Learning that we were fired by the property manager was a shock, but at the same time, it was understandable.
Property management firms play a key role in helping stratas run efficiently. They look after the financial tracking of owner accounts, and act as an third-party central hub for interaction between owners and the strata corporation. They help to manage vendor accounts, authorizing vendors and ensuring that invoices received are legitimate before they get paid.
As conduits between the owners and the strata council, they do receive some of the more unpleasant interactions, but at times this can be over the top.
It’s always surprising what an impact one bad apple can have. In our case, one very disruptive, rude and aggressive owner had been continually harrassing the property manager, even going so far as to reach out to his superior demanding that he be fired. After a while, the company (Dwell) decided the contract wasn’t worth the hassle and gave us notice that we would have to find another property management firm.
Because we are a large strata, with nearly 120 owners, our options are somewhat limited. Most strata complexes are much smaller than ours, and most property management companies are only capable of dealing with smaller sized properties. Just handling the financial demands for so many owners is exceptionally complex. Smaller companies won’t have the sophisticated website interface that is essential when that many people need to access their account information.
There are people in the complex who think we can self-govern the property management role. That’s highly unlikely, since the financial management alone would involve an investment in the tens of thousands of dollars to provide a fully encrypted secure structure to let owners access their financial records.
Council considered a variety of firms and invited them to make proposals. Only two made the effort to visit the strata for a better idea of the property and the work involved.
Associa stood out for several reasons. They were exceptionally responsive. They have a large administrative structure with a call-in center that handles all the typical clerical inquiries, ensuring that owners can receive quick responses and that the property manager isn’t overloaded with tasks that don’t need someone at that level to be involved. Council was impressed by the way the company structures staff assignments, with layers of people to manage workload. This ensures that the property manager doesn’t get burned out, a common problem in the business. Probably most impressive was the highly sophisticated TownSQ app that allows virtually instant communications, including the ability for council to create surveys and polls and direct messaging with individual owners or groups of owners.
A decision had to be made quickly, as the strata was about to lose their project manager. Four of five council members voted to give the contract to Associa, at a fee roughly the same as had been paid to the prior company.
As the relationship with Associa is still new, we haven’t yet explored all the capabilities of the system.
This post is also available in:
