I don’t disagree that strata titling can and does work in Queensland, to some extent. But I am not convinced that the pre-sale of management rights reduces the cost of apartments, and certainly not at levels that would justify the negative impacts on apartment owners over the breathtakingly extended terms of some contracts.
It is a layer of additional control that serves no other purpose than to extract more money from apartment owners. Other states have building managers and caretaker managers who survive on terms of less than 10 years and keep their contracts by the simple expedient of doing a good job. The reverse of that is that when the provision of service is contingent on profitability, profits take precedence over quality of service.
I recall the media release sent out by a prominent management rights trader a few years ago telling NSW developers that the were naive for not mining the potentially lucrative area of pre-sale of management rights. It speaks to the blinkered attitudes of these people that they didn’t realise that this was illegal everywhere in Australia except Queensland.
Yes, Queensland is unique – but not always in good ways.