Estate Manager
Book a demo
Menu
Product overviewAGMs and general meetingsVoting and resolutionsProxies and Form CRulesComplaints and disputesBudgets and the ten-year planFor managing agentsFor trusteesPricingFree templates and tools
Book a demo

Product

One place for the whole scheme

Estate Manager is a body corporate management system for sectional title schemes, homeowners' associations and their managing agents. Meetings and votes, rules, complaints, requests, budgets, quotes and documents sit in one place, and each role sees what it should. It runs in the browser, so it works on a phone with nothing to install.

Book a demo
PMR 15 to 20 Meetings by the rulesSection 6(6), 6(7) Votes in value and in numberSection 10(5) Rules in force on the certificate
The chair's dashboard of a fictional scheme in the dark theme, with meetings, complaints, requests, quote requests and documents in figures and attendance against the quorum, beside an owner's ballot on a phone.
The same, on a phone.
The chair's dashboard, and an owner's ballot on a phone.

Meetings and votes

General meetings, votes and rules, by the book

The cycle of a general meeting, from the notice to the minutes, and the rules the members adopt.

AGMs and general meetings

Notice periods counted, the pack emailed and any delivery by hand or registered post recorded, the attendance register, a live quorum and adjournment, and minutes drafted in Word from the record.

PMR 15(1)Read more

Voting and resolutions

Voting from a phone, one poll at a time from the chair's console, counted in value and in number as the Act requires for each resolution type, with a results certificate for each.

Section 1Read more

Proxies and Form C

Proxies appointed online or on the prescribed Form C, at most two members per proxy holder, open until an hour before the meeting, and never the managing agent.

Section 6(5)Read more

Rules

The 39 prescribed rules word for word, sixteen drafted templates, checks against the law, and the record of adoption, lodgement with the Community Schemes Ombud Service (CSOS) and the certificate.

Section 10Read more

How a meeting runs

From notice to minutes, on one record

Five steps, each kept on the record as it happens. Section numbers refer to the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act and PMR to its prescribed management rules. General information, not legal advice.

  1. 01

    Notice

    The period is counted: 14 days for a general meeting, or 30 when a special or unanimous resolution is on the agenda. The Act allows shorter notice of such a resolution where the scheme's rules provide for it, which the managers record with the rule that provides it. The pack goes by email with a prefilled proxy form, and each delivery is reported. For a special or unanimous resolution, each owner's notice by hand or by registered post is recorded too, as the Act requires.

    PMR 15(1), section 6(2)
  2. 02

    Proxies

    Owners appoint a proxy online or on Form C. Nobody holds proxies for more than two members, the managing agent is never offered, and appointments close an hour before the meeting.

    Section 6(5), PMR 20(5), 20(6)
  3. 03

    Check-in and quorum

    Owners attend in person, online or by proxy, and the chair confirms who is taking part online. The quorum is measured live, in value and in persons.

    PMR 17(10), 19(2)
  4. 04

    Vote

    The chair opens one poll at a time. Owners vote from a phone for their own units and the proxies they hold, and each resolution is counted in value and in number.

    Section 1, PMR 20(1)(b)
  5. 05

    Certificate and minutes

    Closing a poll records the result with the rule that decided it. Each resolution gets a results certificate, and the minutes are drafted in Word from the record.

    PMR 20(8), 27(2)(a)

Between meetings

The rest of the year, in the same place

Everything that happens between general meetings, from the notice board to the budgets, kept on the same record and shown to the right people.

Complaints and CSOS disputes

Filed against a rule, acknowledged and answered on the record, with 30 days for the reporter to dispute the outcome. Only the managers see who filed it.

Read more

Maintenance and access requests

A passage light, a leaking pipe, a new remote: residents report it once and follow it to done, and a board of open faults stops the same report twice.

Read more

Budgets and the ten-year plan

Administrative and reserve fund budgets and the ten-year maintenance plan, built or uploaded, approved by resolution, shared with owners and exported to Excel.

PMR 22(1)Read more

Quotes and trustee approvals

Three quotes side by side, declared interests, the trustees' decision or the agent's written limit, and the appointment letter for two signatures.

PMR 21(3)(g)Read more

Documents and records

A library with folders, versions and the right readers for each, with certificates, minutes drafts, proxy forms and letters produced by the app.

Read more

Privacy, POPIA and security

Two-factor sign-in for everyone who manages an estate, each estate's records kept apart in the database, a privacy centre for the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) and an append-only audit trail.

Read more

Roles

One sign-in, the right view for each role

A person belongs to one or more estates and switches between them without signing in again. Each estate's records are kept apart by row-level security in the database, and everyone who manages an estate signs in with an authenticator app as a second factor.

Units, participation quotas and owners come in from a spreadsheet, with a preview before anything is saved, and an invitation by email links each owner to their unit.

  • Managing agents: every scheme they run, behind one sign-in
  • The chair and trustees: the console, their decisions, the agent's packs and the audit trail
  • Owners: their own portal for votes and proxies, the rules, documents, complaints and requests
  • Tenants: notices and rules for residents, and a vote only as an owner's proxy
The members of a fictional estate in the dark theme, with each person's role, status and joining date.
Everyone who can sign in to an estate, with their role.

On a phone

Made for the phone in an owner's hand

Estate Manager runs in the browser on a phone, a tablet or a computer, so there is no app to install. The meeting and voting pages work from 375 pixels wide, and automated accessibility checks find no WCAG 2.2 A or AA failure on them.

An owner sees the next meeting with a countdown and when proxies close, votes for their own unit and the proxies they hold, reports a fault and reads the rules, in a light or dark theme or the one their device uses.

An owner's dashboard on a phone, with tiles for complaints, requests, documents, notices and a proxy held, and the latest update on the owner's own complaint below them.
An owner's dashboard on a phone, with their own matters first.

What Estate Manager does not do

  • Accounting. No levy billing, statements, arrears or collections. They stay in the managing agent's accounting system.
  • Legal advice. Estate Manager is built around the Act and the regulations, and its checks are a reading aid for the scheme's attorney. Decisions remain the body corporate's.
  • An app store app. It is a web application that works on phones.
  • Gate and intercom integration. Access requests carry what the managing agent types on the installer's portal.
  • Hosting the video call. Put your call's link in the meeting, and owners join the call and vote in Estate Manager at the same time.

Questions

Questions about Estate Manager

Anything else: ask us when you book a demo, or write to info@nanotech-computers.com.

What is a body corporate management system?
Software that keeps a scheme's governance in one place: the register of units and owners, general meetings with their notices, proxies, quorum and votes, the rules, complaints, requests, quotes, budgets and documents. Estate Manager covers that governance, and leaves the scheme's accounts in the accounting system it already uses.
Is there a body corporate app to install?
No. Estate Manager is a web application that works in the browser on phones, tablets and computers, so owners vote, lodge proxies and report faults from a phone without installing anything. It is not in the app stores.
Can a self-managed body corporate use it?
Yes. A body corporate appoints a managing agent if its trustees so resolve, or if its members or a bondholder over a quarter of the primary sections require one (PMR 28(5)). Without an agent, the chair and trustees do the agent's work, and Estate Manager gives them the same tools, from importing the register to drafting the minutes. General information, not legal advice.
Does it work for homeowners' associations?
Yes. Each estate is set up as a sectional title scheme or a homeowners' association, and an association takes its own quorum rule and the notice period of the Companies Act. It counts one vote per member, without participation quotas, and keeps its rules under its own constitution or memorandum of incorporation.
Who sees what?
Each person sees what their role allows. The chair, trustees and managing agent manage the scheme. Owners vote, lodge proxies, read the rules and documents meant for them, and follow their own complaints and requests. Tenants see what is meant for residents, and vote only as an owner's proxy.
Where is the data hosted?
On Amazon Web Services in a European Union region, from launch. Each estate's records are kept apart from every other estate's, by the database itself as well as by the application, and the privacy notice explains the transfer from South Africa.
What does it cost?
One plan with every feature, priced per unit per month by the size of the scheme: R12.50 per unit per month for the first six months and R15.00 after that for a scheme of up to 100 units, with lower rates for larger schemes. No VAT is charged, and every scheme can try it free for 10 days.

Related

Who it is for

For managing agents

Every scheme you run behind one sign-in, through AGM season and between meetings.

Read more

For trustees and self-managed schemes

What trustees must do, and how every decision stays on the record.

Read more

For homeowners' associations

An association on its own terms: its quorum rule, its notice and its rules.

Read more

See a meeting run, from notice to minutes

A demo walks through a general meeting on a fictional scheme: the notice, the proxies, check-in, the quorum, the vote and the paperwork that follows. Bring your questions about your own schemes.

Book a demo