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Nothing in New South Wales law says a owners corporation must pay somebody else to run it. Plenty of buildings already run themselves, and they are not heroic — they are organised. The work is real: meetings, minutes, levies, insurance, maintenance, and a set of records that has to stand up when somebody sells. Quarter does the part that used to require a manager, so what is left is the part owners were always best placed to do.
New South Wales puts no obligation on an owners corporation to appoint a strata managing agent. The Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 gives the functions to the owners corporation itself, and lets it delegate some, all or none of them. Thousands of NSW schemes run without an agent. What has changed is the standard: the reforms that commenced in October 2025, and the standard-form capital works plan from April 2026, both assume a scheme can produce evidence of how it is run.
Governed by the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, administered by NSW Fair Trading.
The agency agreement, not the Act, decides when you can leave and what it costs. Find the expiry date, the notice period and any automatic rollover. Agreements have a maximum term under the Act, so a very old one may already have lapsed into a shorter arrangement.
In Quarter: Put the agreement in your documents register and ask the Manager to summarise it — when it expires, how much notice it needs, what leaving early costs, and what they have to hand back. It reads the forty pages so the committee does not have to, and will turn the answer into a task with a date on it.
Secretary, treasurer, chairperson. Self-management works when three or four owners hold named jobs, and stalls when it is everybody's responsibility in general.
In Quarter: Committee roles and who holds them are recorded against the building, so notices, voting rights and permissions follow the position rather than one person's inbox.
Terminating the agent and resolving to self-manage is a general meeting decision. Give the full 14 days' notice, put the motion in clear terms, and record the vote properly — this is the resolution you will be asked to produce later.
In Quarter: Build the motion from the quotes and the budget, send the notice to every owner off the ownership register on the statutory clock, and record the vote as it is cast — a decision carries its majority automatically and emails the outcome to whoever raised it.
The strata roll, financial records, the capital works fund plan, insurance policies, contracts, keys, and the balance of both funds. Set a date. The records belong to the owners corporation.
Bank accounts in the owners corporation's name, levies redirected, insurance transferred to the scheme's own contact details, and the Strata Hub record updated with the new contact.
In Quarter: Bank accounts, levy invoices and payments reconcile in one place, with arrears, the budget and both funds visible to owners rather than reported to them once a year.
Strike the budget, raise the levies, hold a committee meeting, minute it, and file it. The first three months set the habit that carries the next ten years.
The most expensive mistake in the whole process. Building and public liability insurance are compulsory, and the handover is exactly when a renewal quietly falls between two parties. Confirm the policy is current and correctly held before you terminate anything.
NSW schemes report annually, and the contact details on that record are how Fair Trading and owners reach you. A self-managing scheme has to keep it current itself.
The 10-year plan is what tells you whether your levies are actually enough. Skipping it does not save money — it just moves the bill to a special levy nobody budgeted for.
A self-managed building is run by the people who live in it. That changes the texture of the place: decisions get made by neighbours who will live with them, and a question about your own home gets answered by somebody who already knows the building.
Self-management fails on admin, not on goodwill. Quarter is built to carry the admin so a volunteer committee is doing the judgement, not the data entry.
Agendas built from your open items, notices sent on the statutory clock, motions and votes recorded as they happen, and minutes drafted from the meeting rather than from memory.
Strike a budget and Quarter raises the levies from it, invoices owners, chases arrears and reconciles what lands in the bank account.
Every decision, document, invoice and piece of correspondence in one place, searchable, and still there when the committee turns over.
Insurance renewals, the capital works fund, and the reporting NSW Fair Trading expects, tracked with dates rather than remembered in somebody's calendar.
Owners ask Quarter about their building — balances, decisions, documents — and get an answer immediately, instead of adding a question to the committee's pile.
General information about New South Wales, not legal or financial advice for your building. Legislation is amended and grant programmes open and close — check the current position with NSW Fair Trading or the administering body before you act on anything here.
Tell us about your building in New South Wales and we will show you exactly how Quarter would run it.
