In New South Wales, the emails a strata committee sends and receives are records of the owners corporation. They must be kept for seven years, in electronic form for records created from 11 June 2024, and an owner can ask to inspect them. Victoria asks owners corporations to keep their correspondence for seven years too. A committee whose mail lives in one member’s personal Gmail account rarely meets that standard in practice.
This article is general information about the rules in NSW and Victoria, as observed in October 2026. It is not legal advice.
A committee’s emails are records
The Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 lists what an owners corporation must keep. Section 180(1) reads: “An owners corporation must cause the following to be retained for 7 years: […] (d) copies of correspondence received and sent by the owners corporation, (e) notices of meetings of the owners corporation and its strata committee”.
The NSW Government’s guidance for committee members says what “correspondence” covers in plain words: “You must keep a record of all communications sent and received by the strata committee and owners corporation for seven years.” Its examples include letters, emails, reports and documents from meetings.
So the quote from the roofer, the insurer’s answer on a water damage claim, the reply to an owner about a by-law breach: in a NSW scheme, each one belongs to the building’s records, not to the person who happened to answer it. On top of that, Schedule 2 asks the committee to keep “a record of its decisions, any notices given under this Schedule and full and accurate minutes of its meetings”. Many of those decisions are argued out by email first.
Seven years, and electronic since 11 June 2024
Section 176(1) of the same Act says: “The strata roll and other records required to be made or kept by an owners corporation must be made or kept in electronic form.” The guidance puts a date on it: “From 11 June 2024, records which strata schemes are required to keep must be kept electronically.” It adds that “this applies to new records created from this date”, and that a scheme may keep physical records in addition to the electronic ones. Section 176(2) of the Act confirms that records made before that date do not have to be reproduced in electronic form, so old paper files need not be scanned.
For email, the guidance is specific. It asks committees to “make sure that your email is set up to save your communications”, or to keep another folder for them, and adds: “You will need to make sure that you can save your emails in this way for seven years.” Letters that arrive by post should be scanned, and an electronic copy kept of anything sent on paper.
Seven years is longer than most committee terms put together. A message sent in October 2026 has to be findable in October 2033, by a committee that may not include a single person who was there when it was written.
Who can read them: owner inspection
Section 182(1) lets “an owner, mortgagee or covenant chargee of a lot”, or a person they authorise, ask the owners corporation for an inspection. The items to be made available include, under section 182(3)(b), “any other records or documents required to be kept under this Part”, and section 180 sits in that Part. Correspondence is on the list.
The Act leaves room for how it happens. Section 183(3): “The means for inspecting documents may be in person or through secure electronic access to the documents or any other means agreed on or fixed under this section.”
The NSW guidance adds the practical rules:
- If the owners corporation and the person asking cannot agree on a time and place within three days, the owners corporation can set a date within 10 days of the request, by written notice.
- The person inspecting pays a fee for the work of preparing the records: for an owner, $31 including GST for the first hour and $16 for each extra half hour; for a person authorised by an owner, $60 for the first hour and $30 for each extra half hour. The fee is the same whether the inspection is in person or electronic.
Ten days is a short window if the emails an owner asks about sit in three members’ personal accounts, one of whom has moved interstate.
Victoria says the same thing in its own words
Consumer Affairs Victoria lists what an owners corporation “must collect and keep” under the Owners Corporations Act 2006, and “correspondence” is on that list, next to minutes, resolutions, proxies and accounting records. On retention, voting papers and ballots are kept for at least 12 months after the vote, proxies for at least 12 months after they expire or are revoked, and “all other documents for at least seven years”.
On inspection, Consumer Affairs Victoria says an owners corporation cannot charge people to inspect the records and register, and can charge a reasonable fee for copies. It recommends a written request and supervised inspections, so documents are not lost or interfered with. The page gives no deadline for an inspection, so we will not invent one.
The wording differs from NSW. The practical consequence for a committee’s mailbox is the same: seven years, and an owner can ask to see it.
Why personal inboxes fail this test
Many self-managed schemes start the same way: the secretary answers from their own Gmail, another member copies in their work address, and the treasurer forwards the levy questions to whoever is around. Each habit makes sense on the day. Together they put the owners corporation’s records in four accounts the owners corporation does not control.
Hold that setup against the rules above:
- Seven years. A member who leaves the committee, sells their lot or simply deletes old mail takes their half of every conversation with them. The record is incomplete the day they go, not seven years later.
- Electronic and findable. The emails do exist electronically, but nobody can search across four personal accounts. Answering “what did we tell the plumber in 2025?” means asking each member, and trusting each one to look.
- Inspection within 10 days. To prepare an inspection, someone has to collect the relevant emails from personal accounts, forward them somewhere, and hope nothing was missed. Personal mail sits in the same accounts, so each member also has to sort the building’s mail from their own.
A dedicated building address fixes part of this, but only if the committee stops forwarding it to personal inboxes and stops sharing its password. We covered the password and forwarding problem in a shared mailbox for self-managed HOAs and strata committees, and what to do when the committee changes in handing over the HOA or strata mailbox. If decisions are taken by email between meetings, how HOA boards and strata committees decide by email looks at that side.
A practical setup
The aim is modest: one place where the building’s correspondence lives, that the owners corporation controls, that survives every change of committee.
- One building address. A Gmail account, a Microsoft 365 mailbox or an IMAP mailbox with the website hosting, created for the owners corporation. Its recovery email and phone number belong to the committee and are written down where the next committee will find them.
- Everything goes through it. Owners, contractors, insurers and conveyancers write to that address, and the committee replies from it. If an owner writes to a member’s personal address, the reply comes from the building address.
- Nothing is deleted. Turn off any rule that empties folders automatically, and decide who may delete what. This is the practical side of the guidance’s line about setting email up “to save your communications”.
- Paper gets scanned. Post and hand-delivered letters are scanned and kept with the rest, as the NSW guidance recommends.
- Each member signs in with their own login. Nobody shares the password, so a departing member loses access the day they leave and the history stays with the building.
Steps one to four cost nothing and work in any email provider. Step five is where a shared mailbox tool helps.
Where Trupeo fits, and where it does not
Trupeo connects to the building’s existing address: Gmail, Outlook, Microsoft 365 or any IMAP mailbox. Each committee member signs in with their own account, sees who is on each email, leaves team notes the sender never sees, and marks an email done when it is handled. When a member leaves after the AGM, you remove their access, and the address and its history stay with the owners corporation.
Trupeo is not a records management system and does no strata accounting, levies or owner portal. The mail itself stays stored at your email provider, which is the store of the seven-year record: if an email is deleted at Gmail or Microsoft 365, it is gone from Trupeo too. And Trupeo does not decide what an owner may inspect; that remains the committee’s call under the Act. What it changes is that the record is in one place, under the building’s address, rather than spread across personal accounts.
Trupeo charges per connected mailbox: €10 a month excluding VAT for a mailbox shared by 2 people, and €20 a month for 3 people or more, however large the committee. Details are on our page for strata committees and HOA boards and on the pricing page. If you are still comparing tools, the best shared inbox for small teams sets the main options side by side, and software for a self-managed HOA or strata scheme covers the tools that do the accounting and the owner portal.
Frequently asked questions
How long must a strata scheme keep emails?
In New South Wales, seven years: section 180(1)(d) of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 covers copies of correspondence received and sent by the owners corporation, and the NSW Government says this includes all communications of the strata committee. Records created from 11 June 2024 must be kept electronically. In Victoria, Consumer Affairs Victoria lists correspondence among the records an owners corporation keeps, and other documents are kept for at least seven years.
Do emails count as correspondence?
Yes. The NSW Government’s record keeping guidance names emails among the communications a strata committee must keep, and asks committees to set up their email so that it saves those communications for seven years.
Can an owner ask to see committee emails?
In NSW, an owner, mortgagee or covenant chargee, or a person they authorise, can request an inspection of the records the owners corporation must keep, correspondence included. The inspection can be in person or through secure electronic access, the owners corporation can set a date within 10 days if no time is agreed within three days, and a fee applies. In Victoria, an owners corporation cannot charge for an inspection of its records, only a reasonable fee for copies.
Sources:
- Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 No 50 (NSW Legislation): section 176(1) and (2), records kept in electronic form, with older records and duplicate paper records exempted; section 180(1), the records retained for 7 years, including (d) copies of correspondence received and sent by the owners corporation and (e) notices of meetings; section 180 sits in Part 10, “Records and information about strata schemes”; section 182(1) and (3)(b), who may request an inspection and the records made available; section 183(3), inspection in person or through secure electronic access; Schedule 2 clause 17(1), the strata committee’s record of decisions, notices and minutes.
- Record keeping requirements (NSW Government): all communications sent and received by the strata committee and owners corporation kept for seven years, with emails among the examples; records kept electronically from 11 June 2024 for new records; email set up to save communications for seven years; scanning of paper correspondence; the three-day and 10-day inspection rule; physical records may be kept in addition to electronic ones; a fee for the work needed to prepare the records, the same in person or electronically; inspection fees of $31 and $16 for an owner, $60 and $30 for an authorised person, including GST.
- Owners corporation records (Consumer Affairs Victoria): correspondence among the records an owners corporation must collect and keep under the Owners Corporations Act 2006; voting papers, ballots and proxies kept for at least 12 months, all other documents for at least seven years; no fee for inspecting records, a reasonable fee for copies; written requests and supervised inspections recommended.