Glossary of Terms
This page defines the terms you meet across OurOMC — the company and the law it works under, the contacts and property it tracks, the money side, community communication, and service requests.
General Industry Terms
Section titled “General Industry Terms”Owners’ Management Company (OMC) — the company that owns the common areas of a multi-unit development and is responsible for managing, maintaining and insuring them. Not a commercial company a company owned by and run for the benefit of the home owners. See the OMC Community overview.
Company Limited by Guarantee (CLG) — the company type an OMC usually takes. It has members rather than shareholders. The members are the unit owners. It gives each unit one vote when key decisions are to be made. See section 1172 of the Companies Act 2014.
Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 (MUD Act) — the principal legislation governing Irish OMCs. It covers transfer of the common areas to the OMC, the annual service charge, the sinking fund, holding an AGM, and dispute resolution.
Companies Act 2014 — the company-law obligations on the OMC as a CLG: E.g. filing an annual return with the Companies Registration Office (CRO), keeping a register of members, and directors’ duties.
GDPR — data-protection law. The OMC is a data controller for the personal data of owners and residents, and access to that data in OurOMC is governed by roles.
Common areas — everything outside the individual units: halls, stairs, lifts, car parks, gardens, roofs, gates etc. An OMC manages the common areas and shared services only, never the interior of a unit. The term common areas is defined in section 1 of the MUD Act.
Member — a unit owner. Membership comes with the unit and carries one vote per unit, the right to certain information about the company, the right to attend the AGM etc.
Director — a member elected to the board. Directors run the OMC between general meetings, owe fiduciary duties to act in the interests of all members, and are responsible for the budget, compliance and the sinking fund.
Managing agent — a professional firm, licensed by the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA), engaged by the OMC to handle day-to-day activities. The agent acts on behalf of the OMC, but the OMC remains the legal entity responsible. See OMC Professional.
AGM (Annual General Meeting) — the yearly meeting of members. The accounts are presented, directors are elected, and the service charge and sinking-fund position are disclosed. Motions can be run electronically as ballots.
House rules — the development’s rules for the use of units and common areas (parking, pets, short-term lets, noise etc). They are required under the [MUD Act] (https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2011/act/2/section/23/enacted/en/html), which also sets out the requirements for an OMC to amend their rules. They should be stored in Documents to be shared with all members and residents.
Service charge — the contribution each unit owner pays to fund the OMC’s running costs and its sinking fund. The total amount for all members is setout in the budget and the apportionment of that total to each unit is governed by the Schedule
Sinking fund — A building investment fund, required under the MUD Act to cover the refurbishment, improvement and maintenance of common areas. Sinking fund monies collected are ring fenced and not to be used on maintenance of a recurring nature or without the explicit approval of the members.
Lease - Typically, Units within an OMC are held on a long term lease, e.g. 1000 years. i.e. Technically, the OMC owns the units, and the “Unit Owners”, lease their units from the OMC. The lease refers to the legal document defining the relationship between the Unit Owner and the OMC.
Lease Schedule Usually refers to the section of the lease, which stipulates the specific portion of the running costs of the OMC that will be attributable to the lease holder. Legally speaking the lease may well have muliple other schedules.
OMC Community
Section titled “OMC Community”Unit — an individual property within the development: an apartment, house or commercial unit. See Units.
Contact — any person or organisation linked to the OMC. See Contacts. Contacts have explicit roles:
- Unit owner(s) — the contacts who legally own a unit within the OMC. OurOMC has two classes of
unit owner:
- Owner Occupier — a unit owner who resides within their unit in the OMC.
- Owner — a unit owner who does not live in the unit they are registered as owning.
- Resident — a contact who lives in a unit but is explicitly not its owner. A resident may be a tenant, family member, or other person residing at the unit; they have no membership rights and so have limited visibility of data within the system.
- Keyholder — a contact listed by the unit owner(s) who has access to the unit in the event of an emergency.
Unit type / category — a classification of units (for example Apartment, House, Commercial) can be used to drive apportionment of service charges and to target communications. See Unit Types.
Area / core — a geographic part of a development such as a block, core or phase. Areas group units so that communications can be directed more effectively. See Areas.
Money — OMC Books
Section titled “Money — OMC Books”The accounting side of OurOMC: setting the budget, billing owners, paying suppliers, and reconciling the bank. See the OMC Books overview.
Budget — the OMC’s planned income and expenditure for a financial year. Once approved it determines the service charge for each unit. See Budgeting.
Budget code — An account in the OMC’s chart of accounts to categorise income, expenses, assets and liabilities. See Budget Codes.
Budget cycle — a financial year and the accounting periods within it. See Budget Cycles.
Schedule (apportionment) — the rule that divides the budget across units according to the defined rules of the OMC. See Schedules
Billing — generating and issuing service charge invoices to owners for a cycle. See Billing.
Charges — the bill raised against a unit owner for their share of the budget, and/or any penalties or interest charged to the unit owner. See Service Charges.
Credit note — a credit issued to an OMC members reducing the amount that is owed to the OMC. See Service Charge Credit Notes.
Bank receipt — a payment received from an owner, recorded and allocated against their outstanding charges. See Bank Receipts.
Debtor — a unit owner with an unpaid service charge balance. See the Debtors List
Purchase invoice — a supplier’s bill to the OMC, recorded and approved for payment. See Purchase Invoices.
Creditor — a supplier the OMC owes money to. See the Creditors List.
Bank payment — a payment out of the OMC bank account, allocated to purchase invoices or budget codes. See Bank Payments.
Bank reconciliation — matching the transactions on a bank statement to the entries in the accounting ledger so the two agree. See Bank Reconciliation.
Journal — a manual accounting entry used for adjustments and corrections. See Journals.
Fixed asset — a physical item owned or maintained by the OMC, such as a gate motor, lift or pump, tracked for value and lifecycle planning. See Fixed Assets.
Preferred supplier — a contractor or service provider the OMC does business with. See Preferred Suppliers.
Community and communication
Section titled “Community and communication”How the OMC talks to owners and residents and runs decisions.
Community portal — the area where owners and residents log in to see notices, documents and ballots, and to view their unit and service charge account. See the community portal overview.
Channel — a named communication group such as All Owners, Directors. A channel controls who can view a document, receive a post, cast a ballot or add a comment. See Channels.
Role — a named set of permissions that determines what a user can see and do within a channel or across the OMC. See Roles.
Post — a community notice or announcement published to a channel. See Posts.
Comment — a threaded reply on a request, post or ballot. Comments are enabled per channel and are moderated by the OMC. See Comments.
Ballot — an electronic vote of members on an OMC decision or an AGM motion. See Ballots.
Document — Pages of OMC members with file attachments, that are shared through channels. E.g. the constitution, annual accounts, insurance schedule or house rules, stored centrally Documents.
Service requests and tasks
Section titled “Service requests and tasks”How work and queries are captured, tracked and closed.
Service request — a tracked item of work or a query for the OMC: a repair, a complaint, a question or a multi-step project. Each has a responsible person, a status and a full history. See Service Requests and How Requests Work.
Request status — the two-level system that tracks where a request is in its lifecycle. See the Request Status Reference.
Recurring job — record repeating activities filing annual accounts, quarterly fire-alarm test, annual lift servicing etc. and enable service requests to be generated and tracked to ensure that the OMC is maintaining it’s obligations. See Recurring Jobs.