Carry the Firm Lightly

Most trustees of a body corporate are owners who volunteered, often unpaid, so a scheme loses them quickest when every complaint lands as a personal attack. The parking dispute, the objection to a levy increase, the long email about the neighbour's dog: answered one by one at midnight, defensively, they wear a person down within a year. The resignation that follows costs the scheme someone who genuinely cared.

A lighter grip is not a careless one. The trustee still reads the managing agent's reports, attends the meetings and follows up on arrears. But a complaint is treated as information about the scheme rather than a verdict on the trustee. The conduct rules answer the parking question, the budget explains the levy, and the dog goes on the agenda for the next meeting. That matters to every owner, because a scheme whose trustees burn out each year never builds a memory. Decisions get remade, contractors are changed for no good reason, and the same arguments come back at every annual general meeting, simply because nobody stayed long enough to remember how they were settled.