Michael Teys is the Founder and Chairman of The Strata Professionals Australia. He brings together more than 30 years of specialist strata law practice, a decade of strata business ownership, and an active programme of academic research into multi-owned property governance.
Michael practised as a specialist strata lawyer from 1994 to 2018, advising committees, developers, and owners on the full spectrum of strata disputes, compliance, and governance. He served as a Fellow of the Australian College of Strata Law from 2006 to 2018. From 2004 to 2014 he was the CEO and major shareholder of strata management companies operating across New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia, with a combined portfolio of 28,000 apartments. Running those businesses gave him direct exposure to the operational pressures strata managers face and revealed the structural weaknesses that became the catalyst for founding The Strata Professionals Australia.
Michael holds a Master of Philosophy (Built Environment) from UNSW, where his thesis examined how mixed-use strata developments create anti-commons risks that impede urban renewal. He has held research positions at the City Futures Research Centre (UNSW) and Deakin University, contributing to published work on building defects, passive fire protection, and pathways to professionalism for strata managers. He presents regularly at international research forums and policy discussions, including the International Research Forum on Multi-Owned Properties, the House of Commons, and the International Institute for the Sociology of Law. His current research undertakes a comparative socio-legal analysis of catastrophic governance failures in high-rise, multi-owned residential buildings.
This combination of legal practice, business ownership, and academic research gives Michael a perspective few in the Australian strata industry can match. Every element of the firm’s operating model, from the no-commission pricing structure to the Balanced Strata Method™ governance framework, is grounded in something tested rather than assumed. Committees that engage The Strata Professionals Australia are engaging a firm led by someone who understands their legal obligations, has run the operations they rely on, and is actively shaping the future of strata governance through published research and policy engagement.
$400,000 in legal fees. A leaking shower. Mismatched tiles. The most pathetic strata case ever litigated.
Strata committee members in NSW: before you approve a special levy for waterproofing or building remediation, read this. Michael Teys explains why remediation quotes are consistently inflated and what your committee can do about it. Free keynote, Sydney, 4 June 2026.
Strata owners are being sold remediation they don’t need. History shows exactly how this happens.
Strata volunteers manage buildings worth hundreds of billions of dollars, yet the Federal Government's National Volunteer Action Program doesn't mention them once. That's about to change.
Surgeons have a method. Accountants have a method. Engineers have a method. Strata managers have… an inbox and a prayer. After fifty years, it’s time to ask why no one has built a proper operational method for running a strata scheme. This week’s newsletter tackles the question.
Unfair lock-in management contracts have been the strata industry’s lifeline for decades. Dr Nicole Johnston’s research confirms what owners have long suspected: the standard agreement is designed to protect the manager, not the client. Read why this must change in this week’s edition of The Strata Professional newsletter.
Most businesses talk about what they do. The most disciplined ones start by deciding what they will never do. I'm announcing a new strata management firm built around an 11-point don't do list.
For forty years, the strata industry's answer to dysfunctional committees has been the same: education. This October, NSW mandates compulsory training for committee members. Other states are thinking of doing the same. I think it will backfire, and there's solid psychological science to explain why.
A recruiter posts a senior strata job with 'Schedule B's' as a perk. A LinkedIn storm erupts. And when called out, the response is chilling: 'it's just industry practice.' Sound familiar? It should — banking said the same thing before the Hayne Royal Commission tore it apart.
You pay the excess. You file the claim. Job done — right? Wrong. Every strata insurance claim triggers a tax cascade that multiplies the real cost three to four times over. The financially savvy committees have figured out when not to claim. Find out what they know that yours may not.
