Why I want to invoke s 57 us that there were no strata committee minutes approving such payments and yes, agent is delegated full responsibility per his strata agency agreement … owners can plead that they relied on agent for his expertise and that the agency did that.
Despite a long and chequered history of highly dodgy strata managers doing extremely dubious things, in NSW at least, no Strata Manager has ever been “struck off” for being really crap at their jobs.
In fact, someone from SCA once told me that they had pursued a case that involved many egregious examples of ignorance and deliberate breaches of the law against a (non-member) strata manager at Fair Trading, only to be told they were “pretty standard practice”.
I was told, several years ago, by the then head of Fair Trading’s section handling Strata Manager’s registrations that when they were given proof of poor behaviour by a strata manager, they would “counsel” the culprit to behave better and do nothing more.
The point I’m making is that going after the strata manager could be a massive waste of time and energy.
The lack of strata committee minutes is significant, but the strata manager will just say they were instructed by phone. Don’t forget that the committee can take back all or any of the roles delegated to the strata manager at any time.
Your problem will arise when the owners say the work done on their units was the repair of common property that was not required anywhere else.
This is one of the very few occasions when I would say that the compuslory appointment of a strata manager is probably your best option.