How we look after your personal information — explained in plain English.
Last updated: October 2026This policy explains how Townhouse Strata collects, uses, holds and discloses personal information. It applies to everyone we deal with — lot owners, occupants, tenants, committee members, suppliers and anyone who contacts us through our website or by email.
We handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles. We also work within the requirements of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) and its regulations, which set out how an owners corporation must collect and manage information about lot owners and occupants.
Townhouse Strata is a NSW strata management business that specialises in small townhouse and villa schemes, generally between 2 and 22 lots. We act as managing agent for owners corporations and provide a personal, hands-on service led by an experienced Class 1 strata manager.
The types of personal information we typically collect include:
We do not generally collect sensitive information. Where we do (for example, health or disability information relevant to a request for access or to a complaint), we only collect it with your consent or where the law allows or requires it.
Most of the personal information we hold is provided directly to us by the people it relates to. We also collect information from a range of other sources in the normal course of managing a scheme.
Information you give us. You provide personal information when you become a lot owner or tenant in a scheme we manage, contact us by phone or email, attend a meeting, lodge a request or complaint, fill in a form on our website, or apply for a position with us.
Information from your scheme. When we are appointed as managing agent, we receive the strata roll and other scheme records from the outgoing managing agent or from the owners corporation directly. These records contain personal information about lot owners and occupants.
Information from third parties. We may also receive personal information from real estate agents, property managers, conveyancers, solicitors, contractors, insurers and other parties acting for you or your scheme.
We collect, hold and use personal information so that we can manage your scheme properly and provide our services. This includes:
We will not use your personal information for any unrelated purpose unless you have agreed, the law allows it, or you would reasonably expect us to do so.
Strata legislation requires owners corporations to make certain information available to lot owners and other interested parties. As managing agent, we facilitate that on behalf of the scheme. This means your personal information held on the strata roll may be disclosed to other lot owners and people authorised by law to inspect the records of the scheme.
We also share personal information, only as needed, with:
We do not sell personal information and we do not provide it to third parties for their own marketing.
We use an artificial intelligence (AI) service, Claude by Anthropic, to help us work efficiently. It helps us draft letters and emails, prepare meeting notices and minutes, summarise documents, organise scheme records and check information for accuracy.
A person is always in charge. Your strata manager reviews everything the AI helps prepare before it is sent, filed or relied on. The AI does not send emails, make decisions about your scheme, or contact you directly.
To do this work, the AI service may process personal information in our records, such as names, contact details, lot details, levy information and correspondence. We use a business account, under terms that do not allow your information to be used to train the provider’s AI models. We give the AI only the information needed for the task, and we do not use it to make or process payments.
If you would prefer that information about you is not processed using AI tools, please contact us. We will tell you what is practical for your scheme.
Our strata management system and our email and document storage keep your information in Australia. Our AI service provider, Anthropic, may process information in the United States when it helps us with a task.
Before we use any provider, we check that it has appropriate security and confidentiality commitments. We take reasonable steps to make sure overseas providers handle personal information in a way that is consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles.
Scheme records, including the strata roll, are kept in our strata management system and our secure business storage. Using a provider to process information for us does not change who is responsible for it: Townhouse Strata remains responsible for how your personal information is handled.
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Our measures include access controls, secure cloud storage, encrypted data transmission, regular software updates, and staff and contractor obligations of confidentiality.
No system is completely secure. If we become aware of a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify affected people and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.
You can ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and you can ask us to correct anything that is wrong or out of date. We may ask you to put your request in writing and to confirm your identity before we release or change information.
If we are not able to give you access or make the correction you have asked for, we will tell you why in writing. Please note that we cannot retrospectively change records held on the strata roll or in scheme records, but we can record a note that your information has been disputed or updated.
We do not charge a fee for making a request, but we may charge a reasonable cost for providing access where the law allows.
If you think we have not handled your personal information correctly, please contact us first using the details below. We will look into your complaint and respond in writing within a reasonable time, usually 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can refer the matter to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our business, our use of technology, or legal requirements. The current version is always available on our website. We encourage you to review it periodically.
If you have a question about this policy, would like to access or correct your information, or want to make a complaint, please contact us:
Attention: Privacy Officer
Email: tracey@townhousestrata.com.au
We aim to respond to privacy enquiries the same business day where possible.
If anything in this policy is unclear, just give us a call or send an email — happy to talk it through.
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