IMHO: A quick strata fix is better than no fix at all

Subscribers to the Flat Chat Newsletter get a weekly dose of my personal musings on the topics of the week, along with our round-up of recent posts, so I though I would use this week’s homily to launch a new series of “random thought bubbles.” They won’t always be from the newsletter, nor will they always be about strata (but it usually will). Whatever their source, hopefully they will amuse, inspire or even infuriate you. I’m calling it IMHO but I’m open to (non-obscene) suggestions. You can sign up for the newsletter at the bottom of this page – JimmyT

COMMENT

There was only one show in town this past week – and I’m not talking about the Harris-Trump debate.

Of much more significance to our lives, even more than the circus around the selection of the next “leader of the free world’, was ABC Four Corners’ filleting of dodgy strata managers, despotic chairs and embedded insurance brokers in The Strata Trap.

Before the dust could settle, reporter Linton Besser kindly stepped in front of the Flat Chat podcast mike to let us in on how he felt after he, admittedly with some hesitation, stared pulling the threads on corruption and dodgy dealings in the strata industry.

Then, a day later, no fewer than ten top consumer and strata advocates – including consumer champions Choice – called for a federal inquiry into the strata industry

And the irony, as we learned from Four Corners, is that the man tasked with making some inroads into this sorry mess – strata commissioner John Minns – has been sidelined due to allegations of conflicts of interest.

As we sat at home watching the show, Sue and I looked at each other in despair at the extent and depth of dodgy dealings all over Australia. “Where do you start?” one of us said.

Well, you could begin by banning insurance commissions and limiting the number of strata properties each manager is expected to cover (based on their experience).

Then you could dismantle all the vertical integrations where strata management firms also own building managers, law firms, fire safety inspectors and insurance brokers. If these business structures weren’t deliberately designed to limit transparency and encourage kickbacks, they did a pretty good job of getting there by accident.

And then change the laws so that any developer, strata manager, lawyer or even committee chair who has deliberately misled apartment owners to line their own pockets, can be jailed for fraud. That’ll get the reform ball rolling.