In New Zealand? Visit quarter.nz for body corporates.
Find your building
Nothing in Victoria law says a owners corporation must pay somebody else to run it. Plenty of buildings already run themselves, and they are not heroic — they are organised. The work is real: meetings, minutes, fees, insurance, maintenance, and a set of records that has to stand up when somebody sells. Quarter does the part that used to require a manager, so what is left is the part owners were always best placed to do.
Victoria does not require an owners corporation to appoint a manager either — but it does sort owners corporations into five tiers, and the tier decides how much is expected of you. A two-lot owners corporation and a 200-lot one are governed by the same Act and almost nothing else in common. Work out your tier first; everything else follows from it.
Governed by the Owners Corporations Act 2006, administered by Consumer Affairs Victoria.
Lot count decides it, and the tier decides what is compulsory: tiers 1 and 2 must have their accounts audited or reviewed and keep a maintenance plan, while tier 3 and below may choose to. Getting this wrong is the single most common reason a Victorian owners corporation is non-compliant without knowing it.
The contract sets the notice period, but s 119A of the Act caps it: a contract cannot require a general meeting or a special resolution before you revoke, cannot demand a month or more of notice from a tier 3 to 5 owners corporation, and cannot renew automatically. Those terms are void in a contract signed after 1 December 2021, and a contract that has run past its end date can be ended by either side on one month's written notice, or the contract's shorter period. Read the contract against those limits before you schedule anything.
In Quarter: Put the agreement in your documents register and ask the Manager to summarise it — when it expires, how much notice it needs, what leaving early costs, what they have to hand back, and where it oversteps the Act. It reads the forty pages so the committee does not have to, and will turn the answer into a task with a date on it.
Give 14 days' notice, put both motions — end the appointment, and resolve how the owners corporation will run itself — and make sure the quorum position is understood before the day so the outcome is not merely interim.
In Quarter: Build the motion from the quotes and the budget, send the notice to every owner off the ownership register on the statutory clock, and record the vote as it is cast — a decision carries its majority automatically and emails the outcome to whoever raised it.
The owners corporation register, financial records, insurance, contracts and the maintenance plan. In Victoria the register is a specific statutory document, and an incomplete one will hold up the next sale in the building.
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.
Accounts in the owners corporation's name, fees raised against an approved budget, and a record of what has been paid and what has not.
In Quarter: Bank accounts, levy invoices and payments reconcile in one place, with arrears, the budget and both funds visible to owners rather than reported to them once a year.
Reinstatement and replacement insurance and public liability cover are compulsory, and Victorian valuations have been under pressure as building costs have risen. Diary the renewal and the valuation from day one.
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.
A year of running the building, three ways, at three sizes.
| A year | 6 lots | 25 lots | 75 lots |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strata manager, base fee | $1,800 to $3,500 | $7,500 to $12,500 | $15,000 to $26,250 |
| Strata manager, all in | $2,160 to $3,500 | $9,000 to $18,750 | $18,000 to $39,380 |
| Quarter self-managed | $864 $72 a month | $3,600 $300 a month | $9,600 $800 a month |
"All in" adds the disbursements, commissions and extra-meeting charges that usually come on top of the base fee, 20% to 50% of it. 2026 market ranges. Quarter self-managed is $12 a lot a month for the first 50 lots and less after that, with the first 30 days free.
Tier 5 is genuinely light-touch. Tiers 1 to 3 are not, and reading a two-lot building's obligations onto a 40-lot building is how compliance quietly slips.
Without a quorum, decisions can be challenged for 28 days. A building that never resolves the quorum problem accumulates a set of decisions that are all slightly provisional.
Underinsurance is the failure that only shows up on the day of the claim. Victorian buildings insured against pre-2020 build costs are frequently well short.
A self-managed building is run by the people who live in it. That changes the texture of the place: decisions get made by neighbours who will live with them, and a question about your own home gets answered by somebody who already knows the building.
Self-management fails on admin, not on goodwill. Quarter is built to carry the admin so a volunteer committee is doing the judgement, not the data entry.
Agendas built from your open items, notices sent on the statutory clock, motions and votes recorded as they happen, and minutes drafted from the meeting rather than from memory.
Strike a budget and Quarter raises the fees from it, invoices owners, chases arrears and reconciles what lands in the bank account.
Every decision, document, invoice and piece of correspondence in one place, searchable, and still there when the committee turns over.
Insurance renewals, the maintenance fund, and the reporting Consumer Affairs Victoria expects, tracked with dates rather than remembered in somebody's calendar.
Owners ask Quarter about their building — balances, decisions, documents — and get an answer immediately, instead of adding a question to the committee's pile.
General information about Victoria, not legal or financial advice for your building. Legislation is amended and grant programmes open and close, check the current position with Consumer Affairs Victoria or the administering body before you act on anything here.
Tell us about your building in Victoria and we will show you exactly how Quarter would run it.
