An Interview with the Boss

If JE Whites are your Body Corporate Management provider then you’ve probably come across Bryan Sutcliffe, the proprietor of the business. He makes it his mission to meet with each and every one of his clients. I had a chance to sit down with him and get to learn some more about him and JE Whites as a whole.

How did you get started with JE Whites?

I was originally a real estate agent, when I decided to sell my real estate business I was looking for something new, JE Whites was a business that its owners had made for sale, and had piqued my interest. At the time, their primary focus was property management, they did however have a modest Body Corporate portfolio. I saw potential in the Body Corporate side of the business, so I contacted the White family and asked whether the business was still for sale. They had sold their property management portfolio, but their Body Corporate portfolio remained, so I took the plunge and purchased it soon thereafter.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the history of JE Whites?

It was established in Port Adelaide in 1905. I purchased JE Whites 15 years ago from the grandson of the original owner. To this day JE Whites is a well-established name in the Port Adelaide area. For many years the business’ main focus was insurance, before getting involved in real estate in its latter stages. Since I purchased the business, we’ve been focussing on growing the strata and community management service, and have managed to increase our portfolio five-fold since its purchase.

What is the working environment like here at JE Whites?

I’m working with a good bunch of people. Everybody I believe is good at their job and more than able to perform their role. We offer a good service so it’s an enjoyable business to be in. We can resolve any issues that come our way. We very much have a team focus and are surrounded by clever people that pull together. That drives me to come to work, so that I don’t have to come in to the office and be surrounded with people I don’t enjoy being around.

What is body corporate management for people that don’t know?

Effectively, we manage the common property of the Body Corporate. Common property can be areas such as a common driveway, the garden and lawn areas outside of the unit subsidiaries. If you’re an owner is an apartment complex, common property extends to things such as elevators, or even swimming pools. The owners determine what works need to be done to the common property, and through their instruction, we facilitate the management and maintenance of these areas.

We ensure the Corporation remains compliant with the relevant Body Corporate state legislation, as well as managing the Corporation’s finances, including paying accounts, and collecting levies from all owners on the Corporation’s behalf.

What do you offer your customers and what do you do differently to your competitors?

We operate a system that is different to any other business in Adelaide. We have highly experienced meeting conveners who help chair Annual General Meetings (AGMs). It allows our strata managers to answer phone calls from clients and respond to their emails 9 am to 5 pm, Monday to Friday which is not the case in the vast majority of strata management businesses in Adelaide.

Our competitors have their strata managers perform AGMs late into the night. As a result, they’re given time off during the day so when their clients call, they’re greeted with a voicemail, and are added to a queue.

We also aim to resolve all maintenance items for a Corporation prior to their AGM or during the course of the year, allowing for the AGM to be an opportunity for the owners to finalise a lot of the decisions that have been made.

What are some of the projects JE Whites have been involved in?

In terms of projects we don’t do any ourselves, we keep ourselves removed from it, but we’ve been very instrumental in advising developers on how to formulate By-Laws for new Corporations in order to make for a more cohesive project. Some developers initially are not understanding of their obligations to the Body Corporate, and so what we found is their By-Laws were written by the conveyancer. The By-Laws were legal but more often than not, they were impractical for both the developer and the Corporation in the long run. There are always little things that we can tweak to help achieve a stress-free experience for both the developer and landlord.

What is JE Whites policy towards maintenance and contractors?

Our policy towards maintenance is based purely on merit – we’ll only give work to contractors who have done right by our clients in the past. We’re completely independent to any of the contractors we employ. If any contractors do wrong by our clients, we stand with our customers 100%. As a Body Corporate management company, of course we have a vast network of contractors for all kinds of work, however we always insist to our clients that if they have preferred contractors, we’re more than happy to work with those contractors.

How does JE White manage complaints?

I’m the complaints department. Fortunately enough we don’t get too many. I think we are very clear once we understand the issue and I think we are very fair, and we give the best advice we possibly can. Sometimes it can’t be what people want to hear unfortunately but we address it as best we can. The Magistrates court is the be all and end all in SA for any complaints, we give them the best advice that we can give them in terms of what they need do in order to fix their problem. We don’t have an awful lot of complaints, a lot of it is common sense, which prevails 95% of the time.

Finally, what’s it like being a part of the growth which is happening around Adelaide at the moment?

We’re fortunate enough to be enjoying it. We’ve got a couple of developers who have been very good to us and we believe we’ve been very good to them. By providing a good level of service, we do pick up quite a bit of business that comes from other body corporate managers that aren’t providing the level of service that their customers are looking for, so our growth has been quite substantial and continuous so we’ve done well in that regard.