How to get on a strata or body corporate contractor panel

Who actually chooses

Our guide to preferred supplier lists covers the paperwork every list owner wants, and our page on strata managers covers what they buy. This guide is about the part that confuses most contractors, which is who has the authority to say yes and why it changes from one building to the next.

The money belongs to the owners. The strata or body corporate manager is a hired administrator, and whatever power they have to engage you comes from what the owners have handed over. Two buildings on the same street with the same manager can have very different rules about what the manager can book without asking anyone.

Queensland

Under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997, a body corporate manager is someone the body corporate engages to supply administrative services, and sometimes also to carry out the functions of the committee. Where a scheme has a committee, the body corporate can authorise its manager in writing to exercise some or all of the powers of an executive member. The executive member can still use that power themselves or tell the manager how to use it, and the body corporate can withdraw the authorisation at any time. Where a scheme has no committee, the body corporate can authorise the manager to exercise the committee's powers instead.

Spending limits then decide who signs off. The Standard Module is the regulation that applies to many Queensland schemes, and under it the committee can't go above its committee spending limit unless the owners authorise the spending at a general meeting, apart from narrow exceptions like spending needed to comply with a statutory order. Separately, any job over the major spending limit needs at least two quotes, whether the committee or a general meeting decides it. If the scheme hasn't set its own figures, the committee limit is $200 for each lot and the major spending limit is $1,100 for each lot or $10,000, whichever is less. A series of jobs that forms one project counts as one job.

Take a 30-lot townhouse complex on the default limits. The committee can approve up to $6,000 and the major spending limit is $10,000, so an $8,000 driveway repair needs a general meeting but not two quotes. A $14,000 exterior repaint needs both, and every owner gets copies of the quotes with the notice of the meeting. Your quote stops being a document the manager reads and becomes something the owners vote on with your business name on it.

New South Wales

Under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, the owners corporation appoints a strata managing agent by majority vote at a general meeting and can delegate some or all of its functions to them, including the duties of the secretary, treasurer and chairperson. A few things can't be delegated, such as changing by-laws or setting levies. NSW Fair Trading says minor repairs to common property can be handled by the strata committee, the strata manager or a building manager without a meeting, while the owners corporation or strata committee approves the preferred quote and supplier on bigger work. Every scheme must get at least two independent quotes for work valued at $30,000 or more whatever its size, although emergency repairs such as a burst pipe or storm damage are exempt.

In both states the line between what the manager can approve and what goes to the committee is set building by building, and you won't see it from outside. So ask the manager directly what they can approve for that building and when a job goes to the committee. It's a fair question, and the answer tells you how long you'll wait for a yes.

What the manager's compliance check is for

A strata firm usually checks you once for the whole firm, then each manager decides whether to use you in their own buildings. Larger firms run the check through a compliance platform and smaller ones ask for documents by email. Either way the manager is checking on the owners' behalf. Queensland's code of conduct requires a body corporate manager to act with reasonable skill, care and diligence and in the body corporate's best interests. NSW Fair Trading tells committees to confirm a tradesperson is licensed for the job, holds the right insurance and is using the right type of contract. A manager who books an unlicensed or uninsured contractor is the one who answers for it at the next meeting.

Expect to provide your public liability certificate of currency, workers' compensation (or a note that you're a sole trader with no staff), your licence, a SWMS for any work at height and your standard terms. Our guide to insurance and licences business clients ask for covers each one. In NSW, read your standard terms as an owner would before you send them, because since 1 July 2025 unfair terms are banned in standard form contracts for goods or services supplied to an owners corporation.

Writing a quote the committee can approve

Remember who reads it: on a job that goes to a meeting, the people choosing are owners with no trade background, and in Queensland your quote may sit beside the others as a group of motions on the voting paper. Put the total including GST, the scope and the start date near the top, and quote exactly what was asked so the committee can compare like with like. If you think the job needs something extra, add it as a separate option with its own price instead of folding it into the main figure.

Check how long your price will hold. Committees meet when they meet, and a general meeting needs notice, so a quote that's valid for 30 days can lapse before the owners vote. Ask the manager when it will be decided and make sure your quote is still good on that date. Our guides to quoting for commercial work and following up a quote cover the rest.

Commissions, gifts and conflicts of interest

Both states require managers to put the owners' interests ahead of their own, and both make them disclose money and connections that could pull the other way.

Queensland

The code of conduct in schedule 2 of the Act is taken to be part of every body corporate manager's contract. Among other things it requires the manager to act honestly, fairly and professionally and to take reasonable steps to make sure goods and services are obtained at competitive prices. The Standard Module adds two disclosure rules. If a supplier is an associate of the manager, the manager must tell the body corporate in writing before it decides to enter the contract. If the manager will receive a commission, payment or other benefit connected with a contract, they must disclose it in writing before the decision, along with the amount if it's money. Committee members have their own code, which requires them to disclose any conflict of interest in a matter before the committee, so an owner on the committee who also quotes for the building's work has to declare it.

New South Wales

Strata managing agents are licensed under the property and stock agents laws, and the rules of conduct bar them from asking for or accepting gifts or benefits beyond their pay and approved commissions, with an exception for gifts of $60 or less. A commission is allowed only if the agent's appointment provides for it or the owners approve it at a general meeting after a written explanation. The disclosure rules were tightened from 3 February 2025. Before appointment an agent must disclose connections with suppliers they routinely use, and during the appointment they must give written notice as soon as practicable when they become connected with a supplier, and before the owners corporation enters a contract with a connected supplier or one that pays the agent a commission. At each AGM they report the commissions and training services received in the last 12 months and expected in the next 12, and penalties for failing to disclose go up to $55,000. Fair Trading also notes that disclosure doesn't remove the conflict, because the agent must still show the arrangement is in the owners' best interests.

What that means for you

Don't offer a manager a referral fee, a rebate or a percentage of the work. In Queensland they'd have to disclose it to the owners in writing before the decision, and in NSW it would need owner approval and an AGM report, so the most likely result is an awkward conversation and no work. In NSW anything over $60 is out, so a Christmas thank-you should stay small. If you're related to someone at the strata firm or already do work for the manager personally, say so at the start so they can disclose it properly. Being the contractor who makes the manager's disclosure easy is worth more than any sweetener.

Staying on the panel

Managers have to report to the owners. A NSW strata managing agent must now report to the owners corporation every six months on the work they've done, and Queensland's code requires a manager to keep the body corporate informed of any significant development. So a short note with photos after each visit is material the manager can drop straight into their own report, and a hazard you flag early saves them explaining it later.

Your place on the panel also depends on the firm keeping the building. NSW management agreements generally run for up to three years, and when a building moves to a new strata firm the new manager may well bring their own contractors. If the committee was happy with your work, ask the outgoing manager whether they'd mention you in the handover, then introduce yourself to the new manager with a short summary of what you've been doing in the building. Panels are lost quietly, mostly through lapsed certificates, slow quotes and complaints from residents, so keep all three in check and you'll rarely need to win your place twice. If you'd rather someone else found the strata firms near you and wrote the first emails, Curlew does that in your business name.