. The difference sits in what nobody wrote down, like the trustee who is the only one who knows where the stopcocks are, or the long running argument with the neighbouring property about a boundary wall. One scheme has its problems listed in a maintenance plan with rough costs attached. The other keeps them in a few people's memories.

That is why the useful exercise, for trustees and owners alike, is to list on purpose what the official documents leave out. What does this building know that is not written anywhere? What has everyone simply learned to live with? The answers rarely appear in the next audit, but they have a way of appearing in the next special levy.