ISTM – now called Strata Community Australia – has come a long way in the past few years, pulling a some rogue operators into line and refusing at least one major developer full Strata Manager accreditation, for obvious reasons. Admittedly, they were a long way behind the eight-ball to begin with but you have to give them credit for the improvements they have made.
I know it’s frustrating and I’m a great believer in shaking things up occasionally – certainly changing strata managers when you’re not happy should be an option (although I have known strata managers who’ve been sacked because they were doing their job too diligently) and that didn’t suit the EC of the time.
To be honest, I think the biggest problem with strata managers is that the good ones aren’t paid enough for the work they do, so they start spreading themselves too thinly over too many clients. But what happens when they raise their fees to reflect the amount of work they should be doing is that someone else slides in underneath and undercuts them.
If the Government demanded minimum standards but also set minimum fees, everybody would be better off.