Strata manager being too bossy?

We have always encouraged our owners/residents to go via the SM with any issues that needed attending too.  The SM is there 5 days a week, 9-5, to handle any correspondence and to attend to anything of urgency.  Members of your EC probably work 5 days a week, 9-5, so are not there to attend to correspondence from the complex every single day!  

We had instances here where owners left a note under the door of a committee member.  There is no record, its not official, and when it gets stuck under the door mat, its not seen!  And sending email to EC members directly, well alot of people do not necessarily check their email each and every day.

By sending correspondence to the SM, there is a more official “paper” trail.  The SM should note the correspondence, can attend to matters that need immediate attention themselves (safety usually) and can advise the EC of an issue that needs their attention/decision.  The SM can then follow up and ask for a reply.  

@Juan Durection said:
Flat Chatters, please. What do you think of the following letter I receive from strata manager after I email a couple of executive committee members about something I thought was being done that was wrong.

Hi Juan

Do not copy or send any emails to the committee please, as said by the minutes from the last meeting.

All emails and letters are to be through me.

The committee are volunteers and have little time to deal with all matters.

The purpose of having me as the strata manager is to deal with your issues and if needs be copy the committee when I believe it is necessary.

Please assist in this way.

Fred

Actually Fred/Juan,

If I received that letter I would have just accepted that is the way the EC works.  All correspondence through the SM.

Our EC accepts written (not emails!!!) in the Secretary’s designated letter box, or via the SM.

It looks like you … did not attend or read the Minutes of the last (committee) meeting.*

Maybe you, (and others) had been harassing the EC with multiple contact about things that you believe have not been ‘done’ correctly.

[*Post moderated – JT]

Juan, your EC has obviously decided they want all correspondence to be filtered through the Strata Manager (see reference in Fred’s letter to the EC minutes) and, as Struggler pointed out, that way there is a paper trail of some sort if people deny ever having heard there was a problem.

We’ve also heard that some ECs prefer not to publicise their email addresses or phone numbers, while others do.

If you think your EC needs to be more directly accessible, then it’s something you need to bring up at your next AGM and, if you feel strongly enough, you could run a ‘ticket’ of more communicative candidates.

If you’re worried about the Strata Manager filtering out valid issues, that’s another thing you can raise at your AGM or by presenting a motion for consideration by the EC that the Strata manager has to at least provide the Secretary with a list of communications received and that list has to be noted at each EC meeting.

The EC can decide the way they want to run things and if you think differently, you can propose a motion at the next AGM insisting that they change their methods.  I’m guessing here, but I would think you’d get mass resignations.

The one obvious problem in having the Strata Manager as the communications gatekeeper is where the complaints and questions are about the SM.  It’s a bit like writing to a company’s website to complain about how the website is run – who gets to read the complaint first?

But there are plenty of other ways around that, including a direct appeal to the other owners who are, after all, the bosses of both the EC and the Strata Manager.

@Juan Durection said:
“In our block it’s like a Catch 22 ……why be on the committee?”

 

Hi Juan – that last point seems most pertinent: to my way of thinking, that is when you would nominate yourself to be on the EC at the next AGM to effect the changes from within.

Hi Juan. You say “if we speak to the strata manager” are actually just verbally telling him something? If so, can I suggest you back up any conversation with an email starting with “further to our phone call of this morning” then restate what you had told him. Them, if he passes on the wrong or incomplete information, you can then send the email starting “please refer to my email of xx/xx/xx…..”. This is how I have dealt with our SM. Has everything gone smoothly with this method? No. But I have it all in writing. I ask them to explain themselves. And then have them come grovelling, making excuses etc. But then the work gets done and alls well. Until the next time and the process starts again. But if you only have a “verbal” it’s your word against his.

Get the paper trail happening. It’s the way to go.