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[chesswood]

Our strata manager seems to have a policy of never answering the phone. We don’t have a mobile number so we ring the office number. Invariably that goes to voicemail. If you’re lucky, the matter is dealt with the following day.

What happens if the matter is urgent?

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[Jimmy-T]

As our old friend Franceso Andreone pointed out a while ago, one of the most common strata management business plans means the less interaction they have with owners, the more profit they make (unless they are boosting their income with schedule B fees for every phone call and email).

That said, and I’m not being sarcastic here, what emergencies do you think might arise that required contact with the strata manager?

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[strataact]

Our Strata manager (for our ACT Class B Units) has an emergency contact number, used after hours for urgent maintenance requests – think plumbing emergency like blocked sewer .

The downside is of course, that any call to the emergency number results in sched B fee – I think it was $80 at the last instance.

From my POV the worst thing that happens out of this is that all that happens when you call the emergency number,  is the Manager emergency contact then gets the plumber to call the original caller, and organise to visit and fix the issue. Last time we had a problem, we just called the plumber direct, who came out and fixed the issue, billing the strata complex.  We advised the Strata manger by email what we had done.  Same outcome, and we saved the Schedule B fee.

 

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[chesswood]

By emergency, I mean anything that must be done almost immediately.

For instance, suppose the plumber is to fix the bathroom on Monday and the tiler is booked for Tuesday. The plumber can’t make it on Monday so someone has to call the tiler ASAP and negotiate. Obviously you can’t co-ordinate works like this if you never answer your phone. Yet I’m continually told that getting jobs done should be left to the strata manager.

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