Michael Teys
Email: Michael@michaelteys.com
Institution/Organisation: The Strata Institute
Position: Director of Executive Education
Biographical Information: Michael Teys is a respected strata management consultant , researcher, trainer, and presenter. He has a unique range of experience as a former strata lawyer, with a 33-year career in private practice, and strata management as a majority owner of 11 strata management firms managing over 25,000 apartments throughout Australia.
Michael is highly skilled at navigating complex issues relating to strata titled property and management and is dedicated to the professionalisation of strata management in Australia. As the Director of Executive Education at The Strata Institute , Michael writes and delivers training programs, and designs resources for practical use by strata managers.
Michael’s work as a writer, trainer and presenter on strata management is supported by his academic research of the strata sector. Michael works with City Futures Research Centre, UNSW, where he was awarded an Australian Research Council funded scholarship to complete a Master of Philosophy (Built Environment). His thesis is on the impact of large-scale mixed-use developments on urban renewal, and this work is part of a larger ARC-funded study, Reassembling the City: Understanding Resident Led Collective Sales of Property. Michael also recently worked as a research fellow for Deakin University, where he participated in studies relating to the future of strata management and the regulation of building defects, specifically passive fire protection systems and cladding. Michael is the author of Deakin University’s, Building Defects Rectification Toolkit (2020).
Authored/ Co-authored Research
Title: The evolution of the anticommons : Exploring the implications of mixed-use developments on urban renewal by collective sales.
Published: Michael Teys, The evolution of the anticommons : Exploring the implications of mixed-use developments on urban renewal by collective sales (MPhil Thesis, University of New South Wales , 2024).
Funders: Australian Research Council
Author/Co-authors: Michael Teys
Keywords: Building improvements, Building management, Developer control, Development, Governance, Redevelopment / termination,
Summary:
The thesis identifies mixed-use developments, and specifically mixed -use developments that contain at least one owners corporation (part strata), as anticommons property. Anticommons property is a type of property regime where the initial endowments are so disaggregated that ultimately, they risk the wasteful underuse of resources (Heller 1998). Underuse in this thesis is the inability to reassemble the fragmented property rights for a collective sale and urban renewal. Without government intervention to assist with the reassembly of these properties , they risk becoming ruins.
Title: Investigating passive fire protection defects in residential buildings
Funders: Victorian Building Authority; Plus Systems
Author/Co-authors: Nicole Johnston, Michael Teys
Keywords: Construction, Defects, Information available to owners and residents, Repairs and maintenance,
Summary:
In modern buildings, a combination of passive and active fire protection systems are used in an effort to safeguard residents from death or injury by facilitating safe evacuation, enabling emergency services to safely undertake activities, and limiting the spread of fire to other properties. To avoid a catastrophic outcome, all fire protection systems must complement each other, working together in a holistic way.
The aim of this research was to better understand commonly identified passive fire protection defects and the regulatory environment associated with this construction system.
Title: Investigating Building Product Selection and Information Transparency
Funders: Alspec
Author/Co-authors: Nicole Johnston, Michael Teys
Keywords: Building improvements, Construction, Qualitative research/interviews,
Summary:
Building product performance is an under-researched area. There are numerous aspects of building products non-conformance and non-compliance that require investigation in order to understand the true extent and intricacies of the problem. For this project, we focus on
product selection accountability. This is because irrespective of the extent of the problem, there needs to be confidence that those designing and constructing our built environment are undertaking due diligence to ensure the building products chosen and installed are
compliant and conformant.