.. if JT reads this, it’s a call to get OCN to draft a contract that committees can put to their strata managers, or perhaps the government could draft a contract similar to what they have done for residential tenancies.
A couple of points:
- I read everything that appears on this forum (although I don’t always understand it).
- I am not nor ever have been a member of OCN (although we are on good terms).
- I believe OCN has been trying to formulate an independent and fair strata management contract for a while now, but it keeps butting up against issues of copyright (see item 4).
- In the past, as Kaindub mentions, efforts to adapt the standard SCA contract have met resistance from SCA claiming that the contract is their copyright and therefore it can only be altered with their permission. The fear is that the use of any legalisitic phrase in another contract, which is almost unavoidable, would trigger refusal at least and legal action at worst.
SCA members may not have a stated policy of only allowing its contract in an unadulterated form, but that’s effectively what they do. If we were in any other evolved jurisdiction, this might well be seen as operating a cartel. Ironically – that they can’t be seen to operate as a cartel – is the reason SCA’s predecessor ISTM used to give for not issuing a table of reasonable strata management fees.
Last year, SCA NSW instituted a government approved Professional Standards Scheme which, its website says, “has advanced consumer protections in New South Wales to the highest level nationally”.
According to the SCA NSW website its Strata Manager members are bound by a Code of Ethics that compels them to act “honestly, ethically and with a duty of care to their clients.”
According to another page on its website, the SCA Code of Ethics defines ethical behaviour as being ‘in accordance with the moral standards customarily applied in a business or professional relationship’.
It goes on to draw from the Property, Stock and Business Agents Act 2002 and Property, Stock and Business Agents Regulation 2014 – the laws that govern the behaviour of strata managers – rules regarding Fiduciary obligations, honesty, fairness and professionalism and acting in clients’ best interests while eschewing “high pressure tactics, harassment and unconscionable conduct”.
Is strata managers refusing to sign any contract except one that appears to be weighted excessively in their favour “high pressure tactics” or “unconscionable conduct”?
Marry that to their implied assertions that any strata manager who isn’t a member of the SCA has dubious standing in the industry, and any “take it or leave it” position seems to be unethical, by their own standards, at the very least.
Kaindub’s idea that the state government should create its own standard strata management agreement has a lot of merit. Maybe the new Fair Trading minister will make that one of her first priorities (ROFL).