Strata fees are owner contributions that fund the shared costs of running and maintaining a strata scheme — common property repairs, cleaning, gardening, building insurance, common-area utilities, strata management, administration and saving for future major works. In NSW they are paid into an administrative fund and a capital works fund.
There is no official national average. As a broad 2026 guide, a typical mid-rise apartment may pay about A$4,000–A$7,000 a year (A$1,000–A$1,750 per quarter). Simple low-rise schemes can be lower; high-rise or facility-rich buildings can exceed A$7,000–A$12,000 a year. Special levies are extra.
Strata levies are calculated in two stages. First the owners corporation, body corporate or strata company approves the amounts needed for operating costs and future major works. Second, each lot is allocated a share using the applicable measure — unit entitlement, lot liability, a contribution schedule or another lawful method.
Strata fees usually go up because owners approved a higher budget. Common drivers are insurance and contractor increases, utilities, planned maintenance, stronger capital or reserve funding, urgent repairs, defects, compliance work, legal costs, or a separate special levy. A sharp rise can also be a catch-up after years of low levies.
A special levy is an additional contribution charged to lot owners when the scheme needs money for a specific expense not fully covered by its ordinary budget or available funds. It may fund urgent repairs, defects, major works, an insurance shortfall, compliance work or legal costs, and it must be approved under the rules applying to the scheme.
Contact the strata manager or the scheme as early as possible and ask for a formal payment arrangement, explaining the hardship and what you can realistically pay. Hardship does not normally cancel the levy: unpaid amounts can attract interest, penalties and recovery costs, and may affect voting rights or be disclosed on sale.
Often you cannot vote on ordinary meeting business once your levies or other scheme amounts are overdue, but there is no single Australia-wide rule. The restriction, the balance that counts, the payment cut-off and the motions you may still vote on depend on the state or territory, the scheme type and the resolution being considered.
Sometimes. Levies on a home you live in are generally private and not deductible. If the lot is rented or genuinely available for rent, regular administration and general maintenance contributions may be deductible in the year they are incurred. A levy for a specific capital improvement is generally not immediately deductible, though a capital works or depreciation claim may become available later.
Usually the owners collectively approve the strata budget at an annual general meeting. The committee, treasurer and strata manager normally prepare the draft, obtain quotes and recommend figures, but the manager does not have unilateral authority to set the annual budget. The formal decision belongs to the owners corporation, body corporate, strata company or community corporation.
Disbursements are administrative, communication, technology or out-of-pocket costs a strata manager charges separately from the base management fee under the management agreement — postage, printing, SMS, document storage, portal charges, couriers, bank transaction costs and archive retrieval. They may be included, charged at cost, marked up, billed per item or bundled annually, so the contract controls the answer.
A strata manager may be able to raise their fee each year, but not simply because a new year has started. The increase must be authorised by the signed management agreement — a clear CPI, fixed-percentage or fee-review clause — or accepted through a valid variation, renewal or new appointment. Without a mechanism, a manager generally cannot lift the base fee unilaterally during a fixed term.
In most states the maximum is 10% per annum, simple interest, charged from the date the levy was due. Some schemes choose a lower rate or waive interest for short delays. The owners corporation can also recover legal costs of recovery.