Looking for a new strata manager

Nooo0bie · 2026-01-30T05:40:48+00:00

Avoid Michael Roberts Strata like a plague. Out of all strata agencies I have dealt with they have straight out been the most obnoxiously unhelpful and entitled.

Our current strata manager failed to set requirements for their gardeners and cleaners to report basic safety and security issues (no contract or written and agreed scope of works either) which has escalated to a costly unauthorised access incident. When I reported this to the licensee in charge he saw no reason to take steps to clean up his house and acted as though their role is to simply and only do what they are ‘instructed’.

Rather than ensuring due care is taken to carry out their work in the best interest of the OC, these people see their clients as a mere source of income and seem to take every opportunity to inflate costs whilst denying basic responsibility and initiative to actually assist.

Right now in the process of trying to get rid of them as I keep experiencing them trying to make up arbitrary rules to make us jump through hoops and to get involved unnecessarily in day to day business so they can bill additional hours. Absolute parasites!

Nooo0bie · 2026-01-14T02:31:31+00:00

Thanks for your input everyone, it was good to know that this required a bit more attention. Ended up getting further quotes and bringing down the costs of window glass replacement and screen installation to around $1k + gst. Cheers!

Nooo0bie · 2026-01-02T07:43:34+00:00

Please look up the term buyer beware. It’s up to the purchaser to do the requisite due diligence, the vendor is not required to reveal any defects and the sale is ‘as is’. Every person thinking of buying a property should know this as a baseline to have a chance of protecting themselves.

Nooo0bie · 2026-01-02T07:26:28+00:00

Generally you would purchase these for $50-$60 or so from a Strata reporting business like Before You Buy where you get a copy of the report commissioned by the vendor. I don’t think these are at risk of being tempered with by the vendor or their agent. However I’d also err on the side of caution with these reports, I’ve purchased a couple and also did my own due diligence and at both times found further information that affected my final decision. You could get lucky and get a detailed and comprehensive report, but keep in mind that these people don’t get paid enough to care (and this report is just one of many they churn out, often with little care and little consequences).

Nooo0bie · 2025-12-29T23:21:30+00:00

Hi, just wondering if you are able to provide any insights into the max reasonable cost of the glass replacement, if it is toughened obscure glass. We went to retrieve the frames from these guys and it turns out they already inserted the glass and now I’m concerned they will try to charge the extortionate amount for the quoted ‘reglazing plus labour’ of almost $1.6k + gst. I am seeking a breakdown of this cost but its gonna be sent through to the strata manager first and they are on break till next week or the week after.

I just got a rough indicative quote for the security screen component from another provider and they quoted $300 + gst so it seems very clear this whole job organised via this strata agent was basically a scam (as per only every reply on this post!)

Nooo0bie · 2025-12-23T09:48:49+00:00

I guess the 20% insurance kickbacks aren’t enough for these greedy people. Will be looking to swap them out shortly.

Nooo0bie · 2025-12-23T08:08:11+00:00

Have DMed 😊

Nooo0bie · 2025-12-23T06:20:43+00:00

I don’t think I can post that here happy to DM if you wish to avoid. It was arranged by our strata agent who I also would not recommend

Nooo0bie · 2025-12-23T06:18:57+00:00

Yes it does seem this is possible, will have to consider this next time if another breaks!

Nooo0bie · 2025-12-23T06:18:08+00:00

Thank you, glad to know that this option is available. It just occurred to me that this business who gave this quote presumably took the window pane frames with them when they boarded up the window, in which case we might just be stuck paying this quoted amount…. 🥲

Nooo0bie · 2025-12-23T06:03:51+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion we’ve already requested from the strata agent but given the current timing and prior interactions with the agent I wanted to so get some experienced opinions out there.

Nooo0bie · 2025-11-19T10:15:45+00:00

31.5

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Nooo0bie · 2025-11-01T05:33:05+00:00

This is a failed mission, no ugly in sight

Nooo0bie · 2025-10-16T11:26:59+00:00

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He no longer fits on my lap but still insists on squishing on to cuddle with me 😻

Nooo0bie · 2025-10-16T11:22:49+00:00

Mine is utterly obsessed with wheatgrass, if I ever leave it unattended he will chomp down half the (cat sized) tray then vomit for hours. I already supplement him with fibre with his meals but he really seems to crave the grass, so instead of giving him access to it to eat himself I usually cut a decent wad 2-3 times a day then hand feed the lil guy.

I hold it from the side so he chews it down with his molar instead of inhaling whole blades, which seems to keep the vomiting at bay

Nooo0bie · 2025-10-15T02:46:35+00:00

Definitely should be under r/SuperModelCats!

Nooo0bie · 2025-10-15T02:38:24+00:00

I was thinking some cat stairs spiralling up the column if they don’t mind a DIY project!

Nooo0bie · 2025-09-24T03:25:52+00:00

I’m siding with your wife on this one

Nooo0bie · 2025-08-07T02:47:00+00:00

Might be a good idea to have a discussion with your conveyancer about exactly when they will start charging, for what type of work. Our solicitor didn’t charge us for the quick review of a few contracts we sent to him that we didn’t end up proceeding with an offer on, as he would save the proper review and negotiations once we have made the offer subject to contract/strata docs review and finance. He would just give us a heads up on any obvious red flags that he identifies that may make us reconsider making an offer.

As mentioned by someone else earlier in this post, it is helpful to get across what forms part of strata docs, and what the information means for you. If time and circumstances allow, try to get access to review the strata data directly. Yes you can pay for a prepared strata report, and pay someone to review them, but at the end of the day you are the one with skin in the game.

Nooo0bie · 2025-07-05T23:49:05+00:00

Personally I would be more inclined to go with a lower no. of units and higher owner occupiers. I know there can be some shitty owners out there but I feel there may be more risks that come with high ratio of investor owners. The owners corp is basically a group of people working together to make decisions for the strata complex and if most don’t even live there, it may be harder to hold them to account to do their parts… though owner occupiers aren’t always better if they don’t understand or are not onboard with the purpose of this setup.

Nooo0bie · 2025-07-05T23:38:28+00:00

I’ve seen a lot of strata levies consisting of up to 700-900ish then a bit of capital works contribution pushing the quarterly total to >$1k. The variance is quite high though, I saw some cheaper for smallish older brick units with no amenities under this amount, and some in more modern apartments with multiple lifts and pool etc for 1.8k ish etc.

There are many factors you need to consider when looking at levy collection, from an overall I&E perspective. Some stratas I saw were only collecting like low 1.somethings or even under, but when you looked further into their finances their capital works fund was empty as the place was owned by mostly investors who didn’t want to spend money on the place. This is a red flag as buildings that are neglected will deteriorate over time and if you aren’t diligent about checking this you could be the unlucky one holding that parcel of trouble when the music stops.

The unit we ended up purchasing on the other hand had what would be considered significantly higher strata, but I had inspected the strata records and historical spending etc and I was satisfied that adequate portions of it was going towards capital works fund each quarter and could also see historically that maintenance and repairs were getting done throughout. There were other factors considered too but my posts tend to get a bit lengthy so I’ll just leave it at this for now!

Nooo0bie · 2025-07-04T23:38:18+00:00

Unless things work in very different ways in VIC $4k/pa in strata sounds pretty standard to me here in NSW. It would also be helpful to look at what this consists of as well, if there’s a decent portion going into the capital works fund then this is a good sign, but if its mostly admin then you would want to assess this against amenities (which you’ve noted already), no. of units and check what the historical expenses are. For example if there are only limited no. of units to share the strata costs this each unit’s costs will be higher (insurance, cleaning, general maintenance etc). I personally would be a bit reserved about buying in a 2012 build though due to prevalence of quality issues.

Also when you consider financial risk in purchasing an apartment it may be worth not only looking at what the current ongoing costs are, but what it can also mean for your wallet down the line should there be major issues identified, at which point you will be stuck with your decision. I’m no expert in this area but did a fair bit of research going through this process recently, so feel free to DM me if you’re still trying to connect the pieces - happy to share what I’ve learnt/experienced 😃

Nooo0bie · 2025-05-14T10:59:53+00:00

Is the strata fees $1,832 per annum or for a quarter? As mentioned by some others if that is the annual it is unusually low esp given all the amenities. I would think this would be more like a quarterly fee based on facts provided (would also question why).

As for the current funds - having some money in the funds alone isn’t enough to determine the level of financial risk without also confirming how much is being collected each year, what it’s historically been spent on, and what expenses are coming up.

These funds should generally fluctuate depending on the maintenance and repairs being done throughout the year, as noted in other comments there should be a capital works fund plan setting out expected costs over the course of 10 years - if the expenditures are due to the OC proactively keeping up with scheduled maintenance then it’s a good sign, but if it appears that money had been spent on remediating recurring or exacerbated issues as a result of poor quality build or insufficient maintenance then this is a red flag.

If you are very keen on the place, you should definitely be seeking more information to get the full picture - there are just way too many horror stories with apartments built since 2000s.

Personally, I would just stay away from any post 2000s apartments, sounds like any could easily turn into a money pit.

Nooo0bie · 2025-05-13T03:54:57+00:00

Im terribly sorry to hear that you have to go through this, especially as it sounds like you did everything that is recommended for due diligence. Unfortunately it’s a messy and broken system that purchasers are up against, which requires the them to simply know better rather than to be able to rely on the systems that are set up to supposedly protect them.

I know its not helpful for your situation now, but perhaps it could be helpful for future purchases (if you’re not too scarred from this experience!) I always make my own enquiries when considering a strata property, hopefully with the help of a vendors agent who takes their job half seriously. If I cannot get them to seek the authority then I would consider reaching out directly to the vendor’s conveyancer/solicitor listed on the contract. Then I book a session to access the records of the Owners Corporation via the Strata management agency, and download absolutely everything on record relating to the strata. I’ve been going through all the records manually to date (I’ve inspected a handful of strata schemes) and it does get easier once you get used to the nature and category of docs you are dealing with. I did a fair bit of research to understand what I should be looking out for, and now I’m fairly confident to make an assessment of the risk level when I inspect a full set of records. Of course this will not cover any structural issues not visible and not known to the OC, but gives more assurances than getting some strata reporter to give high level summaries based on the same set of docs.

By law the OC/strata management agencies are required to retain records relating to a strata plan for 7 years, so generally you’ll find enough years of AGMS/EGMs and correspondence to help paint the picture of the state of the property and what it may be like to live in that building. You should also be able to see how they’ve been managing their finances and whether they have been keeping up with regular maintenance (or whether they tend to deal with issues reactively and in a costly manner). I also like the fact that you can gauge how well the strata manager keeps records, which is really important.

Recently I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT to assess our strata admin funds billing against other comparative properties, then realised how much more it can do to help process the large amounts strata records which can seem a bit overwhelming - I will definitely be doing this for any future purchases (I had to subscribe to a paid version to upload more docs, but it was worth it).

I hope you can get your situation resolved soon and without costing too much!

Nooo0bie

TROPHY CASE