Ten years, 3500 complaints, zero prosecutions: Inside Victoria’s strata enforcement vacuum

When Hubert Jones suspected the owners’ corporation that runs his Carlton apartment building had directed $240,000 of his and other apartment owners’ money to a company three of its committee members have an interest in, he reported it to the consumer watchdog.

Jones had receipts too, to back his claim. He gave Consumer Affairs Victoria piles of documentation backing his allegation of unlawful behaviour and detailing what he felt was deceptive conduct and financial mismanagement in the 10-storey Swanston Street building he lives in.

He also provided technical reports of the building’s condition, including a water-damaged underground car park identified as in need of urgent repairs in 2019, but which he said was left to deteriorate for seven more years.

Consumer Affairs told him it would not at this stage investigate, despite “the seriousness of the issues you have raised and the considerable amount of material you have provided in support of your concerns”.

It suggested to a shocked Jones, a retiree with a disability, that the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal could be the correct forum for testing the allegations, a course of action Jones is pursuing and where, naturally, the outcome cannot yet be known.

The numbers suggest VCAT may indeed be Jones’ best option even if he is right in his suspicions about the owners’ corporation’s conduct. Data released this month under freedom-of-information laws reveals Consumer Affairs Victoria has not pursued a single civil or criminal prosecution against an owners’ corporation in 10 years.

In that period, between July 2016 and June 2026, it issued just four infringement notices, most recently in 2019-20, and 12 official warnings.

It received more than 3500 complaints against owners’ corporations over that time.

In the past three years, the regulator referred 26 of those complaints concerning owners’ corporations or their registered managers to its internal intelligence team for assessment. Not one of those referrals led to further action.

The regulatory inaction has spurred the Victorian Greens to refer the issue to the state’s auditor-general, arguing the figures indicate organisational failure. Acting Auditor-General Dave Barry last week informed Greens leader Ellen Sandell the office would consider an audit on the topic.

Jones, who lives alone in his one-bedroom unit at 528 Swanston Street, was told by Consumer Affairs’ director of compliance and enforcement, David Joyner, that the regulator solely pursues complaints in the wider public interest, not in the interests of an individual.

“While achieving remediation for affected consumers is an important consideration, CAV does not act on behalf of individuals solely to obtain redress on their behalf,” Joyner wrote in a September 1 letter to Jones.

In a statement of claim to VCAT, Jones has alleged owners’ corporation members Malcolm Dingle, Paul Harberts and Amanda Pelligrino imposed a $240,000 fee via a “deed of surrender of lease” that was never put to a vote of lot owners, potentially in breach of owners’ corporation laws. It is also alleged the step was taken without informing owners.

The deed was signed in exchange for “buying back” a ground-floor office previously used by a building concierge, which had been converted into an unstaffed reception area used by Dingle Partners, which has a real estate office on the building’s ground floor.

According to the statement of claim, the $240,000 fee was directed to Champion Pty Ltd, a company for which Dingle, Harberts and Pelligrino all had a financial interest, to be paid in annual instalments of $24,000 over 10 years between 2022 and 2032.

The arrangement was signed off by building managers Highrise Strata Management, the claim states, and reported in an auditors’ report for the building as “staff caretaker” expenses.

The owners’ corporation’s auditor, LSA Partners, was not informed of the deed and told Jones that, “due to the significance of the amount involved, there probably should have been a special resolution whereby 75 per cent of all members agree to the execution of the deed”.

According to the statement of claim, Dingle, Harberts and Pelligrino never declared their pecuniary interest in Champion.

Jones seeks to have the deed of surrender voided and all its associated fees reimbursed. He declined to comment to The Age while the matter is before VCAT.

The Age emailed detailed questions to Dingle and to Highrise Strata Management. Neither responded. Dingle has not responded to multiple attempts to contact him by phone. Harberts and Pelligrino have also not responded to requests for comment.

Other residents were willing to speak out about never having been informed about the fees imposed by the owners’ corporation, and about the building’s poor condition.

Apartment owner Jimmy, who for privacy reasons declined to have his surname published, chaired the owners’ corporation committee for a year. He quit the committee in November 2024, immediately after learning of the $240,000 deed of surrender, of which he says was never told.

“I resigned for moral reasons. I was like, no, I don’t want anything to do with this committee. I can’t be a part of this,” Jimmy said.

“A lot of things were hidden from me … I had no clue about any of this in the 2½ years I was a committee member, and one year as chairperson. It was hidden from me completely, that deed of surrender, as well as Champion the brand. I didn’t know Mr Dingle had anything to do with Champion at all.”

Residents say the fee was imposed even though building services were reduced.

Retired train driver Keith Headland owns a unit in the building and says he was not told of the deed when buying his unit. He says an increase in owners’ corporation fees was followed by a downgrade in building services.

“There used to be someone sitting downstairs in the office when I shifted in here and it was wonderful if there were any dramas or problems, but now I don’t know where they’re hiding out,” he said. “We’re still paying a high amount, and we’re really not getting a service.”

Building faults left to fester

A building condition report completed in 2019 identified water seepage into the basement car park, which caused leaching water to form stalactites of concrete salt on the ceiling.

It recommended urgent remedial action due to risk to the structural integrity of the concrete slab above the car park.

Six years on, a report for Highrise Strata Management, from February 2025, found water was still leaching into the basement from the ground floor courtyard and through the retaining walls.

That month, the City of Melbourne issued a building notice to the owners’ corporation, following an inspection that “identified a number of non-complying safety matters” including spalling and cracking of concrete beams in the basement car park, caused by water penetration.

The council withdrew the building notice a month later, when Highrise Strata Management replied that it would begin repairs. Those works finally began in August this year.

Building resident Faris ElRayes has a reserved parking space in the basement, and his car has been damaged by the leaking concrete salts, which have marked his roof and windscreen.

ElRayes said he was less concerned about the damage to his car than the potential for the water ingress to cause the car park ceiling to collapse.

“All of the safety checks were neglected … When I realised my vehicle was parked right underneath the piece of roof that was potentially collapsing, I realised the severity of the problem,” ElRayes said.

The pastel-coloured apartment building was built for student housing 22 years ago.

Dingle conceded in an interview in 2015 that it is “one of the ugliest buildings in Melbourne” but said that “in a year’s time, hopefully you won’t recognise it”. There have been no changes to its appearance since.

The VCAT dispute is unfolding as Victoria’s Owners Corporations Act faces an overhaul following an independent review earlier this year. The review proposed a new dedicated unit set up within Consumer Affairs, a recommendation the government said it was open to, subject to funding.

Ellen Sandell, the state Greens leader, said it was “truly extraordinary that over a decade and thousands of complaints, the regulator hasn’t launched a single prosecution or even one compliance audit of an owners’ corporations in that time.

“Labor needs to explain why the regulator has become nothing more than a complaints inbox while thousands of apartment dwellers are getting screwed dealing with everything from building defects to huge unpaid debts, dodgy contracts, and developers and agents gaming owners’ corporations,” she said.

Samantha Reece, chief executive of consumer group Australian Apartment Advocacy, said the data was further evidence that enforcing the regulations for owners’ corporations was not a priority for Consumer Affairs Victoria.

“They’re doing nothing, and they are very passive,” Reece said.

She said the figures are proof the regulator is under-resourced and that the Victorian government should follow NSW’s lead and appoint a dedicated strata commissioner.

“They are dealing with a massive gamut of areas and complaints. That is why we are saying Victoria needs a strata commissioner.”

A Victorian government spokesperson said it had commissioned an independent panel review of the Owners Corporations Act “because we know the one-in-four Victorians living in apartment and unit buildings need better and fairer protections.”

New laws supporting owners to vote to take legal proceedings passed parliament this month, while fresh laws requiring owners’ corporation managers to complete annual professional development will take effect next year.

“We’ve already passed the first set of reforms and we will introduce further reforms to ensure Consumer Affairs Victoria can take compliance and enforcement action where needed to protect owners and residents,” the spokesperson said.

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