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.
The Grenfell Tower tragedy that began the search for truth about flammable cladding in the construction industry
Is the end nigh for the traditional strata management model? NSW's new laws are set to disrupt the industry.
Learn how to streamline insurance arrangements for owners corporations with our Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Discover common challenges—like missed deadlines, premium objections, or funding issues—and practical solutions to stay on top of this crucial task.
This article challenges the necessity of NSW strata laws requiring summary financial statements, arguing that they duplicate existing work without adding value. Instead, it advocates for full financial statements at AGMs to promote transparency and trust while questioning whether outdated regulations should be scrapped or retained.
This article discusses emerging trends impacting the strata management industry globally. It identifies key challenges such as building disrepair, aging infrastructure, and regulatory complexities.
Don't let your AGMs be a flop! Learn how to elevate your meetings and build stronger relationships with your clients.
When banks introduced ATMs, they slashed transaction costs by 75% and improved customer satisfaction—yet employment actually increased. Fifty years later, strata management faces the same opportunity. Technology can reduce operating costs, boost margins, and eliminate email overload, all without cutting staff. The ASM revolution is here.
Strata management specialists earn more than generalists. Learn how to niche down and become a high-demand expert in your field. Explore 5 key specialization categories to supercharge your business.
As strata professionals are being pilloried for their charging models, ironically, there’s one element of the conventional cocktail of strata management fees that is becoming fashionable in the wider world of professional services: base management fees. At roughly 50% of the total revenue typically charged for strata management services, base management fees have been a constant in strata management since the early 1970’s. Base management fees are an early incarnation of what the world’s leading management consultants now call ‘value-based pricing’. The primary appeal of them is the certainty they deliver to clients. For a well-defined bundle of services that are relatively predictable, this method produces a fair price. Hourly rates, on the other hand, are less transparent and reward slow work. This method too features in strata management. A plethora of hourly rates are listed in most strata management agreements, but how well they are used varies. Some managers are poor at recording their time. Often, staff feel confused about which tasks are included in the base management fee. They are unsure which tasks are out of scope and should incur additional time-based charges. It’s a bit of a mishmash really. Without clarity, and managing client expectations, time costing can lead to dissatisfaction, and distrust. AI is pushing clients and providers from hourly/time-based costs to fixed or value based fees. AI breaks the old link between “time spent” and “value delivered”. Now, everyone wants fairness and predictability. As AI speeds up and standardises work, time-based billing looks misaligned with both client expectations and providers’ economics. Value-based pricing is being promoted by KPMG and the like as a better alternative to hourly rates for professional services. Attitudes are changing fast, even among seasoned lawyers who have been hardwired to record their entire life in 6-minute chargeable units. A recent study of the attitudes of lawyers in private practice makes the point. In the 9 months from January 2024 to September 2024, the pendulum swung from 18% to 34% of lawyers intending to move away from hourly rates to fixed fees (Fast Law: Why speed is a priority for lawyers using AI, LexisNexis, 2023). So, at a time of severe (and justified) criticism of commission and related party-based income, it seems strata managers have it at least half right. In a post-AI world, base management fees are in vogue. We, like many other professions, must now learn to carefully scope and price all of what we do. That way, we can be rewarded for outcomes, not just outputs.
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.
