Mixed-Use & Sections
Mixed-use buildings blend homes, shops, and offices, which usually means separate sections with their own budgets and priorities. We keep each section's finances and responsibilities properly divided while managing the shared parts fairly for everyone. It's detailed work, and it's exactly the kind we're built for.
When one building is really several
A mixed-use building puts homes above shops or offices, and the two have almost nothing in common operationally. Residential owners care about quiet, security and the elevator. Commercial owners care about access, signage, garbage and the hours their customers can reach them. Both are funding one building.
The Strata Property Act answers this with sections: a formal division of the corporation so that costs relating only to one group are borne only by that group. Where a building has been sectioned properly, this works well. Where it has been sectioned on paper and run as one pot, it produces exactly the resentment it was designed to prevent.
Keeping the separation real
The substance of sectioned management is bookkeeping discipline. Each section needs its own operating budget, its own contingency reserve fund, its own bank reconciliation and its own financial statements — not a single set of books with a column added. Each section elects its own executive and holds its own meetings, in addition to the strata corporation's own AGM.
The genuinely difficult part is shared cost allocation. Roof, envelope, structure, the main electrical service and the elevator serve everyone, and the split has to follow the strata plan and the bylaws rather than a negotiation between whoever attended the meeting. Getting this wrong is the single most common defect we find when taking over a sectioned building, and it is usually years old by the time anyone tests it.
We rebuild the allocation from the registered documents, show the council the workings, and then run it consistently. Where the documents are ambiguous — and they often are — that is a question for a strata lawyer, and we would rather say so than pick an interpretation and hope.
Day to day, the work is ordinary: separate reporting packages that each section's executive can read, bylaw enforcement that respects the boundary between sections, and coordination of the shared items so a roof project does not stall while two executives wait for the other to move.
Frequently asked questions
Do sections need separate budgets and bank reconciliation? Yes. A section is treated much like a strata corporation for its own affairs, including its own budget, contingency reserve fund and financial reporting.
Who pays for the roof in a mixed-use building? Usually everyone, because it is common property serving all sections — but the allocation formula comes from the strata plan and bylaws. It is worth confirming rather than assuming.
Can a section make its own bylaws? Sections can create rules for their own common property and bring bylaw amendments relating to their section, subject to the Act's voting requirements. The corporation's bylaws still apply throughout.
Other property types we manage
Managing mixed-use & sections?
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