The statutory appointment of a strata manager under Section 163 (3) – where no such appointment has been sought by parties in dispute but the adjudicator has decided that the strata scheme is not functioning to the extent that one is required – is a relatively rare occurrence, so much so that I have never received a single email about this in the 10 years I have been writing Flat Chat.
I would see this as an order of ‘last resort’ by an adjudicator who can see no other way of getting a strata scheme back on track. This is very different from an owner or group of owners requesting such an appointment and should not be relied upon as a probable outcome in a case.
When owners request a statutory appointment, they are expected to have already contacted a strata manager who has agreed to take over when appointed. NB: This doesn’t mean the strata manager is working for the plaintiffs, just that he or she has agreed to take on the case.
In the past, when statutory appointments were made, I believe the CTTT had a panel of strata managers to whom they could turn. I would assume this is the system they would use under a 162(3) order since the owners can’t be expected to come with an SM in tow if they don’t know one is about to be appointed.
If the appointment of a statutory manager is what you want, then you should find one prepared to take on the role and apply accordingly, presenting as strong an argument as you can for this order.
Don’t hope that an adjudicator will intuitively reach this conclusion because they probably won’t.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the statutory strata manager can take over all the powers of the Owners Corp and the existing strata manager. In this case (pages 11-13 of this document) one owner refused to recognise the levies set by the statutory SM who had held a general meeting to establish the budget for the scheme.
But the only ‘mistake’ the SM had made was to hold the meeting – this was not required under the Act since he had been given all the powers and functions of the Owners Corporation and could make any decisions about the running of the building that were required.
This doesn’t exactly answer your question but it does shed some light on the absolute powers available to an appointed Strata Manager.