What service should we expect from our Strata Manager

Hi Jen,

The first place to look to see what you should be getting from your Strata Manager (SM) is your agency agreement. If you have a good SM they will be using an istm agreement and the agreed services will be listed in schedules A1 and A2 of the agreement, firstly showing what authority they have to do what services and secondly showing what is included in the management fee and what can be done for an additional cost.

You must also be cognizant of the old saying ‘you get what you pay for’. If you have a low management fee, your strata manager is likely to need to manage a bundle of buildings to be profitable.

SCA otherwise known as the Institute of Strata Title Management is offering executive committee training, which will help to explain what an EC member’s role is and also role of the SM. Also local council’s are providing informative sessions for owners in strata, such as the one being run by Sutherland Shire Council in August.

In the first place, it may be worthwhile talking to the Licencee of your current SM company to see if they may be able to offer EC member training, as most are very happy to help keep their clients very happy.

Hope this helps!

Ilkin is the authoritative book although some might find it a little dry and legalistic. When in doubt, I sneak off to the Strataman website which isn't interactive (like this one) but has good, nuts and bolts answers to basic questions in a language that even dunderheads like me can understand.

When anyone goes shopping around for a new strata manager (or even getting quotes from tradies) you should always get them to state what exactly they are going to do for the money.  People will always think that they are getting a bargin if the price is less, but they may actually be getting less.

We had to have common property lighting replaced.  We got a couple of quotes.  Residents were keen on the cheaper one.  Problem was, the cheaper one didn't say what work would be carried out.  The expensive one stated the type of lights, which lights would be replaced and how the work would be carried out.  We eventually went for this quote.  The same goes for strata managers.  What are they going to do for the money?

 Also residents, the OC and the EC have to realise that they are not the only complex a strata manager has on their books.  You have to keep on top of things to make sure everything gets done.  You cannot sit back and think that the SM will act.  But people believe that having an SM means they just know everything.  One of our owners complained to me that our SM didn't organise to fix something in the complex.  Alarmed, I asked when he advised that this was a problem.  He said he hadn't told them.  He just thought they would know!

Don't want anyone thinking the above makes me pro SM's.  I don't think ours is great, and that is with us constantly getting onto them.  But you cannot ask a SM to organise an inspection/works/correspondence, not hear anything and not see anything and sit back and think that it must be done.  Ring them up, ask for email confirmations, keep on top of them.  If ours makes a mistake or slip up, creates a delay etc we make them write to all owners/residents (at their cost) and explain themselves. 

So get your SM to list what exactly his/her duties are for your complex, ie what services the SM provides for his fees (or drag out original any info provided with management agreement).  And get same from other SMs.