Reply To: How can we get a Royal Commission into NCAT?

I know saying that NCAT needs reform is preaching to the converted, but it highlights how the current batch of reforms to the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 is just tinkering around the edges.

The reality is that Strata Committees and Strata Managers can ride roughshod over the wishes of owners using well established tricks to avoid transparency – unhelpful access to records, paper EGM’s sprung at short notice, owner  motions ruled out of order, First AGM’s with BM and SM contracts pushed through bemused owners etc – and the only recourse that owners  have is to NCAT. Few owner applicants to NCAT would have got any satisfaction even if they had the stamina for the waiting and process.

We need to rethink reform of the Strata Schemes Management Act, not in terms of what strata committees and owners corporations will permit, but rather around what practical protection and recourse it can provide for strata owners where transparency is lacking or process abused. In practice a “You can take it  to NCAT” response will never be adequate.