Pip is a great proponent of strata rights management – partly, at least, because its his job to do so.
However, on-site managers are not a the magic bullet solution to overcrowded apartments – far from it.
In the past I have encountered managers who were running exclusive real estate businesses and short-term rentals for the benefit of non- resident owners, in defiance of the buildings’ own by-laws and local council planning approvals, and to the great detriment of residents, both owners and long-term tenants.
And that’s before you even mention the in-built corruption of developers selling strata rights management agreements to managers and then pushing approval of these contracts through the first AGM before owners have a chance to get themselves organised.
The manager than has to charge additional money to the Owners Corps to repay what they have paid the developers – and that’s before they even charge for the services they actually provide.
If the Strata Rights Management people could embrace a system where there was genuine transparency – where potential owners were informed that a building had an on-site manager who had paid X amount for the contract, had exclusive rights to let apartments and, by the way, this building is probably better suited to investor owners, then I would be more convinced.
But we don’t get that. Instead we get managers harvesting proxies from investors, then running the buildings to suit themselves and their ‘mates’, controlling the flow of information, and the owner residents can like it or lump it.
I have been banging this drum for nearly 10 years now and I have yet to have even ONE resident owner tell me they are glad they bought into a building with an on-site manager.
That said, I’m sure there are very good and diligent on-site managers looking after their buildings to the benefit of all owners. But to the average Joe or Jo looking to buy an apartment, there’s no way of telling the good from the bad until it’s too late.
It’s an entirely unregulated area of strata living where, yet again, the problem starts with putting more money in the developers’ pockets and nobody gives a damn about what happens after that.
What are the qualifications and training for an on-site manager? The law demands you undertake more training to be a cocktail barman.