Budgeting

Unit entitlement is the Act's own default, and complying with it is generally a safe answer to a cost-allocation complaint. A robust and resilient Strata Community keeps its cost allocation matched to who actually benefits, and revisits an old arrangement through a proper vote rather than a change in who controls Council.

A fair process and a technically compliant formula do not, on their own, authorize charging an Owner for something they do not benefit from, reversing a cost arrangement Owners have relied on for years, or holding onto money the Strata was never entitled to in the first place.

The Strata Property Act does not give Council a general discretion to spend the Strata's money on what it judges to be a good idea. Every expenditure must be authorized — a budget line, a Contingency Reserve Fund vote at the level the expenditure requires, or one of the narrow unapproved-expenditure exceptions