Search for a strata manager

Skaboy12 – if you reckon McNamee’s are fantastic, you are either a relative, an employee or barking mad. Their incompetence is only exceeded by their laziness.

I think Canberra Unit Planning is pretty good actually although I’m sure, like with most things, it depends on who you’re dealing with. I am on a body corporate committee for one complex they manage and live in another they also manage and have found them excellent – Chris Miller with CUPS is fantastic, I highly recommend him if you can get him.

ACTSM on the other hand – absolutely horrific. We (body corporate committee and CUPS) keep uncovering unpleasant surprises (dodgy tradework, unaccounted expenditure) from our time with ACTSM. And the last 6 months with them when we were trying to keep them on track and gave them warning after warning that if they didn’t pull up their socks, they were out – acted like a 3 year old thrwoing a tantrum and didn’t do any work, didn’t return calls or emails, and were outright rude when confronted about things they were doing wrong.

Really though if you want some control over your living environment, get on the committee, go to AGMs, be active – don’t just sit back and complain.

as was pointed out, yes, it also depends on the size of the complex.
However bonfire – I’m curious, does your Body corporate have 10M in public liability that you’re required to have ?

I highly recommend McNamee, they have been fantastic for us the last couple of years.
I advise you to steer clear of Independant, I had nothing but problems with them as did several of my collegues.

ahhhh i have some experience in this area.

16 units – the professional manager was flicked and the owners met once every 6 weeeks at a rented room in a pub. eventually it became every three months.

some owners never came or cared but paid fees anyway.

as long as letters go out to them explaining what you are fdoing and why and how much, it should be ok.

if its a smallish place, you dont need ‘professionals’. saves you quite a bit of money.

blub – if you’re unhappy with the committee, run for election on the committee at your next AGM.
I will agree there are occasional errors with stuff IPG send out to us, but at the same time, I know our strata manager manages the complex in the best interests of the complex. There’s even a specific instance where, to my mind, i got rorted, but i understand why.. and the BC manager pusing the issue till i resolved it gave me confidence in their ability to do same if someone was doin somethin they shouldn’t

I am with Canberra Units Plan Service and they are crap. They don’t return your calls, do sh*t all.
I’ll just say I wouldn’t recommend them if you paid me.

We have rentals managed by ACT Strata Management and Independent – ACT Strata Management have been helpful and although slow at times (probably more to do with being in a larger complex and getting the Executive committee togther, which we are on). I much prefer their comparatively swift and professional service as compared to Independent, who have changed managing agent 4 times over the past 3 years, send out letters without attachments or quotes that they are supposed to contain, the executive committee are never called together, probably because nothing ever happens and they just raised the fees a whole bunch.

I’ve got ACT Strata. They do nada and have been often unwilling to provide advice to the committee. Not too happy with them – but them I’m not too happy with the committee either.

Third negative vote for Canberra Units Plan.

I concur. Stay away from Canberra Units Plan. They are arrogant and wont do a thing (like getting the unit exterior repainted) until really pushed.

Am a mortgaged to eyeballs owner occupier. Canberra Units Plan dutifully send out the whinges of the dominant faction and charge the standard fee per letter. Lesson, lobby hard to own the dominant faction or sell up to the next sucker.

Well I can say that Canberra Units Plan dutifully send out letters to all residents about the owner occupiers’ (about 10% of the complex) weekly whinge de jour. This weeks offering was about cats being put out at night.

Other than that they do fck all, and gratefully have lapped-up their management fees.

I’ve come to realise to never be an owner occupier in strata title developments.

Independant don’t do too badly managing our complex – they have to put up with a lot of shit from residents, and dealing with a bitch of a developer, and seem to handle it well.
We’re a new block too…

Well, my body corporate has used ACT Strata management for a while – I haven’t had any major complaints (then again, I’m not a major complainer) – minor issues like the contractors hired by them stuffing up my lawn when they re-did the waterproofing underneath it (my lawn is on the top of our block’s garage), but nothing too problematic.