For three decades, strata management ran on a quiet bargain. The manager held the information, and owners held their breath. The budget, the insurance renewal, and the ten-year maintenance plan all came as a final product you were expected to trust. That bargain is over, and most owners haven't yet realised how much power has shifted their way.
What was the old bargain, exactly?
The old bargain was one of information asymmetry dressed up as expertise. Your manager knew how the numbers were built, why the levy landed where it did, and what the fine print of the insurance policy actually meant. You didn't. Strata was, in every practical sense, a dark art. When the papers arrived before an AGM, your only real options were to wade through jargon you were never meant to fully follow, or to sign off and hope for the best. Most owners, reasonably, chose to hope.
Read: Trust or Bust: How Radical Transparency Can Save Your Strata Management Reputation
Why is that bargain finished?
That bargain is finished because the tool that once sat only on the manager's side of the table now sits on yours. Artificial intelligence has quietly become the great leveller. Owners are already feeding their AGM papers, strata reports and draft budgets into AI and asking the plainest question there is: does this add up? I saw it firsthand recently when a building ran five competing management proposals through an AI before making its appointment. Nobody suggested they interrogate and rank the proposals using AI, it is simply how people make decisions now. The client came back and told us the AI had ranked our proposal first and gave the reasons why.
Read: Your Strata Agreement Was Written to Protect the Manager, Not You
Should managers be worried about this?
Managers should be worried only if they were quietly relying on owners not looking too closely. For everyone else, this is the best thing to happen to the strata relationship in a generation. When a manager has nothing to hide, transparency is a gift rather than a threat. The work that was once opaque, technical and take-it-on-faith is becoming legible to the very people who foot the bill, and that can only build trust. The managers who resist it are telling you something about themselves.
What does this mean for you as an owner?
What this means for you is that “trust me” has stopped being an acceptable answer. You no longer need a law degree or an accounting background to understand what lands in your inbox. You can test the budget, question the insurance renewal, and walk into your next meeting knowing which questions matter. AI will not run your building, and it should not. The judgement calls must still belong to people. But the wall of expertise that kept owners passive while strata legislation became more complex and compliance obligations increased has come down. The tools are in your hands now. The only real question is whether you will use them.
Read: Designing the Future of Strata Management: AI, Offshoring and the Human Touch
Michael Teys has more than 30 years’ experience as a strata lawyer and academic and has owned 11 strata management agencies throughout Australia. He has a Master of Philosophy (Built Environment) and Bachelor of Laws. He lectures and writes widely about strata management issues in Australia and internationally.
