Strata manager myth made ‘fact’ in SMH

Can we just make something clear? Strata Community Association (NSW), the strata managers’ professional group, does NOT represent strata owners, residents or tenants. 

Why would anyone even think that? They are the professional body for strata managers and some service providers, right?

Well, in an otherwise sound Sydney Morning Herald expose of problems in strata, it said exactly that, identifying SCA-NSW as representing strata owners and tenants.

Now, to be fair, the SCA has had an owners sections in the past, but they didn’t represent owners then and they don’t now, any more than frequent flyer programs represent airline passengers.

We strata owners are their clients and their customers, not their constituency.  Many schemes – about half at the last count – don’t even have strata managers, so how can anyone think strata managers represent us?

And if you want to test this theory, take a complaint against your strata manager to the SCA and see what happens (bearing in mind that you have to be a member of the SCA before you can make a complaint). You’ll soon find out who represents whom.

Adding considerable edge to this issue, strata managers comprise the one group of professionals, more than any others, with whom strata owners are likely to be in conflict.

Why?  Because strata managers work for strata owners to advise and assist them.  Many do, and do so very well.  Some don’t – and when you complain, that’s when you find out who SCA-NSW really represents.

The point is, they are the professionals most likely to come into contact (and therefore potential conflict) with strata owners.

Strata managers also work for developers – and arguably make more money out of them than they do out of strata owners.  Do they represent them?  Ask a developer and stand well back in case they explode.

And, seriously, can strata managers “represent” strata owners while a huge chunk of their income is from the other group with which they (strata owners) are most likely to be in dispute?

Now, to be clear, there is no evidence that SCA-NSW told the SMH journo that they represented owners and tenants, but neither party is rushing to correct the record. The SMH journo was given the opportunity to amend the report online, at least, but told me “it depends what you mean by represent”.

OK, this is what the Cambridge Dictionary says “represent” means: “to speak, act, or be present officially for another person or people”; Oxford Words says: “be entitled or appointed to act or speak for (someone), especially in an official capacity”; the Collins English Dictionary says: “to act as or be the authorized delegate or agent for…”

Those emphases are mine but I just want to be clear that in this context “represent” requires the person or people or body represented to be officially appointed as that representative. 

And that’s what really worrying.  When misinformation becomes embedded in a “newspaper of record” it soon gets repeated and repeated until it’s accepted “fact”.

So, for the record, in case any journalists and especially editors and sub-editors are reading this, owners in NSW are represented by the Owners Corporation Network, tenants are represented by Tenants NSW, developers are represented by their own self-interest groups and most strata managers, but not all, are represented by SCA.

And there’s another question: if the SCA doesn’t represent all the strata managers in NSW, and not all owners employ strata managers – as very many don’t – how can anyone claim SCA represents strata owners?  Time for a reality check, methinks, and an online correction in that SMH article.