Improving the management of common property in multi-owned residential buildings: lessons from Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract

This article emerges from debates about the effects of urban consolidation and the need to meet the challenges faced by building owners’ associations in their bid to manage common property in multi-owned residential buildings. It reports an Auckland, New Zealand case study of body corporate management companies, the intermediaries whose role it is to give administrative support to these building owners’ associations. We draw from four international research literatures to structure our interpretation of these companies and current calls for their reform. These include writing on: building owners’ associations and urban consolidation; financial and service intermediation; customer relationships, service quality and customer satisfaction; and the social geography of house and home; including allied recent work on housing financialisation. We conclude by pointing to the usefulness of adopting a widened theoretical perspective on the conduct and regulation of body corporate management companies in New Zealand and their equivalents in other jurisdictions.

Keywords:

• Multi-owned property
• resident involvement
• property condition
• body corporate management companies
• New Zealand
• social theory

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the participants in the body corporate management sector who gave unstintingly of their time and expertise to help us understand its development and current situation. Our thanks go also to our anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions about how we might improve this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Deborah Levy has an academic background in land economy, property administration and behavioural property studies. Her research is informed by a continuing close association with the property industry. She is Professor of Property in the University of Auckland Business School, Auckland, New Zealand.

Harvey C Perkins has an academic background in human geography and rural and urban planning, a significant focus of which has been research into house and home. He is Emeritus Professor of Planning in the School of Architecture and Planning and Adjunct Professor of Property in the University of Auckland’s Business School, Auckland, New Zealand.

Danli Ge is a graduate of the property programme in the University of Auckland Business School, Auckland, New Zealand. She has worked in the field of body corporate management in New Zealand and overseas.