How to read your monthly statement
Line by line, the four layers, what to check first, and what a healthy month looks like. Ten minutes once, and every statement after it reads itself.
A monthly statement is the one document that answers the question every owner asks at some point: where did the money go. It is also the document most owners never open, because nobody showed them how. Ten minutes, once, and every statement after that reads itself.
Start at the first line, the balance
The first line is the building’s balance today: what is in the account after this month’s money came in and this month’s bills went out. If the balance is going down month after month with no repair to explain it, the building is short, and the rest of the page will tell you why.
Then the four layers
Every line under the balance belongs to one of four layers.
Running costs. Electricity for the common areas, water, the lift’s power and its service contract, cleaning, the pool, the garden. These are invoices from providers, paid from the building’s account at the provider’s price. A management company earns nothing on them.
Repairs. Anything that broke and was fixed. In our contracts anything over €100 is approved by the committee before the work starts, so every repair line should match a decision the committee remembers making. An emergency is the exception: we act, then invoice, and the line says so.
The reserve fund. Money put aside for the roof, the facade or the lift, if the building keeps one. It is a transfer from the account to the reserve, so it shows as money out this month and as a balance that grows over time.
The management fee. The one line the company earns from. In ours it is from €10 per apartment per month, and it is named as such.
What to check first
Three things, in this order.
- Does every repair line match a decision? If a €600 line appears and nobody on the committee approved it, ask.
- Is the fee the fee you signed? It should be the same number every month unless the contract changed.
- Who has not paid? A healthy statement shows the shortfall and who it belongs to. A statement that hides it is protecting someone, and it is not the building.
What a healthy month looks like
The balance holds or grows a little. The running costs move with the season, higher in summer when the pool runs and the lift works harder, lower in winter. Repairs are rare and each one has a decision behind it. The reserve grows by the same amount every month. And the fee is one line, the same as last month.
That is the whole skill. The first statement takes ten minutes. The twelfth takes one.
