Can a strata manager give out an owner's details?

Often yes, and sometimes you must. State strata law compels the owners corporation to keep the owners roll and make it available to entitled people, and a manager carries that duty where it has been delegated, so privacy is generally not a lawful ground to refuse a proper request. But you cannot hand the same details to just anyone: if the Privacy Act covers your business, you still owe APP 6 and APP 11 over that data.

By Jon Oates, Founder of Privaproof · Last updated 9 September 2026

General information, document templates and tools you tailor, not legal advice. Privaproof is not a law practice.

Need to know

State strata legislation compels the owners corporation to keep an owners roll and make it available to entitled people on a proper request, and a manager carries that duty where it is delegated, so privacy is generally not a lawful reason to refuse.
If the Privacy Act covers your business (broadly, turnover over A$3 million or part of a larger covered group), APP 6 still permits disclosures required or authorised by law, so releasing the roll to an entitled person is permitted while APP 11 requires you to keep it secure from everyone else.
Handing owners' contact details to a real estate agent, marketer or researcher to prospect them is not an authorised purpose and, for a covered manager, would breach APP 6.
The access right, roll contents, prescribed fee and any practice of redacting phone or email before release are state-specific and vary across NSW, Victoria and Queensland, so confirm your own jurisdiction's current requirements.

Why "no, that's private" is usually the wrong answer

Strata is unusual. In most businesses, the safe instinct is to lock personal information away. In strata, the roll is a statutory record that certain people are entitled to see. In New South Wales that duty sits on the owners corporation, which must prepare and maintain the strata roll (s 177) and make the scheme's records available for inspection (s 182(3)). A managing agent carries those duties out where they have been delegated to it under s 52, and that delegation matters to you: under s 57, a breach of a delegated duty is the agent's offence rather than the owners corporation's.

In New South Wales, the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 sets out what the roll must contain (for each lot, the owner's name and an address for service of notices, plus an Australian postal address and an email address if the owner has one and has not given it as the address for service: s 178(1)(a) to (c)), how long records must be kept (7 years, s 180(1), unless the regulations prescribe a different period under s 180(2)) and the right to inspect on written request accompanied by the prescribed fee (s 182(1), (2)). In Walker v The Owners - Strata Plan No 1992 [2020] NSWCATAP 192 the NCAT Appeal Panel held that privacy did not defeat an owner's statutory right to inspect the levy register, finding "no issue of 'privacy' which in this case derogates from the statutory right of an owner to access financial information and accounting records where such a right is expressly provided under the SSM Act" (at [42]). That is authority that a general privacy objection does not defeat an express statutory access right; it is not a rule that nothing in strata records is private. Victoria and Queensland run their own access regimes, and the detail diverges. In Victoria the owners corporation must make its records and its register available to a lot owner, mortgagee, purchaser or their representative for inspection free of charge (Owners Corporations Act 2006 ss 146(1), 150(1)); only copies attract a capped fee. In Queensland the body corporate must respond to an "interested person" within 7 days of a written request accompanied by the prescribed fee, and that class is wider, taking in a buyer under a contract of sale and an agent of an entitled person (Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 s 205(2), s 205(13)). Confirm your own state before quoting a fee or a timeframe.

The practical point: when an owner, mortgagee or covenant chargee, or a person they have authorised, makes a proper request under s 182(1), "privacy" is generally not a lawful reason to refuse. Refusing a request the strata Act entitles a person to make is itself a failure under that Act. In New South Wales the owners corporation must make the listed items available, with a maximum penalty of 5 penalty units (s 182(3)), and the Tribunal may order an owners corporation or a strata managing agent to supply a record wrongfully withheld (s 188). In Queensland the equivalent duty carries a maximum penalty of 20 penalty units (s 205(2)). Victoria's s 146 carries no penalty and is enforced through VCAT.

How this squares with the Privacy Act

If your managing-agent business is covered by the Privacy Act, the Australian Privacy Principles still apply to the roll. Coverage turns on s 6D of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth): broadly, a business is a small business operator if its annual turnover for the previous financial year was A$3 million or less (s 6D(1)), but any completed financial year over A$3 million takes it out permanently (s 6D(4)(a)), and s 6D(9) can bring in a related body corporate of a covered group. Several other limbs of s 6D(4) also remove the exemption, so treat the turnover figure as the first question, not the whole test. That is not a contradiction. The Privacy Act is built to work alongside other laws.

APP 6 stops you using or disclosing personal information for a secondary purpose unless an exception applies. For information that is not sensitive, APP 6.2(a)(ii) covers a related secondary purpose the person would reasonably expect (for sensitive information, APP 6.2(a)(i) requires a directly related purpose), and APP 6.2(b) covers a use or disclosure required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a court or tribunal order. A disclosure the strata Act compels or authorises falls squarely into that last category. So releasing the roll to an entitled person under the statutory access right is a permitted disclosure, not a breach. APP 6.5 then requires a covered entity that discloses under APP 6.2(b) to make a written note of the disclosure, so log it.

Meanwhile APP 11 requires you to keep that same data secure and to take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse and unauthorised access. Holding both at once is the whole skill: you disclose to the people the law entitles, and you protect it from everyone else.

If you are a smaller independent manager, the APPs may not bind your business. Check it properly rather than assuming: the turnover test looks back at completed financial years, not only the current one, and s 6D(4) also removes the exemption from a business that discloses personal information about someone for a benefit, or provides a benefit in order to collect it, which is what selling or trading roll data would be. Even if you are outside the APPs, your state strata law still compels the scheme to release the roll to entitled people, and it is still worth handling the data carefully, because a leak harms residents regardless of whether a federal statute applied to you. Read: does the Privacy Act apply to strata managers?

Where the honest line actually sits

The tension is not between disclosing and refusing. It is between an authorised disclosure and an unauthorised one. A few worked situations:

An owner asks for the roll. Generally yes, this is a lawful inspection request under the strata Act. Follow your state's process (proper request, any prescribed fee, prescribed timeframe). Do not assume you may redact: in New South Wales the only express carve-out is a record that would show how someone voted in a secret ballot (s 182(5)), in Queensland it is a part the body corporate reasonably believes is defamatory (s 205(3)), and none of New South Wales, Victoria or Queensland gives a general privacy ground for stripping contact details out of what an entitled inspector sees. Redaction is far easier to defend against someone who has no statutory right to inspect at all.
A debt collector needs an owner's details to recover levy arrears. Generally permissible. In New South Wales the owners corporation may recover an unpaid contribution as a debt in a court of competent jurisdiction (s 86(2A)), and the owner's name and address for service are already on the roll the scheme is required to keep, so passing them to a collector engaged for that recovery is an ordinary use of the recovery power. Publicly naming a defaulter is a separate question that turns on your state's meeting and reporting rules, so take it separately. Read: levy arrears, debt recovery and privacy in strata
Someone wants owners' contact details in order to prospect them. The question is never the requester's occupation, it is whether they are entitled and what the record will be used for. A real estate agent authorised in writing by an owner, mortgagee or covenant chargee is an entitled inspector in New South Wales (s 182(1)), a purchaser's representative is entitled in Victoria (ss 146(1), 150(1)), and an agent of an interested person is entitled in Queensland (s 205(13)(f)). What you do not do is hand over or sell the roll for marketing. Victoria addresses that directly: a lot owner must not authorise a non-owner representative to request a copy of the register for a commercial purpose without the owners corporation's prior consent (s 150(2A)). For a covered manager, disclosing the roll for someone else's direct marketing engages APP 6 and APP 7, and disclosing personal information for a benefit can itself cost a small business its s 6D exemption. Using or selling the roll for marketing is one of the clearest misuse cases.
One owner wants another owner's details to pursue a personal dispute. Tread carefully. In New South Wales s 182 attaches no purpose test, so an entitled inspector's motive is largely not yours to assess, and refusing on a suspicion is the riskier move. Where a person genuinely fears for their safety there is a statutory route in Victoria: under the Owners Corporations Act 2006 s 172, a person whose personal information is in the owners corporation records or register may apply to VCAT for an order restricting access, and VCAT may make one if it considers exceptional circumstances exist, including conditions naming who is not to have access. New South Wales and Queensland have no equivalent strata provision, so an at-risk owner in those states needs separate legal advice.

The wrong instinct in strata is a blanket "we never release owner details, it's private." That answer can breach the strata Act. The equally wrong instinct is "it's a public record, take whatever you like." That can breach APP 6 if you are covered. The honest answer lives between them: disclose to the entitled, for the authorised purpose, and protect it from everyone else.

A simple test before you release anything

Is the requester an entitled person under my state's strata Act? (In NSW, an owner, mortgagee or covenant chargee of a lot, or a person they authorise: s 182(1). Other states name their own class.)
Have they made the request the right way? (Proper form, prescribed fee, prescribed timeframe.)
What is the request for, and does my state let me ask? New South Wales attaches no purpose test to s 182, so an entitled inspector's purpose is not a ground to refuse. Victoria's s 150(2A) is the narrow exception, on copies of the register sought for a commercial purpose.
Am I releasing it securely and keeping a record? (Send securely, and note the disclosure, which APP 6.5 requires of a covered entity disclosing under APP 6.2(b).)

If the requester is entitled and has asked the right way, release it. If they are not entitled, that is your lawful ground to decline, and it is the ground the strata Act actually gives you, not a vague "it's private". Do not decline an entitled inspector because you dislike the purpose.

If yes to all four, disclosure is generally lawful. If the request fails any of them, that is your lawful ground to pause, ask for clarification, or decline, and it is the ground the strata Act and the Privacy Act actually give you, not a vague "it's private."

Common questions

Can I refuse to give an owner the roll on privacy grounds?

Generally no. Generally no. State strata law gives entitled people a right to inspect the records, including the roll, on a proper request. In New South Wales that is a written notice with the prescribed fee (s 182(1) and (2)); in Victoria inspection of the records and the register is free of charge and only copies are chargeable (ss 146, 150); in Queensland the body corporate has 7 days to answer a written request accompanied by the prescribed fee (s 205(2)). Privacy is not usually a lawful ground to refuse a request the strata Act authorises. Follow your state's inspection process rather than blanket-refusing.

If the Privacy Act covers my business, doesn't that override the strata Act?

No. The Australian Privacy Principles are designed to work alongside other laws. APP 6 expressly permits a use or disclosure that is required or authorised by law, and a disclosure the strata Act compels is exactly that. You disclose to entitled people under the strata Act, and you keep the data secure under APP 11. Both apply at once.

Can I give owners' contact details to a real estate agent or marketing company?

No. That is not an authorised purpose under the strata Act, and if your business is covered by the Privacy Act it would breach APP 6. The statutory access right is for the class the Act entitles (in NSW, an owner, mortgagee or covenant chargee, or a person they authorise) for genuine strata purposes, not for prospecting, resale or marketing lists.

Can the owners corporation give an owner's details to a debt collector chasing levy arrears?

Generally yes. Disclosing an owner's details to recover unpaid levies flows from the owners corporation's statutory records and its power to recover levies, so it is usually an authorised disclosure. Publicly naming a defaulter, for example at a general meeting, is a separate and higher-risk step that a covered manager should handle carefully.

Do these rules change depending on my state?

Yes. The access right, the roll contents, the fee and any redaction practice all sit in state strata legislation and vary. We scope our guidance to New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland and flag where a detail needs confirming for your state. Always confirm your own jurisdiction's current requirements before releasing records.

Keep reading

This is general information and document templates you tailor to your own business, not legal advice. Privaproof is not a law practice and does not provide legal advice. Whether the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) applies to your business depends on your turnover and structure; state strata legislation governs the owners roll and record access, and it varies by jurisdiction. State strata Acts and the Privacy Act change over time, so check you are working from a current version and confirm your own state's requirements. For advice on your specific circumstances, consult a qualified Australian legal practitioner.