By Anton Kelly


Two other significant provisions regarding levies are made in sub-rules (5) and (6). Owners are responsible for the costs the body corporate incurs in collecting arrear levies and the trustees may set an interest rate that applies to arrears.
PMR 31 has been changed several times over the years. Provisions have been added, deleted and repeated. Significantly, PMR 31(4), deleted in 2011, has re-appeared as PMR 31(4B) and provides that special levies can only be raised to meet expenses that are necessary and unbudgeted. For other expenses, the trustees must include a provision in the budget they propose for the next AGM.
The loophole in the legislation that resulted in there being no legal liability for owners to pay levies between the end of the financial year and the trustees resolution after each AGM was plugged by the insertion of PMR 31(4A) . Unfortunately this sub-rule was deleted by mistake in April 2013. One hopes that, like PMR 31(4), it will resurface very soon because schemes now must either:
(a) fight opportunist owners who refuse to pay levies during that period on the grounds that they are not legally liable,
(b) raise a special levy to cover the period, or
(c) take a unanimous resolution reinserting the text of what was PMR 31(4A) into their individual schemes’ management rules.
All of these courses are expensive, problematic or difficult to achieve.
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