Capital works fund software · New South Wales
Every NSW owners corporation must hold a capital works fund and plan ten years of major expenditure against it. Plinth keeps that plan current between the statutory five-year reviews — one forecast that moves as the building spends.
One
New South Wales wrote the capital works fund into statute with unusual clarity. Section 74 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 requires every owners corporation to establish one; the only exemption is a two-lot scheme where the buildings in each lot are physically detached, no building or part of one sits outside the lots, and the owners have resolved unanimously to go without. Section 80 then requires a plan of anticipated major expenditure from the fund over a 10-year period, starting at the scheme's first annual general meeting.
The plan must set out the proposed work or maintenance, its timing, its anticipated cost and the source of funding, in the prescribed form. It must be reviewed at least once every five years, and it can be revised at any time by resolution at a general meeting. It is not a shelf document either: section 79(5) directs the owners corporation to take the plan's anticipated major expenditure into account when it estimates capital works fund contributions at each AGM. The plan feeds the levy. A stale plan feeds a stale levy.
Two
From 1 April 2026, every new or revised 10-year capital works fund plan in NSW must be prepared using the NSW Government's standard form. NSW also provides the Capital works fund planner — a digital tool inside Strata Hub that walks a committee through building a plan and produces it in the standard-form format; a draft can be shared with another strata contact of the scheme for review and input.
Use it. It is official, NSW Fair Trading lists no fee for it, and it is pitched squarely at the smaller schemes — up to six lots — that would otherwise pay to outsource the plan. It is built to produce a plan in the standard form the law asks for on the day you prepare it. What happens to that plan over the following five years is a different problem, and it is the one Plinth exists to solve.
Three
The Act's review cycle is a minimum, and NSW buildings do not spend on a five-year rhythm. Costs escalate every year. A lift contract lands above its allowance. The committee approves a variation mid-project. A membrane fails early; the paint outlasts its cycle. Each of these shifts the fund's real trajectory, and none of them waits for the next scheduled review.
Meanwhile the AGM arrives annually, and with it the obligation to strike a capital works levy against the plan's numbers. Large schemes carry a further duty: section 79(6) requires their AGM estimates to note any difference from the 10-year plan and give the reasons. Both jobs are quick when the plan has been kept current all year — and awkward archaeology when it has not.
Four
Plinth holds your building as an asset register — each element with its replacement cost, cycle and condition — and runs a 20-year forecast with cost escalation over the top. It shows the year the fund runs short and the levy that prevents it. As work proceeds, you record quotes, awarded cost, approved variations and committed spend against the same plan, so the forecast moves the day the building does. Compliance documents sit against the assets they cover, with expiry dates tracked.
Plinth is software. It is not a statutory report, and not engineering, quantity surveying, legal or financial advice. The standard-form plan your scheme adopts remains the owners corporation's document, and where you engage an expert to help prepare it — as section 80(6) contemplates — that engagement still happens. Plinth's job is the years in between: keeping the forecast true so the next review starts from today's position instead of a reconstruction of the last one.
Five
Managing agents rarely run a single-state book. A portfolio can hold capital works funds in Sydney and sinking funds in Brisbane, with a different Act behind each. Plinth runs the same engine for all of them — the vocabulary changes at the border, the method does not — and prices by building rather than by seat: A$750 a year GST inclusive covering the first building, A$350 a year for each additional building, every feature at every price.
To see the method before committing anything, the sinking fund calculator at /tools/sinking-fund-calculator takes six inputs and no sign-up, the worked demo at /demo shows a full building from register to shortfall year, and the guides at /learn cover the NSW requirements in more depth.
Questions
- Is a capital works fund compulsory in NSW?
- Yes. Section 74 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 requires every owners corporation to establish a capital works fund. The only exception is a two-lot scheme where the buildings in each lot are physically detached, no building or part of one sits outside the lots, and the owners resolve unanimously to go without one. Every other scheme must hold the fund and levy contributions to it, guided by its 10-year capital works fund plan.
- How often must a capital works fund plan be reviewed in NSW?
- At least once every five years. Section 80(3) of the Act lets an owners corporation review, revise or replace its 10-year plan by resolution at a general meeting at any time, but the five-yearly review is mandatory. In practice many schemes touch the plan more often, because section 79(5) makes it the reference point for the capital works levy estimated at each AGM.
- Is the NSW Capital Works Fund Planner free?
- NSW Fair Trading lists no fee for using the planner. It sits inside Strata Hub and the government promotes it for smaller schemes — up to six lots — as a way to create a compliant plan without the cost of outsourcing. Plinth does not compete with it on price; it does different work: a continuously updated forecast across one or many buildings, with works, variations and compliance documents tracked against the same plan.
- What must a 10-year capital works fund plan include in NSW?
- Section 80(4) sets the minimum: details of the proposed work or maintenance, the timing and anticipated costs, and the source of funding, in the form prescribed by the regulations. Since 1 April 2026, any new or revised plan must be prepared using the NSW Government's standard form. A useful plan goes further — condition, replacement cycles, escalation — because those are what make the costs believable.
- Is a capital works fund the same as a sinking fund?
- In substance, yes. Capital works fund is the name the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 uses in NSW for what most Australians still call a sinking fund — money set aside for painting, renewing and replacing common property rather than day-to-day running costs. Other states keep the older name. If you manage buildings across borders, the terminology changes at the border; the engineering underneath does not.
Elsewhere
Six numbers into the free calculator gives the year your fund runs short. The 7-day trial builds the full plan.