ACT
How to change or leave your strata manager in Australian Capital Territory
Three-year cap, a 28-day meeting request and a 14-day handover. Mid-term exit is for breach only, so diarise the end date.
- Your scheme is
- Owners corporation
- The law
- Unit Titles (Management) Act 2011. Managing agents are licensed under the Agents Act 2003.
- Who regulates
- Access Canberra licenses managing agents. Disputes go to ACAT.
1Get a motion on the agenda
No express statutory right. Ask the executive committee in writing to list your motion for the AGM; the Government guide says it should be accepted if it is lawful, timely, relevant and not vexatious. Notices go out 14 days ahead with a proxy form and an absentee voting paper.
2Force a meeting
Voters holding at least one-quarter of the total unit entitlement can require a general meeting by written request, and the committee must hold it within 28 days (Schedule 3 clause 3.5). A bill introduced in September 2026 proposes removing the wait and cutting the quorum to 25 per cent.
3The vote you need
Engaging a manager is an ordinary resolution at a general meeting (s 50), and so is ending one. Quorum is voters for half the units; after 30 minutes two or more voters form a reduced quorum, whose decisions take effect after 28 days and can be overturned by a majority petition.
4Contract limits and how termination works
Contracts are capped at 3 years including renewals (s 51). Mid-term termination is for a breach not fixed within 14 days of a written notice (ss 54 and 55), for misbehaviour, or on insolvency. There is no no-fault right yet; the Government has agreed to consider one.
5What happens at expiry
The contract simply ends. There is no holdover and no committee extension; keeping the manager needs a new ordinary resolution and a new contract.
6Handover
Within 14 days after ceasing to be the managing agent, the agent must give the owners corporation a certified copy of the accounts and the management records (Agents Act 2003 s 109A). Disputes about the return of property go to ACAT.
7Running it yourselves
An executive committee is mandatory: everyone where there are three or fewer owners, otherwise three to seven members. It must elect a chairperson, secretary and treasurer, and one person may hold more than one. AGM every financial year and within 15 months of the last, records kept 7 years, an audit above 100 units or a $250,000 budget. There is no annual lodgement with government.
8Protections you already have
Managers must follow the code of conduct: honesty, the corporation's best interests, no conflicts, competitive pricing, proper records. Licensed agents must also disclose any relationship with, and the value of any rebate or commission from, a referred supplier. A 2026 inquiry agreed in principle to licensing and commission-disclosure reforms.
Wording for ACT
Fill in the brackets, put each decision as its own motion, and keep the minutes.
Motion: do not renew and self-manage
That the owners corporation, by ordinary resolution under section 50 of the Unit Titles (Management) Act 2011, resolves not to enter into a new management contract when the current contract with [manager] ends on [date], and will manage its own affairs through the executive committee from that date.
Motion: end for breach
That, the manager having failed to remedy the breach set out in the notice given under section 55 on [date], the owners corporation ends the management contract with [manager] under section 54(1)(a) effective [date], and requires delivery of the accounts and records under section 109A of the Agents Act 2003 within 14 days.