In the ACT, we had a lot of pushback from our Strata manager(SM) when we wanted to use a concrete contracter who was not on their “approved” list. The contractor had done previous work for the complex, was well known and long in business locally, and his quote was 50% less than the “approved” contractor.
We had to direct the SM to issue the work order, and then once the work was satisfactorily completed, their accounting section “lost” the invoice twice , and we had to follow up multiple times to have payment made.