Reply To: Victoria: A shambolic state of strata chaos

Just to be clear, the comments that I have made are not based on what strata owners in Victoria and only strata owners in Victoria do – it’s based on 20 years of writing about strata in NSW  and elsewhere in Australia and getting feedback from all over the country.

Victoria is not unique in having strata committees that will do anything to keep levies (fees) down or will keep owners in the dark about their decisions or neglect to maintain common property.  Far from it.  My point is that the situation has been ripe for exploitation and Victoria would be unique if no one was exploiting it.

I don’t doubt that you didn’t experience any of that in your strata schemes – I haven’t in mine – but other people have and do.  Just look at the letter – the one you criticised for wanting “strata cops” to come and fix the problem.  That is a very different experience to the one you had.  It doesn’t invalidate your experience and yours doesn’t make theirs any less believable.

And as for the committee decisions and minutes – that’s all fine if the committees obey the law.  But what happens when they don’t?  Call the non-existent strata cops? Or maybe pressure the government and ask them to make the law work for everyone.

That’s what we did in NSW and it’s now paying off.

For the record, my position is that strata schemes may have ignored basic maintenance and that led to leaks and internal deterioration.  People make small decisions with big consequences and as long as the owners think everything is OK, they tend not to want to spend more than they have to.

You description of the barriers to legal action is pretty much what I said – there’s no disagreement there.  If anything, if reinforces my point.

With your experience in strata you will know that only a small number of people want to even attend AGMs, let alone stand for strata committees.  People who do join committees do so for a number of reasons – some to serve the community, some to protect their investment and some to take that a stage further and make sure not a cent is spent that doesn’t obviously need to be spent.

Our correspondent wrote about a long-term maintenance plan that had no budget and therefore had never had any money spent on maintenance.  The Committee refused to communicate with them and they were fobbed off with excuses and complaints about their inquiries.

When the committee and strata managers hide information from owners,  a consequence is that owners don’t know what’s going on (obviously). Why then would the vote them off?

Unless you get involved, you don’t know how much is being hidden or misrepresented. And why would an average person who doesn’t realise they are being led up the garden path, get involved until the damage has been done?

That was our correspondent’s reality and she is not alone.  She and others in her situation don’t need strata cops – they need one of the many agencies that are supposed to protect apartment owners and residents – when a problem is brought to them – just to do their jobs.

As I said before – these issues are not unique to Victoria – what’s different is that it seems the Victorian authorities and many owners have zero interest in addressing them.

And as for my earlier comments about journalist putting these issues in the too-hard basket, I’ve written to a colleague at the Age offering them a cracking story and haven’t even an acknowledgement.

That’s how low a priority strata is in Victoria – it’s too hard and nobody cares.