Budget Alert: Increased Costs due to Offshore Events
8 April 2026
For some bodies corporate in New Zealand, depending on your financial year end, you may be well into the budget-setting process for the new financial year .
As committee members, chairs or body corporate managers, you should be considering the impact of rapidly rising fuel costs on the operating expenses of your complex.
Rubbish collection companies are already advising of significant increases due to the much higher cost of diesel which has doubled in price. If you have oil-fired water heating, ventilation or building heating systems then those costs will also rise more than you may have planned for. Many buildings will have pumps of various types that require diesel to operate.
These certain increases along with nearly all services requiring transport or diesel costs mean your budgets may not be robust enough to sustain these increases.
If you are unsure of the impact of increased costs, then talk to your body corporate manager about introducing a special contingency line in your operating budget to protect you from cashflow shortfalls. This could be 10 -15% of your operating budget. If those funds are not required in this financial period, then they can offset the following year’s operating expenses or be transferred, with the agreement of owners at a special meeting, to a Contingency Fund or to the LTMF.
BE PREPARED FOR THE WORST CASE SCENARIO SO YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RAISE ADDITIONAL LEVIES TO MEET YOUR OBLIGATIONS THROUGH THE YEAR. Raising additional levies can also incurr additional administrative cost, better to plan ahead than be caught out at the last minute.
