I live as said in the heading in a strata retirement village, which is complicated by the fact that the large group who “owns” (under a 10 year Deed of Management, named as the Manager), now owns units in around 80% of the village and these units are under a 99-year lease.  Under the Deed they have to give each lessee a proxy vote which they do every year.  Our village is only 1 of 2 strata villages owned by the group in NSW and villages interstate are possibly all non-strata. Up until 18 months ago we had an on-site manager (administrator) who was an employee of the group and this manager fully understood how strata villages especially with the Deed of Management, have the Owners Corporation and Strata Committee to make the decisions.  Ill health forced this manager to retire and after many months, following a debacle of non-running, a new on-site manager was appointed.  This new person has no strata experience and is from an overseas country.  Unfortunately we now have the big issue where our on-site manager is acting on instruction from the employer and running things their way e.g.  making changes to things that have been voted on at an EGM, saying I did not know, and the last straw for us recently was when notification that the next EGM was postponed came out on village letterhead, with a copy to the Owners Corporation, signed firstly by the manager and second signed by the chairperson.

Decisions continue to be made without reference to the OC and only found out “by accident”, and one serious concern is that temporary maintenance or other workers are on-site and no-one knows who they are.  With residents aged up to the mid to high 90s, people are very concerned when a stranger knocks on the door without identification or knowledge who this person is.

I understand that an article around 6 weeks ago detailed caution over moving into a village where the Village Manager came to, and stayed, at all meetings of the OC and acts as a member.  Unfortunately, I missed this and wonder if I could have a copy of the article (have looked but can’t find it on-line). 

To make matters worse the members of the Strata Committee are worse than useless and just sit there without challenging.  Residents are so concerned about their lack of worth, so much so that we have started a Discussion Group which compiled lists of complaints, had a face-to-fact meeting with the newish manager and assistant.  Subsequently, the Managers finally came out to talk to us, telling us our being wasn’t necessary as they had everything in hand?????  And they would make everything worked properly.  That was coming up to 2 months ago and there has only been minimal improvement. 

Any guidance/direction to correct wording of Acts would be appreciated. 

Thank you