Why Some Owners Want to Pay Now and Others Cant
Why Some Owners Want to Pay Now and Others Can’t - And How That Quietly Delays Body Corporate Projects
Spend enough time around Body Corporate committees and a pattern starts to emerge.
Most buildings don’t struggle to identify problems. They struggle to do something about them.
Engineers’ reports get commissioned. Defects are understood. The scope is agreed. In many cases, there’s even broad alignment that the work needs to happen.
And then… nothing.
Meetings get pushed out. Options get revisited. Costs are reworked. What should have been a clear path forward turns into months - sometimes years - of slow, frustrating drift.
It’s easy to assume this is about disagreement on the issue itself. But more often than not, that’s not where the real tension sits.
The problem is far simpler - and far more difficult at the same time.
Owners are not all in the same financial position.
When a significant capital works or remediation project lands - whether it’s weathertightness, façade replacement, seismic upgrades or lift renewal - the numbers involved tend to be material. For some owners, writing a cheque for their share is manageable. For others, it’s uncomfortable but possible. And for a portion, it’s simply not realistic.
That mix exists in almost every building.
You’ve got long-term owner-occupiers who see the value in protecting the asset. Investors who are focused on yield and timing. Retirees on fixed incomes. Younger owners who may be asset-rich but cash-constrained.
They all own part of the same building. But their perspective on the effects of special levies can be very viewed in many different ways – and that’s where friction starts and things begin to slow down.
Committees often go into the decision-making process assuming that if everyone understands the issue, the vote will take care of itself. It’s a logical way to think about it.
But in practice, owners aren’t voting on the problem. They’re voting on the payment.
And the question sitting behind every discussion is rarely spoken out loud, but it’s always there:
“Can I actually afford my share of this right now?”
When even a small group of owners can’t answer that question with confidence, momentum starts to fade.
Flow on Effects
The flow on effect of these questions and inaction, is that:
- Projects get deferred.
- Alternative scopes are explored.
- Temporary fixes creep back into the conversation.
What began as a clear remediation pathway becomes a negotiation - not about the work, but about the affordability of it.
That’s where the real cost begins to build. Often the inability to pay is masked as a desire to change scope or get a new opinion.
Delays don’t just push timelines out. They change the economics of the project. Pricing moves. Additional deterioration can occur. Consultants need to be re-engaged. Contractors become less certain about timing and availability.
Just as importantly, the tone within the building shifts. Discussions become more difficult. Positions harden. The sense of urgency gets replaced by fatigue. What started as a funding challenge quietly becomes a delivery risk.
The traditional approach hasn’t really evolved to reflect this reality. For a long time, the model has been straightforward: issue a levy, set a due date, and expect all owners to meet it. In simpler times, that worked reasonably well.
But as buildings age, projects get larger, and owner profiles become more diverse, that “one size fits all” approach is starting to show its limitations.
It assumes a level of financial alignment that more often than not doesn’t exist.
And when that assumption breaks down, so does the decision-making process.
The Mind-set Shift
The buildings that tend to move forward more effectively aren’t necessarily the ones with fewer issues or lower costs. They’re the ones that approach the funding conversation differently.
Instead of trying to force every owner into the same payment structure, they recognise that the real goal isn’t uniformity of payment method - it’s progress. They separate the decision to proceed with the work from the way individual owners choose to meet their obligation.
That shift sounds subtle, but in practice it changes everything.
Because once owners can see a pathway that works for their own situation, the conversation moves away from resistance and towards resolution.
For committees and Body Corporate managers, this is often the turning point. It reframes the discussion from:
“Can everyone pay this right now?”
to:
“How do we structure this so the project can actually move forward?”
That’s a far more practical question. And it tends to produce far better outcomes.
Key takeaways
- Most Body Corporate projects don’t stall because the issue isn’t understood - they stall because the funding approach doesn’t work for all owners
- Mixed affordability within a building is normal, not the exception
- Even a small group of owners unable to fund a levy can delay an entire project
- Delays increase costs, introduce additional risk, and erode project momentum
- Traditional levy structures assume financial alignment that often doesn’t exist
- Projects are more likely to proceed when owners are given flexibility in how they meet their share
If there’s one consistent lesson across remediation and capital works projects, it’s this:
- You don’t need every owner to fund the project in the same way.
- You just need a structure that allows the project to be funded.
And in many cases, that’s the difference between a building that moves forward - and one that stays stuck exactly where it is.
The Good News
The good news is, that what’s changing in the market is that there is now a funding structure that has been developed specifically to address this issue. The emergence of MOD Finance’s hybrid funding model is designed for situations where owner affordability is mixed. This structures allows those who can pay upfront to do so, while giving others the ability to spread their share over time — all within a single, coordinated project funding approach.
The Hybrid Loan is a practical shift away from the traditional “one size fits all” levy model, and one that is increasingly being explored by Body Corporates looking to move forward without leaving owners behind.
