Announcements
Post a notice to owners and the council, email it out, and keep a record of what was communicated and when.
Announcements is how the council talks to the building.
Write it once, and it appears in every owner's portal and — when you choose to notify — in their inbox, using your corporation's branding.
Posting one
Write it
A clear subject line and the body. Assume it's read on a phone, in a hurry.
Notify owners by email
Sends it to the addresses on your roster. Skip this for something purely informational that can wait to be found.
Announcements can also be printed — useful for the lobby noticeboard and for owners who don't read email.
What to announce
Anything that disrupts the building. Water shut off, elevator out, parkade closed, scaffolding going up. Give dates and times, and say what people need to do.
Anything that costs owners money. A fee increase, a levy, a change to payment arrangements. Explain the reason — owners forgive an explained increase and escalate an unexplained one.
Decisions that affect people. A bylaw change, a new rule, a policy on short-term rentals.
Reassurance during something visible. Work under way, a known problem being dealt with. Silence during visible disruption is what generates the complaints.
Announce before, not after
Almost every angry email a council receives is about something the owner found out too late. A two-line announcement the week before costs nothing and prevents most of them.
What an announcement isn't
An announcement is not meeting notice
Statutory notice of a general meeting must go through Send notice from the meeting itself, which calculates the notice period and records what was sent to whom. An announcement carries none of that. Use both if you like — the announcement as a heads-up, the notice as the legal act — but never the announcement alone.
It's also not the place for anything about an individual owner. Arrears, a dispute, a complaint, an enforcement action — those go direct to the person concerned. Naming an owner in a building-wide notice is a privacy problem and, in some circumstances, worse.
Writing well
Lead with the point. "The water will be off on Tuesday 14 May from 9am to 2pm" first; the explanation second.
Give dates, times and specifics. "Soon", "shortly" and "in the coming weeks" generate exactly the questions the announcement was meant to prevent.
Say what people need to do. Fill a jug. Move your car. Nothing — say that too.
Say who to contact. And be honest about response times.
Keep it short. Three paragraphs read is worth more than ten skimmed.
A workable template
Water shut-off — Tuesday 14 May, 9am to 2pm
The domestic water will be off building-wide while the contractor replaces a valve on the main riser.
What to do: fill a jug for drinking and cooking the night before. Don't run dishwashers or laundry during the shut-off.
If it overruns we'll post an update here and by email by 2pm.
Questions: council@example.com
Owners' view
Announcements appear under Announcements in the owner portal, newest first, and stay there. An owner who's been away can catch up.
If an owner says they're not getting emails, check the address on their roster record — that's nearly always it.
Why it's worth keeping the record
Announcements are a dated record of what the council communicated. That matters more than it seems:
- When someone says "we were never told", there's an answer.
- A new council can see what the building has been told.
- In a dispute, a pattern of clear, timely communication is evidence of a council doing its job.
Related
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