Committee Hub

Every committee needs somewhere to talk that isn't the AGM and isn't a public notice board. Committee Hub is that space, built into the portal rather than bolted on as a separate app.

What it's for

Committee Hub holds private threads for the committee — and anyone the committee chooses to invite into a specific thread, such as a manager or a contractor being consulted on a job. It's not a replacement for formal meetings and resolutions; it's the space where a decision gets discussed and shaped before it's formally moved, and where day-to-day coordination happens that doesn't need a full agenda item.

Why keep it separate from owner notices

Owners are entitled to see certain records and notices, but a committee also needs room to discuss things frankly before a position is settled — how to respond to a difficult owner, whether to accept a particular quote, how to word a sensitive notice. Committee Hub keeps this discussion private to the committee (and whoever else is invited into a specific thread), while notices and formal records remain visible to owners through their own separate pages.

How it's different from a group chat

The core difference is that a Committee Hub thread stays where it was created — attached to the building's record permanently — rather than living in a personal phone that changes hands when a committee member's term ends. Decisions reached in a thread can be pointed to later ("we agreed this in the roof leak thread on 12 March") instead of being paraphrased from memory months afterward.

What it isn't

Committee Hub doesn't replace the formal record of a meeting — motions, resolutions and minutes still belong in the meetings tools, which generate a proper record capable of showing quorum, proxies and voting outcomes. Hub threads are the informal, ongoing conversation layer underneath that formal record.

Committees sometimes conflate "talking about something" with "telling owners something," but they serve different purposes and different audiences on Flex Strata.

Committee Hub threads

• Private to the committee, plus anyone specifically invited into that thread
• Used for discussion, working through options, and coordinating before a decision is formalised
• Not visible to owners by default

Notices

• A formal communication sent to a single lot or to the whole building
• Used to inform owners of something — a meeting date, a works schedule, a change to a by-law
• Stored with a send history, so there's a record of what went out and when, avoiding the "we never received that" dispute

Choosing the right tool

If the committee is working out how to respond to a complaint, or discussing which of three quotes to accept, that belongs in a Hub thread. Once a decision affects owners — a special levy is being considered, works are starting on a certain date, a by-law breach process has started — that's when a formal notice (or, for financial matters, a motion at a meeting) is the right vehicle.

A common mistake

A frequent failure mode in strata committees is discussing sensitive matters in a channel owners can also see, or conversely, making a decision privately and never formally communicating it to affected owners. Keeping the private (Hub) and public (notices) channels clearly separated, and being deliberate about which is used for what, avoids both problems.

Who decides what owners see

The committee controls what's shared with owners at all — documents, notices, meeting records and more all sit behind permissions the committee sets, so nothing becomes visible to owners by accident.

One of the more useful things about a thread-based discussion tool is that access can be scoped to exactly the conversation someone needs to be part of, rather than all-or-nothing.

Why scoped invites matter

Under a lot of informal systems, involving a contractor in a discussion means either forwarding emails piecemeal (and losing context) or adding them to a group chat where they can see everything the committee discusses, including unrelated and sometimes sensitive matters. Neither is ideal.

How it works

A committee member can invite a specific person — a strata manager, building manager, or contractor being consulted on a job — into a single Hub thread. That person sees only that thread, not the rest of Committee Hub or the portal generally, unless they're separately given a broader seat with wider access.

Typical situations to use this for

• Getting a contractor's input on scope before finalising a quote request
• Looping a building manager into a specific maintenance decision without giving them standing access to every committee conversation
• Consulting the strata manager on a legal or procedural question relevant to one matter

What this doesn't replace

This is different from giving someone a full seat in the portal — managers and building managers who need ongoing access get their own seat type with page-level permissions set by the committee. Thread invites are for one-off or matter-specific involvement, while seats are for standing roles.

Keeping control

Because each invite is scoped to a single thread, removing someone's access when the matter is resolved is straightforward, and it doesn't affect anything else they might separately have access to in the portal.

Losing track of decisions is one of the most common complaints committees raise about their previous systems — someone remembers agreeing to something, nobody can find where.

Why decisions get lost

In an unstructured group chat, a decision is usually buried somewhere in the middle of forty messages, mixed in with jokes, unrelated logistics and half-finished sentences. By the time someone needs to refer back to it — often months later, when a dispute arises — nobody can find the exact message, and memories of what was actually agreed start to diverge.

A better pattern

• Use a Hub thread for the back-and-forth discussion
• When the committee reaches a view, post a clear closing message stating the decision plainly
• If the decision requires action, create a tracked action item immediately, with a named owner and a due date, rather than leaving it as a sentence in the thread
• If the decision is significant enough to need formal authority — spending above a threshold, a by-law change — take it to a meeting or a ballot for a proper resolution

Why the discussion-to-action step matters

A decision that isn't converted into a tracked task tends to quietly not happen. Whoever raised it assumes someone else picked it up; whoever might have picked it up didn't realise it was theirs. Action items with a named owner close that gap.

For anything with legal weight

Some decisions — spending commitments above the committee's approval authority, by-law enforcement action, anything affecting owners' rights — need more than a Hub thread agreement. They need a properly moved and recorded resolution at a meeting, or a ballot, so there's a resolution the scheme can rely on if it's ever challenged.

It's a fair question — on the surface, a thread of messages looks a lot like an email chain or a group chat. The differences show up over time, not on day one.

The problem with email

Email lives in individual inboxes. When the secretary who was cc'd on everything steps down, that history usually goes with them unless someone thinks to forward everything first — which rarely happens comprehensively. Threads also fragment: a decision might be split across three separate email chains with different subject lines, forwarded inconsistently to different committee members.

The problem with group chat

Group chats are fast and low-friction, which is exactly why they're bad for anything that needs to be found again later. There's no topic structure, decisions are mixed in with logistics and small talk, and search is often poor. If a committee member changes phones or leaves the group, whatever context they had usually leaves too.

What Committee Hub does differently

• Threads are organised by topic rather than being one continuous stream
• Everything stays attached to the building's account, not a person's device
• Access persists correctly through committee handovers, because it's managed by role, not by phone number
• Specific outsiders (a manager, a contractor) can be invited into just the relevant thread

When email and chat still have a place

Committee Hub isn't trying to replace every communication channel a committee uses — a quick text to confirm someone's running late to a site visit doesn't need a permanent record. The point is that anything worth remembering — decisions, ongoing issues, matters that might come up again — has a proper home instead of being wherever it happened to be typed.

Access to Committee Hub follows the same page-level permission model used throughout Flex Strata, applied specifically to committee discussion.

Default visibility

Standing committee members — chair, secretary, treasurer and ordinary members — see Committee Hub as part of their normal access. This is where the private, working-level discussion happens, distinct from anything shared publicly with owners.

Owners and Committee Hub

Owners who are not on the committee do not see Committee Hub content by default. Owner-facing access is limited to whatever the committee explicitly switches on for them — typically documents, notices, meetings records, requests and similar — never the committee's internal discussion threads.

Managers, building managers and contractors

A strata or building manager with a standing seat sees whatever pages the committee has switched on for their role — which may or may not include Committee Hub, depending on how much the committee wants to include them in day-to-day discussion versus formal reporting only. A contractor with no standing seat can still be invited into one specific thread without being given a seat at all.

Changing access

If a committee member's role changes, or someone leaves the committee, their access to Hub threads is removed the same way any other access is — through the people and access settings, not by manually deleting messages.

Why this matters for governance

Keeping Hub discussion visible only to the people who need it protects candid, working-level conversation — the sort every committee needs to have honestly — while still ensuring the *decisions* that come out of that discussion get properly communicated to owners through the right formal channel when required.

AGM season tends to be when committees generate the most informal discussion — chasing quotes, finalising the agenda, confirming who's standing for election — and it's a good test of whether your discussion tools are holding up.

Preparing motions in advance

Rather than drafting a motion for the first time at the meeting, use a Hub thread in the weeks beforehand to work out the wording, check it against any relevant by-law or legislative requirement, and confirm the committee is aligned before it goes on the formal agenda. This tends to produce cleaner motions and shorter meetings.

Coordinating logistics

Venue or video link details, confirming who needs a proxy form, chasing outstanding quotes that need to be tabled — all of this is well suited to a Hub thread rather than a flurry of separate emails or texts in the final week.

Keeping the AGM record separate

It's worth being clear with the committee that Hub discussion in the lead-up isn't the AGM record itself. The formal agenda, motions, proxies and minutes belong in the meetings tools and follow your state's requirements for notice periods, quorum and resolution types — the Hub conversation is preparation, not a substitute.

After the AGM

Once the AGM is done and minutes are finalised, any resulting actions — works approved, compliance items raised, new committee members needing access — should move into tracked action items and access changes straight away, rather than staying as commitments floating in a thread.

Almost every strata scheme in Australia has one, but the practical job it does often surprises new members.

What a strata committee is

It's a group of lot owners (or, in some states, others in limited circumstances) elected by owners at a general meeting to act on the scheme's behalf between meetings. Numbers, terminology and formal powers vary by state — check your state's page for the specifics: [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) and others.

What it does day to day

• Approves routine, lower-value maintenance and repairs without needing a full owners' meeting
• Engages and manages contractors for approved work
• Handles correspondence, requests and enquiries from owners
• Keeps records — minutes, compliance items, notices — up to date
• Prepares the agenda and paperwork for the AGM and any general meetings
• Deals with by-law compliance issues as they arise

What it doesn't do

A committee generally can't make decisions that are reserved for all owners by legislation — things like large capital works, by-law changes, or spending above a threshold set by the scheme or the Act. Those need a resolution at a general meeting or a ballot, not just a committee decision. Flex Strata doesn't handle the financial side of this — levies, budgets and arrears sit with your treasurer or manager's accounting system.

Why the distinction matters

Confusing "the committee decided" with "the owners decided" is one of the most common governance mistakes in strata. Knowing which bucket a decision falls into avoids resolutions being challenged later for lack of proper authority — see our related item on committee decisions versus owners' votes for the practical line to draw.

Keeping the committee's work organised

In practice, most committee work is coordination: agendas, minutes, maintenance requests, contractor quotes, compliance registers and notices to owners. Flex Strata is built around exactly that workflow, keeping the record attached to the scheme rather than scattered across individuals' inboxes.

This is one of the most common worries for people considering standing for a committee, and the short answer is reassuring — but the details genuinely vary by jurisdiction.

The general principle

In most Australian states, the owners corporation (not individual committee members) is the legal entity that holds property, enters contracts and carries insurance. Committee members acting reasonably, honestly and within the scope of decisions properly put to the committee are generally not personally exposed for those decisions turning out badly.

Where the protection can weaken

• Acting outside the committee's actual authority — for example, committing the scheme to spending well beyond an approved threshold without proper authorisation
• Acting in bad faith, recklessly, or with a conflict of interest that wasn't declared
• Ignoring clear legal or safety obligations, such as known compliance or maintenance issues

Why this varies by state

Each state's strata legislation sets out committee powers, obligations and protections differently, and insurance arrangements (such as office bearer liability cover) differ between schemes. This is genuinely a "check your own state's Act, and your scheme's insurance policy" question rather than one with a single Australia-wide answer. Start with your state's page — [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) — and your state's regulator for the current rules, and speak to your strata manager or a lawyer for anything you're unsure about.

Practical steps that reduce risk

• Stay within any spend approval thresholds the scheme has set
• Declare conflicts of interest before a matter is discussed, not after
• Keep a proper record of what was discussed and decided, and why
• Get it in writing when relying on a contractor's or professional's advice
• Refer anything genuinely uncertain to the strata manager or a lawyer rather than guessing

How Flex Strata helps

Keeping agendas, minutes, spend approvals and conflict declarations in one attached record doesn't remove legal risk, but it does mean a committee can show what was actually decided, by whom, and on what basis, if a decision is ever questioned later.

Committee membership isn't necessarily permanent for the length of the annual term — there are ways to end it early, though the process differs across states.

Common grounds for removal

• A resolution passed by owners at a general meeting to remove a member
• The person ceasing to be an owner (or, where relevant, an owner's nominated representative) of a lot in the scheme
• The person becoming ineligible under the scheme's by-laws or state legislation
• Resignation (see our related item on resigning from the committee)

Why the process matters

Because committee decisions can affect all owners, most states require removal to go through a proper process — usually a motion at a general meeting rather than an informal committee vote to exclude someone. Trying to remove a member outside the correct process can leave the removal open to challenge later, and the person may still be entitled to attend meetings and vote until it's properly done.

State-by-state differences

The specific grounds, notice requirements and voting thresholds for removing a committee member differ by state. Rather than assume your neighbour's building's process applies to you, check your state's legislation or regulator, and your state's overview page — [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) and others — for the current position.

What happens to their access afterwards

Once a member is properly removed or steps down, their access to committee records and tools should be updated straight away — removed from Committee Hub threads, any seat-based portal access adjusted, and action items reassigned if they were holding any. Leaving a former member with lingering access is a common oversight after a contested departure.

Disputes about removal

If a removal is disputed — for example, the member says the process wasn't followed correctly — this becomes a governance dispute that may need to go to your state's tribunal or dispute resolution body rather than being resolved informally within the committee.

Resigning from a strata committee is usually simpler than removing someone, since it doesn't typically require a vote of other owners.

The general process

• Put the resignation in writing — an email or letter to the secretary or strata manager is usually sufficient, though some schemes or states set specific requirements
• State the effective date clearly
• Note the resignation in the minutes of the next committee meeting (or sooner, if urgent)
• Check whether the vacancy needs to be filled before the next AGM, and how — some states allow the remaining committee to co-opt a replacement, others leave the position vacant until the next election

State differences

Notice requirements, whether resignation must be acknowledged in a particular way, and how vacancies are filled all vary by state legislation. Check your state's legislation or regulator, or your state's page — [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) — for what applies to your scheme.

What should happen after a resignation

• Reassign any action items or ongoing tasks the departing member was responsible for
• Remove their access to Committee Hub threads and any committee-only records
• Adjust or remove any portal seat and its permissions
• Update the committee's public-facing contact list if owners see committee member names

A clean handover matters more than the paperwork

The formal resignation itself is usually quick, but a messy handover — outstanding tasks nobody picks up, lingering access to sensitive threads, contractors still contacting someone who's left — causes more disruption than the resignation itself. Treating it as a proper handover, not just a departure, avoids that.

If the resignation leaves the committee below quorum

If enough members resign that the committee can no longer meet a quorum, most states have provisions for calling a general meeting to elect replacements, or in some cases appointing a strata manager with expanded powers temporarily. Check your state's rules if this situation arises.

Eligibility rules exist to keep the committee accountable to the people it represents — the owners — but there are recognised categories of representative that aren't the owner in person.

The general rule

Most state legislation limits committee membership to owners of lots in the scheme. Someone who isn't an owner and has no formal nomination relationship to one generally can't sit on the committee.

Common recognised exceptions

• A company or corporate owner can usually nominate an individual representative to sit on the committee in its place
• A person holding a valid power of attorney for an owner may be able to act on their behalf, depending on the state
• Some states allow a mortgagee in possession, or in specific circumstances a tenant, limited voting rights, but this is not the same as full committee eligibility everywhere — check your state's rules carefully

Strata managers and building managers

A strata manager or building manager is not a committee member, even where they attend meetings and carry out functions on the committee's behalf. Their role and access are separate from committee membership, and should be set up through their own manager access rather than a committee seat.

Why this varies by state and matters to check properly

Because eligibility affects whether resolutions passed by the committee are validly made, getting this wrong isn't a minor technicality — an improperly constituted committee can have its decisions challenged. Check your state's legislation or regulator, and your state's page — [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) — before appointing anyone whose eligibility isn't straightforward.

Setting up access correctly

Whatever the committee's actual composition, Flex Strata's access settings should mirror it accurately — nominee representatives given a proper seat, managers given manager-level access rather than a committee seat, and anyone without eligibility for the committee kept out of committee-only spaces like Committee Hub.

Whether a committee member can receive any payment is a question that touches on conflicts of interest as much as remuneration, so it's worth treating carefully.

The general position

Most states treat committee membership as a voluntary role, without a standard sitting fee or salary. This reflects the position that committee members are owners acting for their own scheme, not paid officials.

Reimbursement of expenses

Reasonable, properly authorised expenses — postage, printing, or costs genuinely incurred carrying out committee duties — are more commonly permitted, subject to the scheme's own rules and any approval process the committee has set.

Paying a committee member for other work

It's not unusual for a committee member to also be a qualified tradesperson, and for the scheme to want to engage them for a specific job. This is allowed in many states, but usually only with:

• Clear disclosure of the conflict of interest before any decision is made
• The member not voting on the decision to engage themselves
• A properly documented quote and approval process, the same as for any other contractor

Doing this informally — without disclosure or a paper trail — is one of the more common sources of later disputes between owners and their committee.

Where this varies

Whether any form of payment is permitted, and what disclosure and approval process is required, depends on your state's legislation and by-laws. Check your state's legislation or regulator, and your state's page — [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) — for the specific position, and get advice if a payment arrangement is being considered.

Keeping the record clean

Where a payment or reimbursement is genuinely approved, record the disclosure, the decision, and the vote (noting who abstained) in the minutes, and keep supporting invoices or receipts with the scheme's documents. This is the difference between a defensible decision and one that looks like it was made behind closed doors if it's ever questioned.

Attendance rights at committee meetings are one of the more state-specific areas of strata governance, so it's worth checking the current position rather than assuming.

Committee members

All current committee members are entitled to attend and participate in committee meetings, subject to quorum and notice requirements set by the scheme's by-laws and state legislation.

Owners who aren't on the committee

In several states, owners who are not committee members have a right to attend committee meetings as observers, though usually without a right to speak or vote unless invited to. Some states allow specific matters — often those involving another owner's personal or financial circumstances, disputes, or genuinely confidential matters — to be discussed with non-members excluded. This is a real area of state-by-state difference, so check your state's legislation or regulator, and your state's page — [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) — for the exact rules that apply.

Strata managers and building managers

Where engaged, a strata or building manager typically attends committee meetings in a professional capacity to advise and action decisions, without being a voting committee member.

Contractors and other invited guests

The committee can invite a contractor, consultant or other relevant person to attend for a specific agenda item — to answer questions about a quote, for example — without that changing anyone's formal membership or voting rights.

Keeping this straight in your records

Meeting minutes should record who attended and in what capacity — committee member, observing owner, manager, or invited guest — so there's no ambiguity later about who participated in a decision and who was just present. This distinction also matters for privacy: sensitive personal matters discussed with observers present can create their own problems, which is part of why some states allow certain items to be closed to non-members.

Committee Hub versus meeting attendance

Attendance at a formal meeting is a separate question from who can see Committee Hub's private discussion threads — a Hub thread can be scoped much more tightly than an owner's right to attend a meeting, since it's an internal working space rather than the formal decision-making forum.

Committees sometimes assume a decision is invalid if a particular office holder isn't there, but that's usually not how quorum and validity work.

What actually makes a decision valid

Most states' requirements for a valid committee decision centre on quorum being met, proper notice of the meeting having been given, and the decision being within the committee's authority — not on every specific office holder being present. If quorum is reached without the secretary, decisions made are generally still valid.

Why the secretary's role still matters practically

The secretary is usually responsible for preparing the agenda, giving notice, and recording minutes — important procedural functions, but ones that can typically be delegated or covered by another committee member if the secretary is absent, unless your scheme's by-laws or state legislation say otherwise. A meeting without the secretary still needs someone to take proper minutes; skipping that step is a real gap even if the decision itself is technically valid.

Situations to watch for

• If the secretary's absence means quorum genuinely isn't met, no valid decision can be made regardless of who else is there
• If your by-laws specifically require the secretary's involvement for a particular kind of decision (uncommon, but worth checking), that requirement still applies
• If minutes for that meeting are never properly recorded because nobody stepped in, the record of what was decided becomes weak evidence later

What to check for your scheme

Because the exact quorum and procedural rules come from your state's strata legislation and your scheme's by-laws, confirm the current position for your state — [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) — rather than assuming another building's practice applies to yours.

Keeping the record solid either way

Whoever chairs a meeting without the secretary should make sure someone is assigned to take minutes on the spot, and those minutes should be properly circulated and confirmed at the next meeting, the same as any other. A gap in officer attendance shouldn't become a gap in the record.

Committee size and quorum are two of the most frequently checked numbers in strata governance, and both are set by legislation rather than by the committee itself.

Committee size

Most states cap the maximum number of committee members a scheme can have, sometimes scaled to the number of lots in the scheme. Owners elect up to that maximum at the AGM; a scheme can choose to elect fewer, but not more, than its state's limit allows.

Quorum

Quorum is the minimum number of committee members who need to be present (in person or, where permitted, remotely) for a committee meeting to validly transact business. It's commonly calculated as a majority of current committee positions, though the exact formula and any rounding rules vary by state.

Why we won't quote a single number here

Because both the maximum committee size and the quorum formula are set out in each state's strata legislation and can change, giving one figure risks being wrong for your scheme. Check your state's current legislation or regulator, and your state's overview page — [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) and others — for the numbers that apply to you.

What happens if quorum isn't met

If a scheduled committee meeting doesn't reach quorum, it generally can't validly pass resolutions and needs to be adjourned or rescheduled under the process set out in your state's rules — some states have specific provisions for what happens at a re-convened meeting with reduced quorum requirements.

What happens if the committee falls below the minimum needed for quorum

If resignations or removals leave the committee unable to reach quorum at all, most states provide a path to call a general meeting to elect replacements, or in some cases involve the state's tribunal or a compulsorily appointed manager. This is a good reason to keep committee numbers healthy rather than running at the bare minimum.

Tracking this in practice

Because quorum needs to be checked and recorded at every meeting, it's worth confirming attendance clearly against the current list of committee members in the minutes each time, rather than assuming it was fine because "enough people showed up."

Working out which bucket a decision falls into is one of the most consequential judgment calls a committee makes, because getting it wrong can leave a decision open to challenge.

Decisions the committee can usually make itself

• Approving routine and lower-value maintenance and repairs
• Engaging contractors for approved, budgeted work
• Responding to day-to-day correspondence and requests from owners
• Managing the compliance register and scheduling required inspections
• Enforcing existing by-laws through the standard process
• Preparing agendas and administrative matters for upcoming meetings

Decisions that usually need a general meeting resolution

• Approving significant capital works or major building upgrades
• Changing, adding or repealing by-laws
• Spending above the threshold set for the scheme or by legislation
• Matters affecting owners' legal rights, such as changes to common property use or exclusive use arrangements
• Decisions the scheme's by-laws or state legislation specifically reserve to owners

The threshold question

Many states or schemes set a specific dollar threshold above which committee approval isn't enough and a general meeting resolution is required. That figure, and how it's calculated (per job, per year, per contractor), varies by state and scheme, so this isn't something to guess — check your scheme's by-laws and your state's legislation, and see our related item on spend approval thresholds for how to track it in practice.

When it's genuinely unclear

Some matters sit in a grey area — a repair that's arguably urgent but also substantial in cost, for instance. When it's unclear, the safer path is usually to treat it as needing owners' approval, or to seek advice, rather than assuming committee authority covers it and risking the decision being challenged later.

State differences

Because the actual dividing line comes from each state's Strata Schemes Management Act (or equivalent) and the scheme's own by-laws, check your state's current position — [NSW](/strata-committee/nsw), [VIC](/strata-committee/vic), [QLD](/strata-committee/qld) and others — before treating any of the above as a fixed rule for your building.

How this plays out in the tools you use day to day

In practice, this is why committees track spend approval thresholds and route bigger items to a proper agenda and resolution, while smaller maintenance work orders and correspondence move straight through the committee's own workflow — keeping that distinction clear in the record protects the validity of both kinds of decision.