Dear neighbour,

I spent years on my building’s committee, eventually as chair, and heard it over and over again from owners: “the body corporate won’t let you do that”, or “the body corporate charges so much”, or “that’s the body corporate rule”.

It took me a while to figure out why I found this so grating. It’s because the owners are the body corporate. So why didn't it feel that way?

In most buildings the body corporate feels like a remote entity, somewhere out there, that does things to you rather than for you. Simultaneously the committee is a group of overwhelmed volunteers, dealing with requests from owners and issues outside of their expertise ranging from maintenance to insurance.

It feels like the manager is in charge but they’re not, they work for you. Change feels impossible: the default answer to everything is no.

Quarter is our attempt to unwind that. It’s the way a modern body corporate should work.

The building is yours. The money is yours. The decisions are yours. We do the drudgery so the committee can spend its time making informed decisions and enjoying your home.

If that's not what your body corporate feels like today, maybe it can be. Better things are possible.

Michael Dowse

Michael Dowse

Co-founder

Five founding principles.

  1. Transparent by default

    It's your money and your building. You shouldn't have to ask. Transparency doesn't mean sharing a folder of documents. It means presenting information clearly and concisely when it's needed, and answering questions 24/7, by email, WhatsApp, or through our app.

  2. Functional democracy

    Owning a unit shouldn't mean feeling powerless in your own building. If you want something changed, the pathway should be visible and usable. Raise an issue. Put up a motion. Call for a meeting. Vote from your phone. We chase quorum and proxies to make sure that everyone's voice is heard.

  3. Maintenance isn't optional

    The law requires planning for long-term maintenance, but it doesn't require saving for it. Some might say "that's the next owner's problem" — not us.

    In Quarter buildings, the long-term maintenance plan is fully funded. That means levies that are honest about what the building costs, and special levies kept for what is genuinely unexpected.

  1. Better things are possible

    A body corporate isn't a preservation society. Its job isn't to keep a building frozen in time at the moment it was built, but to keep making it a better place to live as the world changes around us.

    EV charging. Bike parking. Shared spaces people actually use. The summer BBQ that turns neighbours into a community. Too often the default answer is no: too hard, too risky, too time consuming. We ask a different question — what would it take?

  2. Fair pricing, no handcuffs

    Quarter is a service, not an app, or an AI agent. We don't charge per meeting, per letter, per disclosure, or per “additional service”. You pay a flat percentage of your building's levies. That's it. No hidden fees, no contractor markups, and no kickbacks.

    And if that's not for you, that's fine. We don't do twelve-month contracts, exit fees, or holding your records hostage.

Meet the team.

Michael Dowse

Michael Dowse

Co-founder

Wellington, New Zealand

Would rather walk to the cafe for an iced latte than make it at home.

Book a time
Matt Cowley

Matt Cowley

Co-founder

Melbourne, Australia

Can't understand why you'd drive a car when you can catch a tram.

Book a time

Follow along.

We write what we're learning: levies, maintenance funding, meetings that actually work, and the occasional argument about how body corporates ought to be run.

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