Find Strata and Body Corporate Subcontractors in Australia

Home » Find Subcontractors » Strata and body corporate

Early access open

Strata work has a complication no other property sector has: the boundary between common property and lot property determines who is entitled to authorise the work and who pays for it. Get that wrong and the invoice is disputed regardless of the quality of the work.

This page covers what gets subcontracted in this sector, the credentials worth confirming, and how a job runs on Workforce Marketplace. Early access is open.

What gets subcontracted

The work most often subcontracted covers:

Building maintenance and repairs to common property
Remedial works: concrete cancer, waterproofing and facade
Common area cleaning, gardening and pool servicing
Essential safety measures inspection, testing and reporting
Lift, fire and plant servicing contracts
Emergency and after-hours response for leaks and failures
Defect investigation and reporting on newer buildings

Credentials that matter here

The trade credentials are the ordinary ones, but the sector-specific checks are about authority and reporting:

Builder’s Licence and the relevant trade licences through the state building authority
Fire Protection Licence for essential safety measures work, and confirmation the contractor can certify as well as perform
Swimming Pool Inspector Certification where the scheme has a pool
Working at Heights, IRATA rope access and EWP tickets for facade and roof work
Asbestos Removal Licence Class A or B for older schemes, which is common in buildings from the relevant era
Pest Management Technician Licence where pest control is contracted
Public liability insurance naming the owners corporation where the contract requires it

Authority matters as much as competence. Confirm who is instructing the work and whether they are entitled to: a strata manager, a committee, or an individual owner acting without authority produce very different outcomes when the invoice lands.

What to confirm before work starts

An active ABN. Where a supplier does not quote one, you are generally required to withhold 47 per cent of the payment and remit it to the ATO. Their GST registration also tells you whether the price should carry it.

That the credential is held by the entity you are contracting with. A person can hold a qualification while the business you are paying holds nothing. Check the name on the document against the name on the invoice.

Insurance appropriate to the scope. Public liability is the common one. Depending on the work you may also need professional indemnity, and workers compensation if they carry their own staff.

That the engagement is genuinely a contract for services. Since the Fair Work amendments the test looks at the real substance of the relationship rather than the label on the paperwork, and getting it wrong creates back-pay, superannuation and payroll tax exposure. Contractor vs employee in Australia sets out how it now works.

Writing a scope that gets comparable quotes

Strata quotes need the boundary and the approval path stated. Say whether the work is on common property or lot property and who is paying, what approval threshold applies and whether a general meeting resolution is needed, how residents are notified and what access arrangements apply, what the hours of work are, whether the price includes reporting to the committee, and what the defects and warranty position is.

How it works on Workforce Marketplace

Post the scope with the payment structure it actually uses, whether that is fixed price, hourly, daily, quoted or split into milestones for staged work. Subcontractors apply, and you compare them side by side rather than chasing callbacks.

Every account is ABN-verified at sign-up. Beyond that, subcontractors can submit licences, certifications and insurance for verification, which we review rather than grant automatically. Their profile shows the status against each credential without showing the document, the licence number or the ABN. Verification is opt-in, so a profile may hold credentials that have not been submitted, and it reflects the document as at the date it was reviewed rather than standing indefinitely.

Applying for work costs nothing and there are no leads to buy. Payment runs through Stripe, and Workforce Marketplace never stores your card or bank details.