The owners corporation certificate, page by page

If you are buying an apartment or a townhouse with shared property, the single most informative document in your Section 32 is probably the owners corporation certificate. It is also the one most buyers skim. Here is what each part actually tells you.

What is an owners corporation certificate?

When a property is part of an owners corporation, the vendor has to include a current certificate from that owners corporation in the Section 32. The certificate is a standardised snapshot of the body that you are about to become a member of: its charges, its money, its insurance, and its problems. Membership is automatic with the title, so the certificate is effectively the disclosure statement for a small organisation you are compulsorily joining.

The fees section

The certificate states the annual fees (levies) for the lot, usually split into an administrative fund contribution for day-to-day running costs and a maintenance fund contribution for longer-term works. Two reading habits help:

• Convert to a yearly number and put it alongside council rates and water in your ongoing-cost picture.
• Compare against the building's character. A tower with lifts, a pool, and a concierge carries structurally higher levies than a walk-up block of six. Fees that look unusually low for the building's facilities can simply mean not much is being set aside.

Special levies: the section to read twice

The certificate discloses any special levies that have been struck and remain payable, and this is the line with the most immediate financial consequence. A special levy is a one-off charge on top of regular fees, raised for major works: roof replacement, cladding rectification, structural repairs, lift overhauls.

Timing matters. Liability for a levy generally follows who owns the lot when the instalments fall due, and how an already-struck levy is split between vendor and buyer is dealt with through the contract and the settlement adjustments. A struck-but-unpaid special levy is a precise, answerable question for your conveyancer: who pays it, when, and has it been allowed for in the contract price.

The funds and the finances

The certificate shows the balances of the administrative and maintenance funds. A healthy maintenance fund on an older building suggests a committee that has been planning ahead. A near-empty fund on a building visibly due for work suggests future money conversations among the owners, of which you would be one. Where a maintenance plan exists, the fund balance is best read against it.

Insurance

The owners corporation insures the building and common property, and the certificate sets out the insurer, the sum insured, and the excess. For lenders this section is not optional reading: banks routinely require confirmation that building insurance through the owners corporation is current before settlement. Your side checks that the cover exists and is adequate for replacement of the building.

Disputes, defects and legal proceedings

The certificate discloses current legal proceedings and can reveal live disputes: with builders over defects, with contractors, or between the owners corporation and individual owners. Read together with the minutes of recent meetings (which are often supplied alongside), this section is the closest thing you get to the building's diary. Recurring themes in the minutes, water ingress, cladding, a contested manager, are worth knowing about before you own a share of them.

What if the certificate is old or missing?

The certificate has to be current, and a missing or stale certificate for a property with an owners corporation is a genuine gap in the Section 32, with the consequences covered in our guide to incomplete statements. The fix is usually straightforward, the vendor orders a fresh certificate, but settlement timelines are easier when that happens early.

Summary

The owners corporation certificate is the disclosure document for the organisation you automatically join when you buy into shared property: fees, fund balances, special levies, insurance, and disputes, all in a few pages. Read the fees as an annual cost, read the special levies twice, check the funds against the building's age, and let the disputes section tell you what the building has been arguing about. Put anything unclear to your conveyancer before you sign, alongside the rest of the checks in our Section 32 checklist.

Sources

• Owners Corporations Act 2006 (Vic): the law governing the owners corporation certificate (a section 151 certificate) and what it must disclose.
• Consumer Affairs Victoria: Owners corporations: the regulator's guidance on owners corporation records, fees, and buying into one.

Sources verified 25 July 2026.