Pay this block’s Strata Committee Members? Not in a pink fit!
Volunteers work longer and harder because they are doing something they care about.
Paying our current Strata Committee would not help. It is a closed shop, contriving to keep membership within a select group of new first-time owners and to the exclusion of owners who look to the long-term life of the property as opposed to a quick and profitable resale price. This would not be such a problem except none of these revolving committee members make the effort to attend relevant courses recommended by Strata Community Association NSW (or the like) so are ineffective. They don’t pursue warranty claims for work poorly done or not done to the brief; have continually put off the commencement of pricey balcony balustrade compliance work recommended by Council in 2014 and readily agreed to by the then OC; have the OC pay for repairs to private modifications to common property because (to allow them the benefit of the doubt) they know no better; installed fans rather than pursue the pricier recommendations of an engineers’ report to prevent a serious damp problem at the source; and have allowed common property to deteriorate to the point the property in general has grown shabby on their watch (albeit with fresh dry new carpet).
Paying committee members only when they complete a job would not work either, because it may encourage a practice which currently sees jobs cherry-picked to pretty-up an area ahead of pricey (and so perpetually delayed) maintenance work to combat damp that common-sense (and expert advice) would dictate be done ahead of temporary ‘cosmetic’ cover-ups. Paint over and sell up seems to be the motto.
Perhaps paying the Strata Committee could work in a block well-managed, but in a dysfunctional block with sky-high levies, it feels counter-intuitive.