2013-14 Audited Accounts

The Audited Accounts of the Management Funds for the financial year 2013-14 have now been added to the top menu, “Accounts”.

The main source of the Management Funds is the monthly management fee paid by owners and residents. However, in fact, all monies received by City Management (CM) in pursuance of its role as Manager of Discovery Bay must be deposited to the Management Funds — everything from parking fines to renovation charges to late payment fees.

The Management Funds (the DMC term, but more descriptively called the “Discovery Bay City Owners’ Fund” by the auditor) belong to all the owners of Discovery Bay. CM holds the funds on trust for the owners, and is entitled to draw on the funds to carry out its duties as Manager under the DMC. (This, incidentally, is why one should never withhold payment of management fees as a way of protesting the actions of CM — you are not punishing CM, you are punishing your fellow owners.)

CM is required by the DMC to produce a set of audited accounts within 180 days of the end of each financial year. In addition, the DMC authorises the City Owners’ Committee (COC) and each Village Owners’ Committee (VOC) to review any of the accounts itemised on the last page of these audited accounts throughout the year. This power is above and beyond the right of any owner to receive a copy of any of the budgets, account statements and audited accounts, as shown at paragraph 8 in the link above.

Thus, the owners potentially have significant power to ensure that the Management Funds are properly deployed. However, very few COC and VOC members are aware that they have this important right. Nor has CM volunteered this information. CM perpetuates the myth that the COC and VOCs are advisory bodies only, by selectively quoting the DMC and Sub-DMCs and ignoring the paragraph highlighted in the link above.