It would be useful if strata managers were penalised heavily for breaking the law. If they must hand over details of the strata roll and refuse to do so or make amendments to the strata roll if asked by owners and refuse, then a fat fine, say for the first offence, $2,000 on the management firm and $1,000 on the individual himself/herself who refused to comply would be a good start.
Sometimes strata managers are ignorant of the law, sometimes they want a fee (to provide the roll) as it may fall under what the SCA contract calls “additional services” and sometimes they are just plain nasty.
Case in point: we have a manager in place for 18 months. Every time there is a need to access my premises (water issues etc) she would email me demanding access. Sometimes giving <24 hrs notice. I would then have to reach out to my tenant. Assuming I reached out in time.
As I don’t live on the premises, I asked for my tenant instead to be notified by the strata mgr directly. Strata mgr refused stating “I go by the names listed on the strata roll”. I replied that for 20 years I have not lived there and ALL previous strata managers complied with my requests to contact the relevant tenant. The latest strata manager continued to refuse to liaise with the tenant.
When a new committee was formed, which I joined, one member seemed to have a good relationship with the strata mgr. She asked the strata mgr on my behalf and presto: the tenant is now contacted directly by the strata mgr.
I am unsure if ignoring my instruction as to liaising with the tenant is evidence that the manager is vindictive or just ignorant of her obligations. But the fact that without a peep of dissent, she agreed to what I wanted when it came from another owner on my behalf.
Had the other committee member not been successful in obtaining the result she did, I would be compelled to complain to FT to ask the strata mgr to explain herself.