Thanks Victoria…for nothing. Nothing but another 167 pages of sentiment, opinion, vested interest, copycat reform, good intentions, and wishful thinking. Just what strata in Australia doesn’t need. We’ve had plenty of that from the other states - save for NSW which has recently engaged independent research to support its strata law reform agenda. The Victorian Statutory Review of The Owners Corporation Act 2006 Final Report December 2025, and the more recent government response, has followed the well-worn path of missing the critical step in the process: independent research of the effectiveness of what was being reviewed and considered.

Strata title is the ownership structure for roughly one in four Australians. It governs over a trillion dollars’ worth of property assets across every state and territory. It shapes how people live, what they pay, how their buildings are maintained, and whether their homes are safe.

You’d expect such a large and important asset class to have a strong, coordinated research program. It doesn’t.

Is the strata sector flying blind?

Yes, and the evidence is in the absence of evidence. There is no national strata research agenda. No coordinated effort to identify the questions that matter most, prioritise them, fund them, and translate the findings into policy and practice. What research does exist is valuable but siloed. Academics often work on separate projects in different jurisdictions without the data access or funding needed to achieve large-scale results.

The consequences are everywhere. Governments legislate reforms without baseline data on whether existing frameworks are working. Peak bodies advocate positions without evidence to support them. Managers follow practices as they’re industry norms, not because anyone has checked the results. Owners, the people the system is meant to help, lack independent evidence to see if they are getting good service.

Read: Every Profession Has a Method. Why Doesn’t Strata?

What questions can’t we answer?

The gaps are everywhere. Consider just a handful of questions the sector cannot currently answer with evidence.

What is the prevalence and nature of incivility faced by strata managers and committee members in Australia? How does it compare with other professional service industries? Does the absence of formal psychosocial safety frameworks in owners corporations predict higher rates of hostility within strata communities? What role do digital platforms, email, social media, and online forums play in amplifying uncivil behaviour in strata communities? Does ongoing incivility lead to turnover and hiring challenges in strata management? Can structured governance rules, codes of conduct, meeting procedures, and communication standards reduce incivility in strata communities?

Those six questions relate to just one issue: incivility. Expand the frame to governance, compliance, maintenance, finance, defective buildings, insurance, sustainability, ageing stock, and community wellbeing, and the list of unanswered questions runs to hundreds.

Read: Bludgers, Leeches, and the Psychosocial Safety Gap in Strata  

Is this a whole-of-sector problem?

It is, and the fragmentation mirrors the sector itself. Strata law is state based. Industry associations are state based. Academic interest is scattered across property, law, planning, and psychology departments that rarely talk to each other. No one has the mandate, funding, or platform to create a clear national research program.

Lack of coordinated research leads the sector to repeat mistakes, reinvent wheels, and react to crises instead of preventing them. It means governments introduce reforms like mandatory committee education or new maintenance standards without evidence on whether those interventions work. And it means that people living in strata still pay for a system guided by intuition, not by evidence.

What would a national research agenda look like?

A national strata research agenda would start with a stocktake of what we already know. Map the existing research. Identify the gaps. Rank the priorities based on how many people are affected and how serious the consequences are.

It would be cross-jurisdictional by design. A building defect in Queensland isn’t much different from one in Victoria. What helps reduce incivility in one state can also work in another.

It would involve those who live and work in strata, not just those who regulate or profit from it. Owners, committee members, building managers, and strata professionals would need to be participants, not just subjects.

And it would need a home. A national centre, a consortium, a funded collaboration between universities, government, and industry. Whatever structure works, the form matters less than the commitment.

Read: NSW Fair Trading Commissions Research Into Strata Management Agreements

Is there any reason for optimism?

There is, if you look for it. The Strata Impact Conference has created a genuine meeting point for researchers and practitioners. The International Multi-Owned Property Research Forum connects Australian academics with their global counterparts. Individual researchers at UNSW City Futures Research Centre and elsewhere continue to produce important work despite the structural obstacles.

But isolated effort is not a strategy. The strata sector needs a coordinated, funded, national research agenda that matches the scale and significance of the asset class it serves. Until it has one, we’re making billion-dollar decisions based on anecdote, assumption, and convention.

That’s not good enough for the people who live in these buildings. And it shouldn’t be good enough for the people who manage them.

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