Reply To: Brell quits top SCA roles as Netstrata saga rolls on

Not sure about this but I don’t think strata schemes come under consumer law, something the strata commissioner says he is looking to fix.  At least he won’t now have the SCA looking in one direction and making all the appropriate noises but pulling in the other.

My advice to all owners at their First AGM is now to tell the strata managers you are only there to elect a committee, the committee will look at the contracts, including the strata managers’ and come back in six weeks and approve them or otherwise. If any of the potential contractors aren’t happy with that – strata managers included – they can bugger off and they’ll find someone else to do the job.

In your specific case, Netstrata colluded with or at the very least enabled the developers, the contractors and service providers to stitch the owners up and it’s only regretful that your owners didn’t spot all the dubious deals before the seal was applied to some of the contracts. Even then Netstrata seem to have done their best to avoid the owners being informed about what had occurred (and their CEO was 100 per cent behind them).

The NSW government has been led by the nose by SCA-NSW who must surely now have their “professional” status closely examined.  Attendees at meetings hosted by John Minns when he was merely Property Services Commissioner, relate that he would sit at the head of the tale with now resigned SCA-NSW President Brell on one side and his predecessor and now National SCA President Chris Duggan on the other.

The code of conduct attached to that has several clauses about acting openly, honestly and in the best interests of the customers.  It’s now clear that to some prominent members of the SCA, all that meant was a badge of honour that allowed them to continue their dodgy dealings without serious scrutiny.

By the way, I briefly hooked into Amanda Farmer’s online chat on Friday where both I and strata law academic Cathy Sherry said the same thing – the strata managers who set up a scheme for the developers should not be the same company that then manages the scheme.

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