Bettr Strata

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Bettr Strata Strata management done properly. Clear communication. Strong governance. No corporate spin. No BS, Just Bettr Strata.

đź“Ť Bettr Strata is based in Berry, Bowral, Miranda, and Shellharbour.

🏢 Clear, accountable strata management.

đź“ž 02 4217 5588

Sunday, Kiama.The Blowhole was known to the local Aboriginal people as Khanterinte long before George Bass noted it on 6...
24/10/2026

Sunday, Kiama.

The Blowhole was known to the local Aboriginal people as Khanterinte long before George Bass noted it on 6 December 1797, after anchoring his whaleboat in the bay that became Robertson Basin. The opening is about 2.5 metres across and the spray has been recorded at more than 30 metres. Some days it does nothing at all. Still worth the drive.

Photo: Marek Ĺšlusarczyk (CC BY 3.0).

Strata is simple. People make it hard.Our founder says this at most first meetings. Committees tend to laugh, then nod.H...
22/10/2026

Strata is simple. People make it hard.

Our founder says this at most first meetings. Committees tend to laugh, then nod.

Here's what he means. The system isn't complicated. The owners own the building together. They meet at least once a year to set a budget and elect a committee. The committee runs the year within its authority. The manager does the work it's been delegated and tells the committee what's coming. That's the whole thing.

Where it gets hard is never the system. It's the owner who won't read the notice but will argue the levy. The committee that defers a decision three meetings running because nobody wants to be the one who said yes. The manager who answers a plain question with a section number, so the room stops asking.

The fair bit: the Act is not an easy read, and nobody should need a law degree to own a unit. Translating it is the manager's job, not the owner's.

So a test for your next meeting. If a question gets answered with a section number, ask for it again in plain English. A manager who knows the answer can give it to you both ways.

When a scheme starts drifting, it usually shows up in the same two places. Compliance falls behind, and nobody on the co...
20/10/2026

When a scheme starts drifting, it usually shows up in the same two places. Compliance falls behind, and nobody on the committee can explain the financials.

Neither is dramatic. The capital works plan doesn't get reviewed. The accounts get presented and nobody asks a question, because nobody's sure what to ask.

Both are fixable. Both get expensive if they're left.

Ask when your scheme's compliance was last checked, and get someone to walk you through the financials until they make sense.

Sunday, Wollongong Harbour.The Breakwater Lighthouse came into service in 1872, built from prefabricated wrought iron pl...
17/10/2026

Sunday, Wollongong Harbour.

The Breakwater Lighthouse came into service in 1872, built from prefabricated wrought iron plate riveted to an iron frame, one of only two wrought iron lighthouses in New South Wales. It was switched off for good in 1974 when the newer light on Flagstaff Hill took over, and restored at the turn of the century. It's been standing at the end of that breakwater for more than 150 years, which is longer than any strata scheme in the state.

Photo: Bernard Spragg (CC0).

Your strata manager's agreement has an end date written into the law. Most committees couldn't tell you when it is.Secti...
15/10/2026

Your strata manager's agreement has an end date written into the law. Most committees couldn't tell you when it is.

Section 50 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 caps an agent's term at three years, or twelve months if appointed at the first AGM. Options to renew count inside the cap. At the end, the owners corporation decides at a general meeting whether to reappoint. The committee can only stretch things three months at a time, and never past the next AGM, while that decision gets made.

The agent has a job here too. They must give the owners corporation written notice that the term is ending, at least three months and not more than six before the date (s 50(6)).

The mechanism is deliberate. A three-year cap means the question "do we keep this agent?" has to be asked out loud, by the owners, on a fixed date. It can't be skipped by silence.

The fair bit: an expiry date is not a reason to change agents. Plenty of schemes reappoint on the day and should. It's a reason to decide, rather than drift.

Ask your manager for the date your agreement expires. If nobody can find it, that's the first thing to fix.

Owners sometimes tell us they're amazed at how much information about their building they can see on the owner's portal....
13/10/2026

Owners sometimes tell us they're amazed at how much information about their building they can see on the owner's portal.

They shouldn't be. It's their scheme. The records, the financials, the contracts, the minutes, all of it belongs to the owners corporation, and owners are entitled to inspect them.

If seeing your own building's records feels like a favour, something has gone wrong somewhere.

Ask your manager what you're entitled to see, and how to see it.

We hear from owners when the levy notice arrives. Almost never before.Your ordinary levies are set at the AGM, when the ...
08/10/2026

We hear from owners when the levy notice arrives. Almost never before.

Your ordinary levies are set at the AGM, when the budget is passed. A special levy usually comes from an EGM called for that purpose. Either way, the papers go to every owner on the roll beforehand, and the decision gets made by the people who turn up.

By the time the levy lands, that decision is months old.

If you want a say in what you pay, the meeting is where it happens. Not the levy.

Ask for the minutes of the meeting where your levies were struck, then put the next AGM in your calendar.

When a scheme comes across to us, the same thing is usually waiting on the agenda. A common property repair that has bee...
06/10/2026

When a scheme comes across to us, the same thing is usually waiting on the agenda. A common property repair that has been carried forward for months. Sometimes years.

We understand why it happens. Nobody wants to raise a levy, cost of living is real, and putting a decision off feels like saving money.

It isn't. Water gets further in. The damage spreads past the original scope. Building costs keep moving. The quote that was too expensive two years ago is now the cheap option, and the job is bigger than it was.

Deferring a repair doesn't reduce the cost. It moves it, and adds to it.

If something has been carried forward on your agenda, ask what it cost when it was first raised. Then ask what it costs now.

Clocks go forward an hour on Sunday 4 October. Two things in a strata building won't change themselves.Timers. Common-ar...
01/10/2026

Clocks go forward an hour on Sunday 4 October. Two things in a strata building won't change themselves.

Timers. Common-area lighting, garage lights, irrigation, pool filtration and anything else on a time clock are set to the old hour. Left alone, the lobby lights run an hour late all summer and the power bill follows. Most older building systems don't adjust on their own. It takes one person and ten minutes.

Smoke alarms. The clock change has been the standard reminder to test them for years, and it works. Inside your lot, press the test button and change the battery if it takes one. The alarms in the hallways and car park are common property, so that one is a question for the committee, not for you.

The fair bit: none of this is the manager's fault if nobody has been asked to do it. It's just a job that belongs to someone, and in most buildings nobody has ever said who.

Ask your manager who's resetting the timers this week, and when the building's fire safety statement is next due.

A low base fee is not the same as a low fee.The standard model works like this. The management fee on page one gets the ...
29/09/2026

A low base fee is not the same as a low fee.

The standard model works like this. The management fee on page one gets the agreement signed. Then the extras start. A charge per letter, per page, per meeting after the first. Commissions on the insurance. A margin on disbursements. None of it is illegal, and most of it is disclosed somewhere in the schedule. But the committee that signed up for the number on page one finds the year total is something else.

We run fee for service. No commissions, no kickbacks, no margins on anything. Most of the year sits in one management fee. The small part no one can budget in advance, because no one knows what a building's year holds, is charged as it happens and shown as exactly what it is.

The fair test for any agent, us included: don't compare base fees. Ask for last year's invoices and add up the total. That number is the fee.

Address

111-113 Anzac Avenue
Engadine, NSW
2233

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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