The Australian College of Strata Lawyers says independent and properly resourced enforcement agencies are needed to better protect property owners and sector-wide structural change is required on insurance commissions.

“All state and territory governments must take action to address the behaviour of the bad actors,” it says following Monday’s ABC Four Corners report. “In essence, there is no ‘strata cop’ on the beat in any Australian jurisdiction. There needs to be.”

The lawyers say it should not fall on unit owners to identify, investigate and prosecute strata manager breaches, and the absence of an effective enforcement agency is one of the main reasons why the behaviour alleged in the ABC report has become prevalent.

The group says disclosure is no panacea, despite a strata manager misapprehension that it “cures all” on commissions and conflicts of interest.

In the program, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said enhanced disclosure obligations do not get to the root of the problem, which is the financial incentive.

The lawyers say: “Sector-wide structural change is required with respect to insurance commissions and related-party commissions, profit-sharing structures and the prohibition of kickbacks.

“Vertical integration in the strata management sector is undoubtedly leading to poor outcomes for strata owners, exacerbating the cost-of-living crisis, across the nation. If we don’t fix these issues, how can more strata be an appropriate solution to our housing crisis?”

The group has reiterated comments made in March, when it said strata managers should stop accepting commissions, payments or benefits and act strictly as fiduciaries of the owners’ corporations they manage.

“ACSL calls upon all state and territory governments to remedy the glaring lack of enforcement of current laws, to strengthen the existing laws to better protect strata owners and to remove the financial incentives for strata managers to engage in anti-competitive conduct,” it said this week.

The group says the strata management sector contains some “very professional, competent and caring managers”, but there is an element that adopts a profit and growth mindset at the expense of clients, professional ethics and ultimately the law.