Sydney strata manager appeals 10-year ban for accessing funds without approval

One of Sydney’s highest profile strata managers is appealing against a ruling that saw him banned for 10 years for a multitude of allegations, including failing to act with honesty, fairness and professionalism and accessing apartment buildings’ funds without approval.

That same manager – despite having numerous complaints against him with the state government tribunal – had also, by the same body, been given total control over schemes that were in trouble with their existing management.

The Vicinity apartment complex in Canterbury. Credit: Janie Barrett

Whitney Wang, 60, the sole director and licensee in charge of PSMG Strata, was reprimanded, cancelled and disqualified for 10 years by NSW Fair Trading and banned from being involved in his company. He has now appealed to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), however, with his licence temporarily reinstated until a decision is made on the appeal. He has not been charged with any crimes.

A spokesman for Fair Trading said, “PSMG Pty Ltd faced numerous NCAT orders, leading to the termination of their appointment as strata manager for two strata schemes. The disciplinary actions were taken due to PSMG’s numerous breaches of statutory duties.”

It was an unprecedented move by newly appointed NSW Strata Commissioner John Minns and has been seen as signalling a new crackdown on strata management, following the clean-up of the apartment building industry by NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler.

“There were a number of issues with the agency and principal of that agency,” Minns said. “There were about 17 different areas where concerns were raised. We stayed utterly independent and allowed the investigators to do their job but I followed the case closely.

“Strata does have challenges in a number of areas but from my perspective any decision like this, assuming it’s upheld, is really important for retaining confidence in the sector.”

Wang, who has been running his company for 18 years, declined to return this masthead’s calls.

He became well known in the industry over the past few years for being involved in controversy such as the Vicinity building in Canterbury, built by Toplace developer Jean Nassif, whose own building licence was revoked and who is currently in hiding in Lebanon with a warrant out for his arrest for matters unrelated to Wang.

Leith Dawes, an apartment-owner who was chair of Vicinity’s strata committee at the time, said the decision to ban Wang had been welcomed. “It was a very, very long time coming,” he said. “What his company allegedly did impacted the lives of thousands of people and that’s something that’s hard to quantify.

The Vicinity complex in 2021.Credit: Janie Barrett

“Strata managers have a very trusted role in the life of apartment residents but when they don’t abide by the legislation, it feels like having a [person] who’s legally in your property and it takes a long, long time to get them out.”

At another of Wang’s buildings, the Gondon Macquarie in North Ryde, the chair of the strata committee, Stuart McLean, says he was delighted to learn of Wang’s disqualification, despite the subsequent appeal.

“It took an inordinately long time, given the areas of strata law that we said had been disobeyed,” he said. “And the fact that he was removed from so many buildings but still appointed to two others by NCAT when they were placed in compulsory administration was bizarre.

“The difficulty is that when you need to check on a plumber or electrician, you can look to see if there’ve been prior complaints. But there’s nothing like that with strata managers. Hopefully this decision, if it stands, means Fair Trading will be prepared to swing the axe harder in future.”

Another strata manager, Nicholas Johnson of Direct Strata, said Wang was well known in the industry. When he himself had been asked to take over managing a building from Wang in Burwood, he claimed he was denied the strata records.

“We complained about him back in 2022 but Fair Trading was a toothless tiger and did very little. It took us months to finally get hold of the records.”

Among the regulator’s other 17 findings against Wang and PSMG were that they failed to act in accordance with client instructions, failed to maintain common property, failed to hand over materials unless threatened with proceedings and failed to act with care, skill and due diligence.

“It was great news for apartment owners in the state, and all strata managers doing the right thing,” said Karen Stiles, executive officer of the apartment owners peak body, the Owners Corporation Network.

“People who don’t do the right thing damage the reputation of the whole industry. It’s wonderful we have a strata commissioner to clean up the industry when necessary.”

A decision from the panel who heard the appeal will be handed down in the coming weeks.