Landgate puts it plainly: a strata manager has only the powers the strata company gives it, and the two must have a written contract. Engaging a manager is the company’s choice, since no law requires one, and a scheme can run on its council alone.
General informationThis page describes the Strata Titles Act 1985 as it stood in its official version of 26 June 2025, and Landgate’s guidance on it. It is not advice about any scheme or contract. For a strata titles matter that needs legal advice, the State Administrative Tribunal’s page points to a lawyer.
Where the powers sit before any manager arrives
The strata company is the owners themselves: the term means all the owners of lots in the scheme, and buying a lot makes you a member. It comes into being automatically when the scheme is registered.
The Act gives the company’s functions to its council, subject to any restriction or direction the owners impose by ordinary resolution. Under the default governance by-laws, a scheme of more than three lots has a council of three to seven owners, the number decided by the strata company, and in a scheme of three lots or fewer every owner is on it. A scheme’s own by-laws can set the council’s size, elections and procedures differently. At council meetings every matter is decided by a simple majority.
Council members who act in good faith carry no civil liability for what they do, or fail to do, in performing a function under the Act or the by-laws; that liability falls on the strata company instead.
Two things, both in place before the manager acts
A manager needs the company’s authorisation for a specific scheme function or functions. It also needs a strata management contract (or, for a volunteer, a volunteer agreement), and Landgate stresses that both must exist before the manager performs any function for the company.
Section 143 shapes the authorisation like a loan rather than a gift:
- it carries any conditions the company sets, and the company can vary or revoke it;
- what the manager does under it counts as done by the company, the council or the officer concerned;
- the company, council or officer can still perform the function itself, but must then tell the manager it has done so.
Where a function needs a resolution of the owners, the manager can carry it out only after the vote has been taken and the resolution has passed.
What is never lent
Section 143(5) lists functions a strata manager cannot be authorised to perform at all. However a contract is written, these stay with the company:
- Deciding contributions, the levies owners pay. Kept
- Authorising anyone to perform a scheme function, other than as the manager’s own agent, employee or contractor. Kept
- Making, varying, extending or ending a contract with another strata manager, or deciding anything about such a contract or its meaning. Kept
- Ending a contract for services or amenities under section 115. Kept
- Starting proceedings for the company in the Tribunal or in a court or other tribunal. Kept
- Authorising the company’s common seal to be put on a document. Kept
- Authorising someone to sign documents for the company, its council or an officer. Kept
- Any scheme function the regulations declare off limits to managers. Kept
Landgate’s page for managers makes the same point from the other side: the company chooses a manager’s responsibilities when it negotiates the contract, except where its powers cannot be delegated.
What the contract has to say
Section 145 makes the contract a written document and lists what it must contain. In plain terms, it names both parties with their addresses for service and any ACN or ABN; gives start and end dates; lists each scheme function the manager will perform and any conditions on it; requires written reports from the manager, with their content and timing; states the pay or how it is worked out; names the accounts the manager will use; sets out section 151, on ending the contract, or draws attention to it; and covers anything else the regulations require. A volunteer agreement can leave out the ACN or ABN and the reporting terms.
Before signing, the manager must tell the company in writing about any interest that conflicts or may conflict with its work, and about any payment or benefit it reasonably expects from anyone other than the company in connection with that work. Any later variation, extension or renewal must also be in writing. An agreement that tries to contract out of the strata manager provisions of the Act has no effect to that extent.
Money held for the company
A paid manager must pay all money it receives for a strata company into one of three accounts: a trust account just for that company, a pooled trust account used only for the strata companies it manages, or the company’s own account if the company has authorised it to use that. A company with a volunteer manager must have its own account, and the volunteer pays everything into it. Money in a trust account cannot be used to pay the manager’s own creditors, or be seized by them through a court.
| The company’s right | What the manager must do | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Account details | On written notice, give the name and number of each account used for scheme functions, and the bank or other ADI that holds it. | 149 |
| Balances and transactions | On written notice, give the company’s balance on a stated date and particulars of payments, receipts and specified transactions, within 7 days at the latest; matters more than 7 years old are excluded. | 149 |
| Audit | If the company has an auditor, give the auditor access to account statements and the documents and information about the company’s money that the auditor reasonably needs. | 150 |
Everything on this page can be taken back. How a contract ends, and what has to come back with it, is the subject of the guide to ending a management contract; the duties a manager carries while it holds the company’s authority are in the guide to paid strata managers.