Let’s face it, 17 years of 80 percent of cleaning bills is going to amount to a lot of illicit payments. And, since they are strata managers, they can’t claim that they didn’t know they couldn’t use the strata cleaners for their own offices.
It’s tricky, but this would be my tactic:
1. Work out how many years of this you can prove.
2. Tell them that becasue of the delay in claiming, you will accept a refund of 50 per cent of the provable cleaning bills.
3. If they refuse, tell them you will take a complaint against them at Fair Trading, and action against them in the local courts (NOT NCAT) for recovery of the overpayments.
4. You will ensure maximum publicity for the case if and when it goes to court because dodgy strata managers are in the spotlight right now.
5. (which should have been 1) talk to a lawyer.