What is in a KPR strata information pack, and what it costs us to build one

Most strata listings give a buyer a floor plan and a levy figure. That is not enough to make a decision on, and it is why so many strata sales stall halfway through, when a buyer finally gets hold of the by-laws and finds something nobody mentioned.

On every strata listing we prepare a strata information pack before the property goes to market. Here is what is in one, why each piece is there, and what it costs us to put together.

What is in the pack

A pack runs to forty or fifty pages. In order:

• The floor plan. Drawn so a buyer can see the layout without standing in the room.
• The strata plan. Showing the lot number, its area in square metres, and what comes with it. On one recent pack that read: Unit 3, 37 square metres, plus courtyard and car bay, with the page number where each is shown.
• The scheme’s registered by-laws. The scheme’s own, not the generic ones.
• Minutes of the last annual general meeting. What the owners actually discussed and resolved.
• The income and expenditure statement. What the scheme spent last year.
• The approved budget. What it plans to spend this year, which is what your levy is based on.
• The balance sheet. What the scheme owns and owes.
• The certificate of currency for the strata insurance. Proof the building is insured, and for how much.
• The 10-year plan, where the scheme has one. The most useful document in the pack, and the one almost nobody reads. We wrote a guide to reading a 10-year plan.
• Schedules 1 and 2 of the Strata Titles Act. The default governance and conduct by-laws that apply to every WA scheme, so a buyer can see the baseline as well as the scheme’s own additions.

The front page does the heavy lifting

Every pack opens with a contents page and a summary of outgoings. On one of ours that block reads: council rates about $2,050 a year, water service $1,074.93 a year, strata administrative levy $684.90 a quarter, strata reserve levy $234.69 a quarter, and net owners’ funds of $145,871.63 as at 30 June.

Four numbers and a bank balance, on the first page. A buyer can work out their real holding cost in about a minute, and the owners’ funds figure tells them whether the scheme has money behind it or is running on empty. That last number is the one that tells you whether a special levy is likely.

We also add plain-language notes where something matters. If pets are allowed only with prior written consent, we say so on the front page and point to the by-law, rather than leaving it buried on page 15.

The by-laws are the part that takes the work

People assume a scheme has one by-law document. Older inner-city schemes rarely do. By-laws get registered at Landgate over decades, one notification at a time, and they all still apply.

Take Hyde Park Court at 537 William Street, Mount Lawley, strata plan 8004, a 61-lot scheme. Its by-laws are not one document. They are five separate notifications, registered across nearly thirty years:

• 1985, exclusive use
• 1995, permitted use as a holiday apartment
• 1997, exclusive use again
• 1999, signage
• 2012, a further notification

Every one of those has to be identified and ordered separately. Each search costs around $35. Add the strata plan itself and that is six documents ordered, paid for and read before anyone has so much as looked at a levy notice.

We pay for those searches on every listing. They are not charged back to the seller and they are not conditional on the property selling.

We do it because the alternative is worse for everybody. A buyer who reads in advance that a scheme permits use as a holiday apartment is a different buyer to one who does not know. A buyer who discovers it after making an offer feels misled, and often walks. That is a sale lost over $35 of searching.

What it does for a seller

• Questions get answered on the spot instead of stalling the campaign for a week.
• Fewer offers come in loaded with conditions, because the buyer already has the answers those conditions were protecting them from.
• Buyers can commit sooner, and a buyer who can commit bids more confidently.
• Nothing nasty surfaces late, which is when deals fall over.

It is part of the complimentary marketing package rather than an extra. Preparing the pack, ordering the searches and writing the summary is our work and our cost.

What it does for a buyer

It lets you compare two apartments properly. Two units at the same price in the same suburb can have very different levies, very different reserve balances and very different rules about what you may do with the property. Without the pack you are comparing kitchens. With it you are comparing what you actually own and what it will cost you to hold.

If you are enquiring on one of our apartments, villas or townhouses, ask for the pack. It comes as a single PDF and we send it out on request.

The background reading

If you want to understand what is in the pack rather than just have it, we have set the whole subject out in six short parts, starting with strata levies in Perth, explained. It covers what levies fund, who insures the building, what changes with the size of the scheme, how to read a 10-year plan, and what by-laws and unpaid levies mean at settlement.

Selling a strata property and want to know what your pack will show? Ask us for an appraisal and we will put it together as part of it.

What the law requires, and what we include anyway

A seller in Western Australia has to give a buyer certain information before the buyer signs the contract. That obligation comes from section 156 of the Strata Titles Act 1985, and the required documents are a short list:

• The scheme plan, showing the location and definition of the lot
• The by-laws, including any made but not yet registered at Landgate
• The schedule of unit entitlements for the lot and for the scheme
• The scheme notice, for schemes created on or after 1 May 2020
• The minutes of the most recent annual general meeting, plus any extraordinary general meetings since
• The last statement of accounts prepared by the strata company
• The strata lease, if the lot is leasehold

Two lawful gaps sit inside that list. A 2-lot scheme does not have to keep minutes or statements of account at all, and a scheme of 3, 4 or 5 lots can adopt a by-law exempting itself from both. Where that applies, the seller provides a statement saying so, and there is nothing to hand over.

Notice what is not on the list. The 10-year plan is not required. Neither is the insurance certificate of currency, the levy notice, quotations, engineering reports, defect histories, or more than one meeting cycle of minutes.

A KPR pack includes those anyway. Not out of generosity, but because a buyer who has to go looking for missing documents either bids lower or does not bid, and a seller who hands everything over up front does not face a renegotiation a week before settlement. The pack is a pricing tool as much as a compliance one.

Getting it right matters more than getting it done

If the disclosure is given late, and the buyer is materially prejudiced by what it contains, the buyer can avoid the contract by written notice within 15 working days. If it is never given at all and would have disclosed something that materially prejudices the buyer, the buyer can avoid the contract at any time before settlement.

A buyer can also postpone settlement, by up to 15 working days after the seller finally complies. Disputes about any of it go to the State Administrative Tribunal.

That is the whole argument for doing the pack properly and doing it before the property goes to market. Part 7 of our strata series sets out the disclosure rules and the notice periods in full.

Figures quoted are from real KPR strata information packs and are examples only. Rates, levies and fund balances differ for every scheme and change over time. Search fees are approximate and set by Landgate. This article is general information, not legal or financial advice.