Because it’s women’s month, we will be focusing on our feminine colleagues here at Stratafin. We’ll be chatting to them about what they do and how they are changing the Sectional Title Property industry, one day at a time.
Who runs finance?
Our first lady up today is our very own Financial Director, Marissa Joubert. Marissa obtained her B.Comm (Hons) in Accounting Sciences from the University of Pretoria and completed her articles with PWC, qualifying as a CA(SA).
She spent 5 years within the financial services division in Imperial (now Motus Financial Services) working with special purpose entities and cell-captive structures.
Marissa is a wiz when it comes to anything numbers, and knowing that budgeting can be daunting in the best circumstances, she has created a budget template for non-financially minded members in community schemes.
For the South African homeowner and Trustee in a community scheme, there may be some doubt regarding how to go about budgeting for scheme expenses, and how to manage reserve funds to ensure they are available when required.
In terms of the Sectional Title Schemes Management Act, there are certain requirements regarding budgeting and available funds that assist the Trustees of each community scheme to arrive at the levies payable by owners.
Section 3(1)(a) and (b) of the Act requires each scheme to maintain sufficient levels of funds to reasonably cover the Scheme’s annual operating expenses and future maintenance and repair costs.
These expenses are included in the annual budget that must be prepared by the Scheme and approved at the Annual General Meeting (AGM).
The preparation of the budget and determination of the required reserve fund level may seem like a daunting task if you are a first-time Trustee. However, with the expertise of your Managing Agent, this process can truly be a breeze.
Make Community Scheme budgeting easy with our FREE Budgeting Tool
Who runs Sectional Title Property legal?
Next up is our Head of Legal, Mareliza Du Toit. Mareliza heads up our legal, collections, and compliance department.
She holds an LLB from Unisa. She completed her articles at LGR Attorneys who specialize in debt collections.
She has more than 2 years of experience in the Sectional Title and Financial Services Industry.
With the experience Mareliza has gained in the debt collection field, she knows how difficult it can be for any member of a community scheme to go through this themselves. It takes a specific skill to collect debt efficiently and effectively and she works with a panel of attorneys to ensure that there are no missteps in the process.
One of the tools that Mareliza uses is a credit policy to explain to all members of a scheme how and when payments should be made and what interest will be charged if payments are not received. A credit policy also states that all payments towards outstanding levies will be allocated towards the most recent outstanding amount rather than against the oldest debt first. By doing this, members can effectively take legal action against non-paying owners for the full historical amount outstanding. A court can grant an order for that amount without fear that it will change due to a small payment, which will necessitate going back to court to amend the order.
A credit policy can easily be implemented into a community scheme by a trustees resolution.
Make community scheme guidelines easy with our FREE Credit Policy template.
Who runs Sales and Marketing?
For sales and marketing comes Daniela Warne. Daniela completed her B.Com (Honours) in Marketing Management at the University of Pretoria. She has distinguished herself as a marketing and brand management specialist, spending 8 years within Bidvest building the banking brand.
From a sales perspective, Daniela is constantly inundated from community schemes that have hundreds of thousands of Rands owing in unpaid levies. We see this every day as a result of the non-payment culture. Either scheme members don’t understand what they are liable for when they buy into a scheme or they are just unwilling to pay. No matter the reason, non-paying owners put the whole scheme at risk. The non-payment of levies results in the inability of the scheme to pay day-to-day expenses and if the financials are in a mess, banks won’t finance the units for new owners – which means it’s more difficult (and in some cases) impossible to sell units.
Because Daniela saw this non-payment culture as such a pressing issue, she started working on free training sessions via webinars and free resources that are currently available on the Stratafin website for use by any scheme member, trustee, and Managing Agent.
To access these free resources, click here to be directed to our resource page
We also record and share all of our previous webinars on our YouTube channel, which can be accessed here
If you would like to learn more about us or contact any of the amazing women at Stratafin for more information about the Community Scheme industry, please contact us.
