The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal has allowed an under-fire strata property management company to continue trading but cancelled the owner’s licence.

PSMG, trading as Professional Strata Management Group, and Whitney Hong Wang took Fair Trading’s commissioner to the tribunal after the commissioner cancelled their licences and disqualified them for 10 years in July 2024.

The tribunal has overturned that decision but cancelled Mr Wang’s strata managing agent’s licence for 12 months, ruling he is not a “fit and proper” person. It has also reprimanded both PSMG and Mr Wang.

It heard PSMG provided management services to 139 strata schemes. Mr Wang held half of the company and his wife the other half.

The judgment says the Fair Trading commissioner presented “a long history of matters” in which PSMG and Mr Wang were the subject of proceedings before the tribunal’s Commercial and Consumer Division.

The commissioner said the conduct adversely affected at least five large strata schemes. Five schemes had launched separate proceedings over PSMG and Mr Wang’s management, and in each case, adverse findings were made. In some, the strata management agreements were terminated.  

In his ruling, tribunal senior member Craig Mulvey finds 10 of 13 contraventions raised by the commissioner are not proven.

He says the purpose of disciplinary action is not to punish a licence-holder but to protect the public, and it is “a grave step to deprive a person of their living” when disciplinary action can be taken that does not mean cancelling a licence.

Mr Mulvey has fined PSMG $15,000 and allowed 28 days before the cancellation of Mr Wang’s licence, to allow for an orderly transition to a new licensee.

Read the decision here.