I have a friend who can’t buy anything without spending days on the internet, researching what’s the best, newest, trendiest version of what he wants. I know plenty of others who do the same looking for the best value in everything from holiday flights to balcony furniture.
If you can do that for an electric toothbrush or a weekend B&B, shouldn’t you be able to have easy access to information for larger purchases like … a home, for instance? Pets or no pets? Strictly controlled or free-range parking? Zero tolerance on noise or is every night party night?
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a standard form that the strata managers filled in after every AGM which stated, in simple language, the state of play on the things that affect most people the most.
It could be a few standard issues with yes, no and “not applicable” boxes to tick and a space for additional comments. This could be held by the strata manager and issued on request or posted on a website.
Taking my own building as an example, the statement would say: we allow pets; we don’t allow short-term rentals; we employ an independent (non-developer) manager on three-year contracts; there are no parking problems; we are actively pursuing defect rectification; we pursue complaints of noise nuisance in the building.
I know of one building in Sydney where the list would read: we don’t allow pets: we do allow short-term rentals; we have a developer appointed on-site manager on a 20-year contract ; we don’t have parking problems; we are not pursuing defect rectification; we don’t pursue noise complaints.
That’s one piece of paper that would take five minutes to fill in yet say so much to prospective owners about the place into which they are about to pour several hundred thousand dollars. And the EC minutes would be there to back up or disprove any of it.
Too much information? Hey, if this would expose some unsavoury aspects of the way your building is run, isn’t the answer to fix them rather than allow more unsuspecting people to be duped into buying in?
What items do you thinks should be on a “state of play” statement ? Add your comment below.