Reply To: Strata Committee – Replaced by compulsory manager

@Kaindub wrote

The other owners will usually oppose the appointment of a compulsory strata manager, and would not come prepared with an alternate.

This sounds true, but in my case the Sec hired the current agent and seems close to him, so I expect the Sec to pony up to NCAT a quote from the current agent, not to mention NCAT may have its own list of possible agents.

So the disaffected owner gets to choose the compulsory strata manager. If it was me, I’d make sure thst manager was responsible.

I have a quote from a previous agent, who I found to be, like other agents, in the pocket of the strata committee. So was he “responsible”? I guess to the strata committee he was.

I have not met a “responsible” (to all owners) agent. While I have not had problems with many agents, because I don’t deal with them, I know that in every strata I am involved in someone has an issues, at times a major issue with the strata agent and I cannot tell if the respective lot owner complaint against the agent is justified, so cannot identify a “responsible” agent.

Having said that, I spoke to a strata manager about compulsory appointment. He said that firstly, their fees for such an appointment were several times the normal fee due to the amount of work and responsibilities.

The high fee you refer to may be when all charges are considered. The “sticker” or “base” price for the appointment that I am considering is a couple of hundred dollars above the “sticker” or “base” price of the current management agreement. I told the possible compulsory agent of the current fees we are paying. I have not waded into the 30 pages of T&Cs of the possible compulsory agent’s paperwork to estimate the “all up” cost. I can guess that every agent whose name comes forward as willing to take this job on will have similar detailed T&Cs, skewed, I’d wager to the agent’s favour.

You raise the issue of “the amount of work and responsibilities”. In big stratas I agree with you, but in this case of this small strata, there  are occasional R&M issues but nothing that requires “much work” or keeping an eagle eye out by anyone.

he looks to get the maintenance jobs done, but not necessarily at the lowest cost ie the work goes to their roster of tradies.

I agree. Sounds likely.

I don’t believe that a compulsory strata manager would line their pockets, but since there is no committee to question them, the owners don’t get the cheapest prices.

Again I agree.

Thanks.

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