Condo and Strata Corporations Editing and Proofreading Services

A letter arrives telling two hundred owners that they each owe eleven thousand pounds by March. Some of them do not have eleven thousand pounds. The work is necessary, the decision was properly taken, and the reserve fund was never going to be enough — but what determines whether this becomes a manageable expense or two years of hostility is a document written by a treasurer at a kitchen table.

We edit what strata, condominium and management corporations produce — special assessment and levy notices, reserve and sinking fund studies and their explanations, annual budgets and service charge demands, general meeting notices, agendas and minutes, bylaw and rule documentation and amendments, enforcement and breach correspondence, information packages for prospective purchasers, insurance and claims communications to owners, major works communications and programmes, and correspondence with owners in arrears. Our editors work on the letter that asks owners for money they did not expect to spend.

The special assessment notice is the hardest document in this sector, and its failure is leading with the amount. An owner who reads a figure before they read a reason spends the rest of the letter looking for someone to blame. We work through these so the notice opens with what has to be done and why it cannot wait, in one short paragraph with the physical facts, since owners accept necessary work and resent surprises; so the figure appears with how it was arrived at — the total cost, the number of units, the apportionment basis and the calculation for this unit — because an owner who can check the arithmetic argues about the work rather than the fairness; so the reason the reserve fund is insufficient is explained honestly, whether historic underfunding, an unforeseen failure or a study that was never acted on, given that the alternative is every owner inventing a worse explanation; so the payment options are given with real dates and any instalment or hardship route named, as this is the paragraph that determines how many owners fall into arrears; so what happens if an owner cannot pay is stated plainly rather than left as a threat; so the decision's authority is cited with the meeting and the vote; and so the consequence of not doing the work is described specifically. Notices written this way get paid.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including budgets, correspondence and owner information. We are editors rather than property managers, engineers or legal advisers, and we offer no view on assessments, reserve funding or governance. What we can do is put the reason before the number.