Ace Body Corporate Management North Shore

06/09/2026

Construction is set to begin next month to nearly double the size of Bedes Forest in St Ives and include parklands and recreation facilities for the community.

The new urban park will feature playgrounds and nature play areas, outdoor fitness equipment, a basketball half-court, picnic shelter and barbecue facilities, community garden, accessible car parking and a new amenities block.

Read more on the KL website (link in comments)

23/07/2026

What kind of building are we trying to be?

I came off an LookUpStrata webinar today hosted by Tim Sara feeling genuinely energised. Culture is something I think about constantly, not just in strata but in how any group of people ends up living, working or existing together. Tim named it in a way that sharpened something I already believe.

Every building has a culture.

Sometimes it's been consciously built over years. More often it just emerged, one decision at a time, none of which anyone flagged as "culture" while it was happening. How money gets spent. How quickly maintenance gets addressed. Whether kids playing downstairs reads as community life or a nuisance. Whether tenants get treated as residents or as temporary inconveniences.

These choices tell people what actually matters in that building, regardless of what the noticeboard says.

Most schemes are a mix of investors chasing predictable costs, owner-occupiers willing to spend on presentation, families for whom prams and noise are just life inthis stage, and downsizers who want quiet and order.

That's normal. The problem isn't the mix. It's when nobody's named it.

A building can say it's family-friendly and still treat every child's sound as unreasonable. It can want a premium standard of living and refuse to fund preventative maintenance. It can talk about community and only communicate when something's gone wrong.

None of these priorities are wrong on their own. The tension shows up when nobody's admitted which one is actually driving decisions.

And culture shifts.

A building full of retirees becomes home to young families. An old walk-up quietly becomes investor-heavy. What worked fifteen years ago might not fit who actually lives there now.

So the real planning questions aren't about levies or by-laws first. They're these: what do we want it to feel like to live here? What are we genuinely prepared to pay for? What's realistic for this building, this community? And do our by-laws and budgets actually back that up, or just gesture at it?

Because levies and maintenance plans do more than manage a property. Over time, they become the experience of living there.

Every building has a culture. The only real question is whether you're shaping it on purpose, or finding out what it is when expectations collide.
What's yours?

23/06/2026

One had a doctor's prescription.
One had a headache every time they came home.
Tell me who's wrong.
I'll wait.

This is a real situation that landed on my desk recently. And it's one I keep thinking about, not because it was unusual, but because it wasn't.

This is what strata looks like now.
The disputes that keep me up at night aren't the clear-cut ones. Not the noise complaints at 2am or the unauthorised renovations. Those have answers.

The hard ones are where both people are completely justified.
Where I'm not looking for a villain because there isn't one. Where the law gives me a framework but not a solution.

One resident had a lawful prescription for medicinal cannabis.
One resident's home smelled like it every time they walked through the door.

Two people. Two legitimate interests. One building they both have to live in.

What I've noticed over years of sitting in the middle of these situations is that the law itself is catching up to this reality.
We used to ask: "Are you allowed to do this?"
Now we're asking: "How does what you do affect the people around you?"

That shift changes everything about how disputes get resolved.
Pets. Working from home. EV charging. Medicinal cannabis. Each one arrived in strata schemes before anyone had a clear answer. Each one forced communities to negotiate their values in real time, sometimes badly, sometimes surprisingly well.

That's not a flaw in the system. That's the system working.

Strata is where society figures out how to live together.
Not in parliament. Not in a courtroom.
At a committee meeting, on a Tuesday night, with people who just want to get home.

My job isn't always to find who's wrong.
Sometimes it's to help two people, both of them completely in the right, find a way to share a building anyway.

That's the job. And honestly, it's why I find this work so interesting.

What's the most complex situation you've navigated where nobody was actually in the wrong?

17/06/2026

"Why does our insurance premium keep increasing when we haven't made a claim?"

It's one of the most common questions we hear from owners and committee members... and it's a fair one.

The assumption is that pricing is driven mainly by a building's own claims history. The reality is far broader. Rebuilding and repair costs have climbed sharply over recent years. Extreme weather events continue to generate major claims across the country. Labour shortages, material costs and rising replacement values are reshaping the entire risk environment insurers price against — not just your building's history, but the market's.

For owners corporations, that means premiums can rise even when a building has been impeccably maintained and entirely claim-free.

Committees can't control these market forces, but they can influence how their building is positioned at renewal. Proactive maintenance, timely repairs, accurate valuations and clear record keeping all signal that a building is well managed. None of this stops premiums rising, but it puts committees in the strongest possible position when renewal conversations happen.

This is where boutique strata management earns its place. At ACE, we're not just there when a claim lands or a renewal notice arrives, we're in it with you year-round: tracking valuations, flagging maintenance priorities, and making sure committees walk into every renewal conversation informed and prepared, not blindsided.

That's the kind of long-term, hands-on partnership that builds resilient buildings and confident committees, and it's the work that happens long before any renewal lands in someone's inbox.

We'd love to hear from other owners, committee members and industry professionals: are you seeing the same trends in your buildings?

09/06/2026

A committee member once asked us: "Can we stop an owner from voting if they haven't paid their levies?"

The answer is yes, and it can catch committees completely off guard.

Under Schedule 1 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, an owner in arrears is considered unfinancial and is generally not entitled to vote. Their voting rights are restored once the full amount owing is paid - so long as this happens before the meeting begins.

Here's where it gets complicated.

An owner can pay their outstanding levies, interest included, the morning of the AGM and walk in fully entitled to vote. That's completely lawful. And if no one has checked the ledger beforehand, the committee may not even realise it's happened.

If voting eligibility is assessed incorrectly, whether by excluding an owner who was entitled to vote or allowing a vote from someone who was not entitled, the validity of the resolution may be open to challenge. This is why committees should confirm voting status before the meeting.

Payment plans matter too, but perhaps not in the way most people assume. Being on a payment plan doesn't restore voting rights. An owner remains unfinancial until their full balance is cleared.

None of this is complicated once you know it. But it's the kind of thing that tends to surface mid-meeting, in front of everyone, at the worst possible moment.

Good governance isn't just about making decisions. It's about making sure the decisions can stand up when they're tested.

20/05/2026

Our team attended the SCA Strata Law Forum yesterday and came away with some thoughts worth sharing.

As strata managers, we're close to these pressures every day. This is her attempt to zoom out and look at where it's all heading.

We're solving for supply. We haven't solved for sustainability.

Something I've been thinking about since the Strata Community Association Australasia Forum yesterday. NSW is now requiring owners corporations to properly maintain and repair common property in a timely way. At the same time, it's strengthening hardship protections for owners who can't keep up with...

06/05/2026

EV charging in strata buildings used to be a "nice to have."

Interesting for some owners. Easy for committees to defer. Something to think about later.

Later is arriving faster than most buildings are ready for.

The proposed NSW Right to Charge reforms are worth paying attention to, not just as EV policy, but as a signal of where things are heading. The government appears to be shifting how it views EV charging, less as optional sustainability infrastructure and more as expected residential utility access.

We've seen this before.

Fifteen years ago, high-speed internet in apartments was a bonus feature. Some buildings had it, some didn't. Committees rarely thought about it strategically. Today, a building with poor internet infrastructure feels outdated almost immediately. Buyers notice. Tenants notice. Values notice.

EV readiness is on the same path.

What makes the timing particularly interesting is that many of the NSW grant and co-funding programs that helped early adopters get started are no longer available. Yet the legal and market pressure around EV access keeps growing.

And here's where the real strata challenge sits.

The question for most buildings is no longer "should we allow EV chargers?" For many, the more important question is "what happens when multiple owners want access at the same time?"

That conversation pulls in switchboard capacity, load management systems, backbone infrastructure, metering, embedded network decisions, fire compliance and long-term capital planning.

EV charging has quietly become a building infrastructure strategy, not a resident request.

The buildings that started planning early will have more flexibility, less retrofit stress, and more control over how this rolls out. The buildings still treating it as a future problem may find themselves making urgent infrastructure decisions under pressure, without funding support, and with fewer practical options on the table.

This is exactly the kind of conversation we're having with our buildings right now. Because getting ahead of it is always better than catching up to it.

If your building hasn't started thinking about this yet, it's a good time to start. We're happy to help you work through where your building actually stands.

05/05/2026

Children are not the problem in strata buildings.

The way those buildings were designed, and the way we communicate expectations inside them, often is.

Our latest article looks at two of the most common flashpoints we see in residential strata: children using driveways as play spaces, and noise complaints about kids just being kids. And why the answer is rarely more enforcement.

If you work in strata, manage a building, or sit on a committee, this one is worth a read. And if you are a parent living in an apartment, we think this one will resonate with you too.

Originally shared by our director Tiffany Wylder: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/children-arent-problem-strata-design-tiffany-wylder-39lrc

Most conversations about kids in strata buildings start in the wrong place. A complaint comes in.

14/04/2026

We recently worked with a building on an electrical upgrade.

The scope was clear, and an engineering consultant had been engaged to guide the design and specifications.

As the project progressed, there were ongoing questions raised around the proposed approach.
Some of those came from within the building itself, based on prior industry experience.

The conversations were detailed.
Drawings were reviewed more than once.
The engineer attended multiple meetings to walk through the scope.

Each step was reasonable.

But taken together, it slowed the project down.

By the time the works were ready to proceed, more than 18 months had passed.

The cost had shifted considerably.

Same upgrade.
Different market conditions.

What this brought into focus for the committee was something we see often.

Owners want a clear understanding before committing to significant works.
That’s appropriate, particularly on technical projects.

At the same time, projects don’t sit still.

Costs move.
Availability changes.
And the longer something stays in review, the more those external factors come into play.

Good strata management sits in that tension.

Giving owners enough clarity to make confident decisions, while recognising when a project has been explored thoroughly enough to move forward.

Because timing isn’t separate from the decision.

It’s part of it.