In view of the recent mid-term elections in the USA and the fact that strata is often called the fourth level of government here in Australia, we thought we’d explore the highly hypothetical notion of what it would be like to have a Trump in your strata scheme.

Would owners rather have their building run by a strata Trump – a Strump – a bully who gets stuff done, or have their block controlled by an occasionally chaotic democracy that sometimes couldn’t order a round of drinks without taking a secret ballot?

Many people would happily trade a little loss of democratic process for someone who makes clear decisions and does the hard work that means they don’t have to. It’s the principle of ‘at least Mussolini made the trains run on time”.

But could anyone really become a dictator, benign or otherwise, in strata?  There are compulsory strata committee elections every year, after all, and the committee can replace the chair with a simple majority vote at any time (although they can’t sack them from the committee).

However, in NSW owners can do so, with a simple majority at a general meeting to remove any or all of their committee members. If that doesn’t work, the Tribunal can order members’ removal if they are seriously dysfunctional.

Effort and organisation

But all of that requires effort and considerable organising and Strumps prosper because most owners are reluctant to provide either, which is how they can acquire total and permanent control of a strata committee, and therefore a building.

So how does this work? First of all, obviously, they need to get onto the committee and they usually do that by offering expertise – usually in the form of proven business acumen, legal skills or even a charismatic personality – and either get elected at an AGM or when a mid-term vacancy arises allowing them to be co-opted to fill it. 

Mid-term vacancies between AGMs can be legally filled by the committee selecting a replacement to serve out the rest of the departed member’s term. In that regard, Strump’s schmoozing the current chair and volunteering to help with onerous tasks in advance works wonders.

Hobby farm

This role is perfect for a retired business person who has the time to do all the work and still has a desire to flex their boardroom muscles. Think of the strata scheme as their hobby farm and you get the picture.

Then they work hard at proving their worth, which has the added benefits of helping the building while subtly undermining the incumbent office-bearers.  Having a manipulative schemer on your committee may be a small price to pay when it means there’s at least someone working for free to make things better.

Once they have proven their value, they have to make a choice.  Do they push the Chair out, or aim to replace the Secretary? The role of Chair is good for the ego but as soon as they do that, they become a target for all sorts of criticism, whether it’s well-intentioned suggestions of alternatives or mean-spirited accusations of incompetence, bullying and even corruption.

By the way, your Strump is rarely corrupt – they’re too smart to risk everything by raiding the biscuit tin or taking kickbacks from favoured tradies.  It’s the power and occasional glory that they crave, not cash.

However, I have heard of strata chairs who, having convinced everyone that they’re indispensable, then persuade owners to award them retrospective payments at their AGM – under NSW strata law, office-bearers can only be paid for the previous year. Some have even told their AGM that they won’t continue for the next year unless they get payment for the last one – which sounds like a win-win from unconvinced owners’ point of view, but the other owners usually cave in.

Worth fighting for

Eventually your Strump realises it’s vitally important to control the message coming out of the committee. They don’t have a media person promoting their policies at a Press conference, so a Strump may offer to be secretary, taking the most onerous job on the committee away from the incumbent.

The current secretary may be glad to surrender the position but if they don’t show any signs of quitting of their own accord, a few well-timed arguments, pointing up mistakes they may have made and generally humiliating them in front of the rest of the committee can speed things along.

Is it worth Strump’s effort? Secretary is perhaps the one role on the committee that’s worth fighting for.  It’s the secretary who has the real power on any committee and it’s the only strata committee officers’ role that’s clearly defined in the NSW strata Act. The chair is only required to chair meetings – end of story.

The secretary’s duties include the ability to call general and committee meetings, set agendas and in NSW check to see if other committee members have completed compulsory training and kick them off the committee if they haven’t. They also issue all communications with the owners.

So now your Strump is chair and secretary, so while they’re at it, they may as well offer to take over the role of treasure and it’s not at all unusual for one committee member to have all three roles.

Now they have all three levers of control but they still have to deal with the other committee members. Chances are they have inherited a rag-tag bunch of sticky-beaks, seat-warmers, levy-limiters and nay-sayers … or ordinary owners, for want of a better collective description.

They need to get the ones who tend to argue with their point of view off the committee as soon as possible so that there is less time wasted with pointless arguments, having to explain everything to people who they know for sure are too dumb to understand their reasoning. This is easily done provided they have the patience and killer instinct of a stray cat.

Some of this will happen organically.  Strata committee members will sell their flat and move on in the natural churn of ownership of apartments, creating vacancies. Others will give up because of the strife and stress (especially if Strump manufactures enough).

Ruthless

And this is where they must be ruthless.  These positions must never be vacant at the AGM. They cannot risk their empty seats being available to any random owners who can gather enough votes to get themselves elected. So they persuade anyone who is thinking of leaving to do so between AGMs.

That way they can nominate others to fill the seats – obviously they’ll choose people who will go along with their wishes or who are too naive to realise what’s really happening – and the others on their committee will do their bidding and vote them on. Progressively, the more acolytes they can get on the committee, the easier this becomes.

Your Strump, meantime, will be careful to maintain a façade of transparency, inviting all owners to apply to join the committee even though they may already have approached their preferred candidates. Businesses do this all the time – fulfilling their obligations to consider qualified candidates while knowing in advance who they are going to appoint.

When it gets to the AGM, there probably won’t even be an election. Any smart Strump will circulate the names of trusted owners who have volunteered to carry proxies, especially for investors who don’t know anyone in the building or whose preferred proxy holder has exceeded their limited allocation of votes (one per 20 lots in the scheme).

It’s an imperfect system but it at least curbs the excesses of what former Fair Trading Minister Victor Dominello called “the scourge of proxy farming.”

At the AGM, the incumbent committee members – including those co-opted mid-term – will nominate for all the vacant seats and the election will only go to a vote if some naive outsider stands, not realising they have zero chance of being elected. If this happens, the trusted proxy holders will step up and use their multiple votes to make sure the intruder fails.

Naming and shaming

Getting back to the newsletters and minutes.  This is where Strumps make the most of their executive powers.  Like Trump on Truth Social, as secretary they can use agendas, minutes and newsletters to push their preferred solutions to problems – why would they consider anyone else’s –  trumpet their own achievements and belittle anyone who dares to question their decisions.

Naming and shaming of anyone who poses any threat to their authority is a potent weapon, especially when the people they attack have no right of reply. If anyone objects to this personalisation of strata politics, your Strump will point out that they have a duty to inform owners about everything happening in the strata scheme.

And as for defamation, it’s a legally well-established principle that there’s a lot of leeway in the cut and thrust of strata debates and that it’s more important to have a free and open discussion that it is to protect anyone’s delicate sensibilities. As objectors retreat into silence over time, Strump’s voice rapidly becomes the only one the owners hear – if they even bother to read their minutes which, in my experience, the majority of strata owners don’t.

Now, however dubious the above tactics may seem, there is absolutely nothing illegal about any of it. It’s all perfectly compliant with NSW strata law, and regulations elsewhere in Australia too.

That’s one of the reasons their strata manager is highly unlikely to criticise. In fact  and they may well prefer it that they get clear instructions and don’t have to deal with democratic dithering.  Also, it’s not part of their job to advise on how the scheme is run, provided it’s done so legally. If they did rock the boat, in true Trump-world style, they might not be around for much longer.

Why would anyone go to such extraordinary lengths to be a strata dictator? Well, if they honestly believe that they are smarter or better informed than anyone else, there is no other logical path to follow. Why would they allow less able people to make decisions that affect their lives and the value of their property? Also, when they do more than their share of hard work for the strata scheme, they may feel that it entitles them to a certain level of executive authority.

Triumphal arch

Okay, if the block is being run efficiently, what’s wrong with having a chair who gets the trains running on time? Perhaps it’s the sneaking suspicion that things could be better, there should be room for new ideas and fresh voices, and the Strump’s obsessions are not necessarily the best options.

They could be keeping the levies as low as possible at any cost to the fabric of the building or the sense of community.  Or it might be propose prestigious and expensive Rolls Royce solutions to problemswhen cheaper but less noteworthy options are available.

Your Strump may not build a triumphal arch or a gold-plated ballroom, but they might decide to redesign the lobby to be more in their preferred style or propose filling in the swimming pool to save on running costs, and bully the committee into supporting the plans.

There’s an old saying that anyone who trades freedom for security deserves neither. In strata, it could be said that anyone who trades democracy for an easy life and lower levies will get exactly what they deserve.

Of course, all of this is entirely fanciful, hypothetical and fictional. There are no Strumps in NSW strata that I know of who have done all of the above. But there will be someone, somewhere who has done some of it.

In any case, surely if this nightmare scenario occurred here in Australia, ordinary owners would eventually rise up like American voters in the mid-terms and get rid of the Strumps and their enablers.

Maybe, but there’s one condition …. it would only be if they didn’t have to take their places and do any of the hard work themselves.

Do you have a Strump in your block?  Click on the link to the forum below and reply – no names please!