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Our small northern sydney beaches apartment building has a long established strata manager. Because of the age and general deterioration of the building, we require regular contractor work to be done on plumbing, lighting and general building works. The executive committee (EC) keep a pretty tight reign on delegated authority, and asked the strata manager to refer copies of the contractor invoices to the EC for payment. Since doing this, it has become apparent that the strata manager has not previously required much information on the contractor invoice, before agreeing to pay. Our concerns were further raised, when they refused to put their name to a standard notice, to accompany each order on “do and charge” work, that required basic details to be included on the invoice, including time of arrival and departure, service call cost if any, billing hours and hour rate charged, and material cost list. It would seem they felt contractors would be affronted in having to provide this information, when they hadn’t in the past, and that it implied distrust. Our EC have since modified the form to delete any reference to the strata manager, but are insisting it still be sent with purchase orders for non quoted work, and that no invoice be forwarded for authorisation, unless it meets the requested format. Further inquires with friends who have strata residential properties suggest this practice by strata managers of not insisting on basic information on invoices for minor audit purposes, is widespread. Accordingly, is the trust we are placing in Strata managers missplaced, and are they obusing this trust by not exercising reasonable business practice, to ensure fair value for money on behalf of their strata plans?. Are contractors getting away with daylight robbery, due to lazy or disinterested strata manager or worse still, are strata managers getting kick backs for allowing contractors to charge what they like for “do and charge” work, by resisting billing that offers an opportunity for audit
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