Strata managers in Canberra - Recommendations wanted!

Good idea. I am on three OC’s (one in UK) and am very unhappy with the management of the two in Canberra. Civium is good at collecting money but ignores what we want, has “fixed” charges and takes commissions on everything.

Give Warren Day (Strata Difference) a call on 0410 703 535. His wife Sian is director of Property Difference featured on The Canberra Word of Mouth here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1125111314181239

Thanks GM2617. I’m hoping others will put down some thoughts too. Thank you for yours.

I was waiting with baited breath to see what responses would be posted to this question as the apartment block where I live will also be needing to process a new strata management agreement soon.

In the absence of any decent recommendations in the past, our Executive Committee (EC) had decided earlier this year that we will create a comprehensive list of requirements for the ongoing service we want, which is based on our current agreement and the good and bad issues that have arisen over the past few years. We then intend to invite a range of companies to submit an offer so we can create some competitive tension.

We want the terms and conditions to include some clauses that would incentivise a strata manager to provide a quality service rather than seek to apply penalties if the strata manager fails to provide some aspect of the service specified in the requirements.

We also think there could be merit in exploring whether a group of Owners Corporations (OC) who want the same services delivered, to consider combining their requirements into a “multi-OC contract” (for want of a better term at this time) to offer a larger contract price to property management companies that are better qualified and resourced to offer a consistent service in parallel to multiple customers. The problem we have discovered so far is that EC’s are not easy to connect with. And we think it would be easiest to start this idea with OC’s that are located in the same geographic area to make meetings easier to convene. If the concept works locally, then someone could take on the task to explore whether the idea would work across a region. Applying the concept across state boundaries would be more problematic due to the different property laws in each state.

So once we have our list of requirements ready for tender, we will see if we can use this forum or the OCNACT to explore whether there is any interest from other OC’s located in the ACT, in establishing a MULTI – OC strata management contract.