In New Zealand? Visit quarter.nz for body corporates.
Most committees are short of members, and most owners who consider joining talk themselves out of it — because they assume it means unpaid property management, evening meetings and being the person everybody complains to. It does not have to. The role is governance: deciding, on behalf of the owners, what the building does with its money. The admin around it is a tooling problem, and that part is solved.
South Australian corporations may appoint a management committee, and where they do not, the corporation acts as a whole. That flexibility is genuinely useful in a small scheme and genuinely risky in a larger one: without a committee and without recorded delegation, every decision technically belongs to a general meeting, and buildings quietly stop making them.
Governed by the Strata Titles Act 1988 and Community Titles Act 1996, administered by Consumer and Business Services.
A surprising number do not, and are making decisions informally as a result.
In Quarter: Committee roles and who holds them are recorded against the building, so notices, voting rights and permissions follow the position rather than one person's inbox.
It shapes the procedure the committee has to follow.
Notice is at least 14 days; nominations close before it.
In Quarter: Book the year's meetings once — the AGM and the committee meetings around it — and Quarter carries the notice periods, the agendas and the invitations from there. The insurance renewal and the plan review sit on the same calendar, so the year is visible rather than remembered.
If it is not written down, the committee's authority is arguable.
In Quarter: The ownership register, financial records, insurance, contracts and documents sit in one searchable place, so a handover is an export rather than an archaeology project — and they are still there when the committee turns over.
Nothing statutory prompts it in South Australia, so if the committee does not, nobody does.
In Quarter: Upload the plan you already have and Quarter reads it into a costed schedule of items, lifecycles and due years. From there it projects the fund thirty years out and tells you the annual contribution that actually funds it.
Confirm it forms part of the corporation's insurance.
In Quarter: Upload the policy and Quarter reads the insurer, policy number, dates, premium and broker straight off it, then puts the renewal on the calendar far enough ahead that you can go to market rather than accept a rollover.
Its decisions can be challenged as ultra vires.
In South Australia it is specifically the committee's, because nothing else requires it.
Community and strata corporations differ.
A management committee makes decisions between general meetings, within the authority the strata corporation has given it. It is not a landlord, not a caretaker and not a manager. Understanding that boundary is most of what makes the job sustainable.
The reason people will not join a committee is almost never the decisions. It is the admin nobody else is doing. Quarter takes that away, which is the difference between a committee that turns over every year and one that keeps its people.
Finances, documents, maintenance, decisions and correspondence — so you can answer a question without a two-hour search.
Proposals, discussion and votes captured as they happen, so a decision made in March is still explicable in November.
Owners ask Quarter about balances, documents and decisions and get an answer immediately, instead of adding to the committee's inbox.
Insurance renewals, the AGM, the sinking fund review — visible in advance rather than remembered late.
When your term ends, the next person inherits a system, not a folder of email attachments.
General information about South Australia, not legal or financial advice for your building. Legislation is amended and grant programmes open and close — check the current position with Consumer and Business Services or the administering body before you act on anything here.
Tell us about your building in South Australia and we will show you exactly how Quarter would run it.
