Committee member should be held responsible for bad decisions. At present owners blame the Strata Managers. Strata Managers maintain that their advice was ignored.
In the first instance the Strata Manager and/or OC should prove what advice was given, if it was correct and/or ignored.
In VCAT disputes between owners and Strata Committees, the Respondent is usually the OC.
This would make sense if the Strata Manager is “only the administrator”*, but in most OCs the Strata Manager is the most “experienced and qualified” in the room.
Responsibility should be able to be rightly attributed between Manager and Committee.
*The SCA says that:
“The Strata Manager is an administrator providing secretarial type services and does not provide expert serivces such as ESM(fire safety). OH&S (health and safety), supervision of buildig works, legal or financnial advice etc.”
https://vic.strata.community/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SCA-Vic-CoA-2024-User-Guide-for-Owners-Corporations.pdf)