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.