Strata Management in Hobart
Last updated October 2026
Strata and body corporate management in Hobart
Our office is at 119 Macquarie Street, in the heritage-listed National Mutual Life Building, and it has been the base for this business in one form or another since 1989. Greater Hobart holds the densest concentration of strata schemes in Tasmania, and the majority of the more than 1,700 units we manage are here.
As strata managers in Hobart, we look after bodies corporate and company title schemes across the municipality and the surrounding council areas: the city centre and North Hobart, Sandy Bay, Battery Point and Salamanca, West and South Hobart, the eastern shore through Bellerive, Howrah and Lindisfarne, and south into Kingborough and Kingston. Schemes range from two-lot villa units to lift-serviced apartment buildings, office and retail complexes, and mixed-use developments with commercial tenancies below and residents above.
What makes a Hobart scheme different to manage?
Two things, mostly. The first is the building stock. Hobart has a great deal of older and heritage-listed fabric, including converted warehouses and offices, and that changes the arithmetic for a body corporate. Reinstatement costs are higher than market value would suggest, sums insured need professional valuation rather than indexation, and maintenance work often has heritage constraints attached, which affects both the cost and the timeframe. A sinking fund set on mainland assumptions will be short.
The second is short-stay letting, which is a live issue in this city in a way it is not elsewhere in the state.
Can a Hobart body corporate stop short-stay letting?
It can restrict it, and the mechanism catches people out. The Strata Titles Act 1998 does not mention short stay at all. What it does say is that a by-law may impose a minimum term, not exceeding six months, for the letting of lots. A scheme that adopts a minimum letting term has, in practical effect, ruled out nightly and weekly letting.
The point owners most often miss runs the other way. A council planning permit for short-stay use does not override the scheme's by-laws. An owner can hold a valid permit and still be in breach of their body corporate, and the body corporate is the one that has to enforce it. Equally, a by-law is not unlimited: the Act voids a by-law that is unreasonable, that unfairly discriminates against an owner or occupier, that adversely affects health, welfare or safety, or that is inconsistent with the scheme.
If your scheme is arguing about this, the useful first step is to find out what by-laws actually apply to it, which is not always what owners assume. We can check that.
What about mixed-use buildings in the city centre?
Mixed-use schemes are the most demanding to run well. Commercial and residential lots use the building differently, wear common property differently and want different things from a budget, and the insurance and compliance regime is heavier: fire systems, essential services, lifts, plant registrations. Getting the budget and the maintenance schedule right at the start prevents most of the disputes that otherwise arrive three years in.
Do you manage small schemes as well?
Yes, and a large share of Hobart strata is small. Two-lot and three-lot schemes sharing a driveway are extremely common here, and many of them have never held a meeting, hold no funds and keep no records. That is fine until somebody sells, at which point a purchaser or a lender asks for records that do not exist. Bringing a dormant scheme back into order is routine work for us and much easier done before a sale than during one.
Related reading
Body corporate fees in Tasmania · What the Strata Titles Act 1998 requires · Buying into a Tasmanian strata scheme · Strata FAQs
We also manage schemes in Launceston and Devonport.
Talk to us about your scheme
STM has managed Tasmanian bodies corporate from a Hobart office since 1989, and we take no commissions from insurers, developers or contractors. Call 03 6231 2540 or send us the details of your scheme and we will tell you plainly what it would cost to manage and what changing over would involve.