Raine and Horne Strata Sydney - BCS Strata Management Evidence of Persistent Poor Services

This is a site dedicated to Raine and Horne Strata Sydney (now trading as BCS, acquired by BCS Strata Management in late 2010).

Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS is a strata management agency in Australia, which has been involved in major mismanagement of large strata complex at at Macquarie Park of Sydney for over 15 years. Since 2011, four strata managers were replaced as incompetent for this complex and in September 2014 branch manager was changed, to no avail. Their misconduct is serious, deliberate and repeated. Its practices, demands and threats are deliberate, orchestrated and relentless. Its conduct is contrary to conscience.

This is not the only complex having problems with BCS. Reviews at ProductReview appaling comments about BCS Strata Management in brief

Draft version of the chapters from the book about Macquarie Park experiences with Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS are available here.

Apart from large strata complex at Macquarie Park, NSW, number of other web references show "the poor quality of services provided by BCS Strata Management".

Photos showing mismanagement of complex facilities by BCS Strata Management.

The complex even started taking cash advances from BCS parent company PICA without knowledge of owners corporation in August 2014. Not only that has not been disclosed to owners corporation (even at AGM in November 2014), but PICA was repaid six months later. Number of attempts were made to engage Strata Community Australia (SCA NSW) to investigate Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS. SCA NSW, after extensive delays where they took no actions, declined to review their member's conduct.

The correspondence with them highligths the reasons for their silence. Strata Community Australia NSW declined to examine Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS on grounds that they did not have approval by the Executive Committee to proceed. Check of who was/is on board of directors uncovered interesting connections with BCS.

Miraculously, Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS "won" the contract at AGM in November 2014. The member of the EC, who was allegedly involved in tendering for the Strata Manager's contract renewal (but failed to provide any evidence to owners corporation), silently sold his property in the complex and ran away in March 2015.

Their maintenance is below expected standards.

More than 50 reports of misconduct were sent to COO of NSW BCS Strata Management Mr. Greg Freeman - no response was ever received or action taken.

Pica-Group-and-BCS-Strata-Management-silence-to-respond-to-complaints-and-proven-mismanagement-issues-for-Strata-Plan - no response was ever received or action taken.

In 2011, Mr. Freeman "negotiated" renewal of BCS contract, where they "offered" discount which Mr. Freeman called loyalty rebate. Not only that rebate never occurred and owners corporation received no benefit from it, but it was a direct bribery attempt because there was no tender for the contract. It is not possible to argue that a person did not realise their conduct consituted bribery, that the practice was tolerated locally or that it was considered the only way to compete. It represented a perfect case for the

Companies like BCS need sound internal controls, as well as ethics and compliance measures to prevent and detect bribery.

Actions by Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS directly add significant costs to business:

Seven attempts for mediation at Department of Fair Trading were declined by Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS and DFT failed to take any action:

Three CTTT cases were dismissed on grounds of excessive evidence that was not even read or analysed (over 3,000 pages of evidence provided to CTTT whilst Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS provided none)! In one of the CTTT cases, Strata Manager from Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS even provided false statements in the Statutory Declaration, a criminal offence in accordance with the Section 11 of the Statutory Declarations Act 1959 (a person who intentionally makes a false statement in a statutory declaration is guilty of an offence, the punishment for which is imprisonment for a term of 4 years, Chapter 2 of the Criminal Code applies to all offences against the Statutory Declarations Act 1959).

How serious false statements can be shows a case at Parramatta Local Court on Friday 22 July 2011, when Sam Cohen was convicted of lying at CTTT. The criminal offense carries 12 months imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $5,500.

Consumer Trader And Tenancy Tribunal Act (CTTT) 2001 - SECT 71 False or misleading statements:

A person must not: (a) in any proceedings, or (b) in any application under this Act, provide any information, or make any statement, to the Tribunal, Chairperson or Registrar knowing that the information or statement is false or misleading in a material

The members of the Executive Committee and Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS are directly responsible for acting against other sections of the Criminal Act:

Section 316 of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) makes the knowing concealment of information relating to a "serious indictable offence" a crime punishable by up to 2 years imprisonment.

Section 4 of that Act defines "serious indictable offence" to mean an indictable offence that is punishable by imprisonment for life or for a term of 5 years or more. Subject to certain exclusions this generally includes the fraud offences in Part 4AA of that Act as well as stealing and similar offences in Part 4.

Section 316(1) provides:

(1) If a person has committed a serious indictable offence and another person who knows or believes that the offence has been committed and that he or she has information which might be of material assistance in securing the apprehension of the offender or the prosecution or conviction of the offender for it fails without reasonable excuse to bring that information to the attention of a member of the Police Force or other appropriate authority, that other person is liable to imprisonment for 2 years.

The following Strata and Branch Managers from Raine and Horne Strata Sydney and BCS Strata Management have been involved in management of this large strata complex.

It is hoped every single owner and law-abiding person will consider using Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS as their service provider by checking some facts firstly and make own conclusions. These are the facts and it is up to each person to decide how to interpret them.

Before the AGM 2014 in November 2014, in spite of fully paid SSMA 1996 S108 for access to strata documents, current Strata Manager, with full knowledge of all senior managers at BCS, and full support fo members of the Executive Committee, declined to provide full financial statements, bank account receipts, and 12 other strata documents. And that happened in the same manner for the last several years. The Strata Manager, upon advice from the Branch Manager who hid behind the separator, even offered to reimburse the owner for not providing access to the documents!?

The only document ever given to owners is one-page balance sheet at general meetings, riddled with financial errors and "prepared" by the EC. For FY 2014, more than AU$50,000 was wrongly listed, with incorrect financial figures, or hidden expenses in the balance sheet. Owners are not allowed to receive full financial statements, which is unique to this complex.

Attempts to engage BCS managers at all levels to comply with Australian laws failed and no responses were ever received. The following are examples of Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS non-compliance with Laws and Code of Conduct.

Raine and Horne Strata Sydney BCS Declined to Sign Disclosure Statements

Before large strata complex at Macquarie Park Annual General Meeting 2014 (or at any other time since 1999), BCS did not sign the Disclosure Statement, which among the other items listed:

- no conflict of interest existed in the past or currently, or is likely to arise in relation to offering improper of privileged services to any strata complex owner, employee, contractor, agent, or member of the Executive Committee;

- the Tenderer, any related entity, or their respective officers, employees, agents and subcontractors, are not currently, and have not in the previous 10 years, been subject to or involved in any investigations, sanctions, court proceedings, audits and the like in relation to anti-competitive conduct, bribery, or corruption.