The Reader I Will Never Meet

Minutes of a body corporate meeting are written for the people in the room and read, years later, by strangers deciding whether to buy. A careful buyer of a unit asks the seller for past minutes before signing, and reads them for what they leave out as much as for what they say.

Years from now, a reader like that may find a decision allowing one owner to enclose a balcony, with nothing about why, whether the other owners agreed, or whether the municipality approved plans. A special levy for lift repairs with no word on what was fixed. A parking rule that seems to change twice without anyone saying when. The people who could explain it all sold long ago, and the reader is left to guess, usually toward the worse explanation.

Minutes that record what was decided, how the vote went, what it cost and where the approved plans are kept read very differently. A stranger can follow the story without having been there, and can see a scheme that looked after itself. That affects what the stranger is willing to offer, which means careless minutes are eventually paid for by whichever owner sells next.