What's going on with strata corporation money?
I think more strata owners should adapt Jerry Maguire's famous line in the 1996 film and shout 'Show me the (strata) money!'. That's because I'm seeing more and more reports of missing money in strata corporations all around the world.
Like this latest episode involving Paradise Spa Home Owners Association in Las Vegas where Massoud Aaron Yashouafar was indicted on 3 counts of theft of property by false pretenses and 3 counts of embezzlement for allegedly misappropriating 2 insurance payouts (for $400,000 and $430,000) for fires in September 2009 and January 2010 whilst he served as treasurer for the HOA board. You can read more about it here.
So how can and why does this happen? You'd think that it would be the most important thing to all strata owners; ahead of everything else concerning their building. After all, money is hard to collect from owners, easy to spend and there's never enough to cover everything so you'd imagine someone would notice it was missing pretty quickly.
Plus it should be easy to discover. Various people have responsibility for its including committee members and managers, and most strata and property agent laws have strict rules about recording and reporting money transactions.
However, the reality is that very few people actually see or know much about strata corporation finances and what they see if very limited and filtered information, provided irregularly (sometimes only annually) and usually out of date and up to 3-4 months old. More often than not, it's also an incomplete picture of the strata corporation's financial position since it doesn't cover all financial activities, is cash based (rather than accrual based) and future or contingent liabilities are not included.
This is completely wrong for strata owners since strata money belongs to them collectively and, ultimately, they are personally responsible to replace it when it's gone.
So, it's about time financial management and reporting in strata corporations improves and becomes more transparent and accessible to owners. The habit of only providing what strict legal compliance requires is no longer enough and we need to raise standards. After all, you wouldn't accept the strata kind of financial information from your bank about your accounts and credit cards ... would you?
So, show me where the strata money is, where's it's gone and where it coming from and going to. Anything less is just not good enough anymore.
Francesco ...
I think more strata owners should adapt Jerry Maguire's famous line in the 1996 film and shout 'Show me the (strata) money!'. That's because I'm seeing more and more reports of missing money in strata corporations all around the world.
Like this latest episode involving Paradise Spa Home Owners Association in Las Vegas where Massoud Aaron Yashouafar was indicted on 3 counts of theft of property by false pretenses and 3 counts of embezzlement for allegedly misappropriating 2 insurance payouts (for $400,000 and $430,000) for fires in September 2009 and January 2010 whilst he served as treasurer for the HOA board. You can read more about it here.
So how can and why does this happen? You'd think that it would be the most important thing to all strata owners; ahead of everything else concerning their building. After all, money is hard to collect from owners, easy to spend and there's never enough to cover everything so you'd imagine someone would notice it was missing pretty quickly.
Plus it should be easy to discover. Various people have responsibility for its including committee members and managers, and most strata and property agent laws have strict rules about recording and reporting money transactions.
However, the reality is that very few people actually see or know much about strata corporation finances and what they see if very limited and filtered information, provided irregularly (sometimes only annually) and usually out of date and up to 3-4 months old. More often than not, it's also an incomplete picture of the strata corporation's financial position since it doesn't cover all financial activities, is cash based (rather than accrual based) and future or contingent liabilities are not included.
This is completely wrong for strata owners since strata money belongs to them collectively and, ultimately, they are personally responsible to replace it when it's gone.
So, it's about time financial management and reporting in strata corporations improves and becomes more transparent and accessible to owners. The habit of only providing what strict legal compliance requires is no longer enough and we need to raise standards. After all, you wouldn't accept the strata kind of financial information from your bank about your accounts and credit cards ... would you?
So, show me where the strata money is, where's it's gone and where it coming from and going to. Anything less is just not good enough anymore.
Francesco ...
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