Them and us – alive and well
There are none as deaf as those who will not hear!
This is a suitable epithet to summarise a discussion I had this week with three owners corporation network members on their interactive forum website.
I always monitor the OCN forum discussions because frankly I learn a lot from these exchanges and I find the founder and senior executives of this worthy organisation to be very astute reasonable people but some of their members…
I interacted on a discussion when (as is often the norm) the debate turned to “us” recalcitrant, deceitful and money hungry resident managers. One member rudely imputed that resident managers are hell-bent on retrieving all the money that is expended in purchasing the management rights back within the caretaking 10-year period. His opinion was that we would move heaven and earth to glean enough from the owners any way we could to make sure we got our investment back in time.
“Who cares what the owners pay as long as we get our money back!”
That is what you get when developers sell management rights, according to him!
I corrected him. Nobody I have ever met associated with or owning management rights has ever made this observation to me or to anyone else in our industry. It is not something we even think about!
Where do these owners corp network rednecks get these opinions from? Do they dream them up?
We buy management rights with the express viewpoint that the contracts should last forever. Ten years is what the stupid NSW state government decided was a suitable term back in 2003. We still firmly believe that this term is a limitation that was enacted to keep us honest and to remind us that our tenure is always tenuous. This then motivates us to perform well and in due course expect and get granted “top-ups” to our caretaking agreements on a regular basis by a well pleased and happy owners corporation and their executive committee.
It’s a quid pro quo arrangement that tends to work well and, in my opinion, it’s the best governance model for strata and community titled buildings that currently exists. Queensland is living proof of this.
There isn’t one management rights owner that I know who, in his worst nightmare, would consider that his contract might end. We all buy for the long-term and believe that a fair OC will always extend our term if we prove to do a good and conscientious job.
Nobody sits and works out what they need to charge their OC to recoup all their investment in management rights back in 10 years. This imputation is crass lunacy but it’s dangerous because it spread like wildfire amongst three or four other members who thought that this was indeed a fact. And they were in total agreement.
For my trouble in politely pointing out the error of their logic I was branded an impartial, lying, deceitful son of a whatever who was either a real estate salesman, a car salesman, business broker or all three!
The knives are out, and the blood is up; there is just no point in talking to idiots like this.
The trouble is how many more “rednecks” do OCN and other owner networks have like this amongst their number? Interesting, perhaps they just attract them?
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