A contract can end in two ways. The strata company can let it run to its end date and resolve not to extend it, or it can end it early on proper grounds, such as a breach of the contract or of the manager’s duties under the Act. If the contract is terminated, the manager has 28 days from the termination to deliver the company’s records, keys and property, even while asking the State Administrative Tribunal to review the decision.
General informationThis page summarises sections 96, 145, 151 and 152 of the Strata Titles Act 1985 (official version as at 26 June 2025) and Landgate’s guidance. It is not legal advice about any contract or dispute; the Tribunal’s strata page says that legal advice on a strata titles matter means consulting a lawyer.
Letting a contract run out
Landgate’s advice to owners is that a contract with a manager should generally run for a fairly short term, a year for example, so that a manager who falls short can be let go without difficulty. As an end date approaches, Landgate reminds companies to check for automatic rollover terms and to give the notice those terms require if they do not want the contract renewed. A variation, extension or renewal is valid only in writing.
Every contract must already carry the rules for ending it early: section 145 requires it to set out section 151 or draw attention to it.
Proper grounds for ending it early
Section 151(1) lists when a strata company has proper grounds to terminate:
- the manager has broken the Act;
- the manager has broken the contract;
- the manager is bankrupt, or its affairs are under insolvency laws, in the sense the Interpretation Act 1984 gives those words;
- the manager is a Chapter 5 body corporate within the meaning of the Corporations Act 2001;
- the manager, or one of its directors or its chief executive, has been convicted in WA of an offence punishable by 12 months’ imprisonment or more, and the company is satisfied the offence affects the manager’s suitability for the work; or
- the same, for a conviction elsewhere, in Australia or overseas, for an offence that would carry that penalty in WA.
Ending a contract on these grounds sits alongside any other right the company has to end it.
The notices, in order
- Step one
A show cause notice
Before terminating on proper grounds, the company gives the manager a written notice saying it proposes to end the contract, the grounds, and the facts it relies on as evidence of them. The notice invites written submissions on why the contract should not end, and allows at least 14 days after its date for them to arrive.
- At least 14 days
The company weighs the reply
The company must give proper consideration to any written submissions the manager makes within that period.
- Then
A notice of termination
If it is still satisfied there are proper grounds, the company gives written notice of termination. It names the date the termination takes effect, which must be no earlier than 28 days after the notice, and tells the manager about the right to apply to the Tribunal for review of the decision.
- Within 28 days
Everything comes back
Once the contract ends, the manager must return all the company’s records, including its records of account, and all keys and other property of the company that it holds or controls. The deadline is 28 days after the day of termination, and an application for review does not pause it. The company can agree to the property being collected by a new manager it has engaged, or returned some other way.
Suppose a show cause notice is dated 1 March. Submissions must be allowed until at least 15 March. If the company then gives a notice of termination dated 20 March, the earliest date it can take effect is 17 April, and if it ends on that day the property is due back by 15 May.
The dates are counted simply by adding days, to show the order and the gaps. How days are counted in a real matter is a question for a lawyer.
No holding the keys for payment
Whatever else is unsettled between them, the Act does not let a manager keep the company’s property as leverage: it cannot exercise any claim or lien over the records, keys or property it must return.
“A strata manager cannot exercise any claim or lien against or on the property of a strata company that the strata manager is required, under this section, to return to the strata company.”
Strata Titles Act 1985, section 152(4)
If the keys do not come back
Section 96 gives the company a wider tool, which reaches anyone, not only a manager. It can give a person written notice to deliver all records, keys or other property of the company that the person holds or controls, to a named person within a stated period that is reasonable in the circumstances. Failing to do so without reasonable excuse is an offence, with a fine of $3,000 in the Act as at 26 June 2025, and again no claim or lien can be exercised over that property.
When it becomes a dispute
Since the 2020 reforms, the Tribunal has been the one place to take strata disputes in WA, apart from the recovery of unpaid levies, which goes through the courts. A dispute between a strata company and its strata manager, or a former one, about the strata manager provisions of the Act, the management contract, or the way the manager performed its functions is one of the scheme disputes the Tribunal can resolve.
One detail ties this back to the start: starting proceedings for the company in the Tribunal or a court is among the powers a manager can never be authorised to use, so the company brings that application itself. The full list is in the list of what is never lent, and the Tribunal’s wider role is covered in the guide to by-laws and SAT.