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Changes to Australia Post Services ‚ How to Stay Ahead of Delivery Times

The recent changes to Australia Post services could cause delays in mail delivery times and impact on the service of notices within strata communities. Since changes have taken effect in early 2016, new estimated delivery times have been provided for standard and priority post resulting in an additional 2 business days (up to 6 days) for standard post and 1-4 days for priority post. These changes can result in the delayed delivery of important documents such as Committee Meeting notices, General Meeting notices, voting papers, nominations and levies if additional postage time is not factored into statutory notice requirements. To ensure your documents and notices are served promptly, you may wish to consider the option of electronic correspondence or priority express post. Below we have provided tips on how you can stay ahead of new delivery times and ensure your body corporate correspondence won’t get delayed:

• It is important to be aware of statutory notice periods in order to manage your correspondence appropriately. The BCCM Act and associated regulations provide minimum notification periods as follows:

– 7 days notice for Committee Meetings

– 21 days notice for General Meetings

– 30 days for levy notices
• Notice of invitation calling for nominations and owner motions must be provided no earlier than 6 weeks and no later than three 3 weeks prior to the end of the financial year
• Add a minimum of 7 additional days for postage excluding weekends and public holidays
• For service of notices, overseas owners postage time frames should be considered and additional time added to account for the recipient’s country of residence
• Lot owners should consider postage time frames when returning voting papers, nominations and motions, or posting cheques for levy payments
• Consider requesting electronic issue and return of notices in addition to or as an alternative to post where available

This article was contributed by Grant Mifsud – Partner, Archers the Strata Professionals

 

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