Centenant, a South African property technology company, has announced the availability of Centenant STM — a cloud-based management platform built specifically for Body Corporate trustees managing sectional title schemes across South Africa. The platform addresses a long-standing gap in the South African property sector, where the vast majority of Body Corporate schemes continue to be managed using informal communication tools such as WhatsApp, paper-based records, and general-purpose spreadsheets.
Centenant STM provides trustees with a dedicated digital environment covering six core operational areas — among a broader set of available features: complaint management, mass resident notifications, digital trustee approvals and voting, unit management, pet applications, and a centralised registry for vehicles and domestic workers.
THE PROBLEM CENTENANT STM SOLVES
South Africa has more than 50 000 registered sectional title schemes, and the vast majority of them are still being administered through WhatsApp groups and paper files. Sectional title trustees in South Africa operate under the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act (STSMA), which imposes fiduciary duties on trustees . Despite these obligations, there has been little to no purpose-built digital tools designed for the trustee role in South Africa’s sectional title market.
The consequences of inadequate management systems causes problems: maintenance requests lost in group chats with no accountability trail, mass notifications sent to WhatsApp groups that are frequently muted or ignored , trustee decisions made verbally without written records, and governance disputes arising from incomplete or inaccessible documentation. The absence of proper records frequently disadvantages trustees.
Centenant STM was designed from first principles to address these operational realities — giving trustees practical, accessible digital infrastructure that improves governance, reduces administrative burden, and protects them in the event of a dispute.
PLATFORM FEATURES
Centenant STM includes many features, but among them are these key highlights:
- Complaint Management — Residents and trustees log complaints and issues directly on the platform where only the trustees can access them. Complaints are auto-assigned by category, tracked through to resolution with full communication history, and supports media attachments like images or sound files.
- Mass Notifications — Trustees can send an email or SMS to every resident in the scheme, or to a targeted group, from a single screen. Delivery records are kept automatically. This feature is designed to replace one-by-one WhatsApp messaging or group chats for scheme-wide communications.
- Approvals and Trustee Voting — Documents are uploaded to the platform for trustee review. Trustees vote to approve or decline with reasons recorded. A full timestamped governance record of every decision is maintained and accessible.
- Unit Management — Trustees control unit assignments and generate login credentials for residents, giving occupants self-service access to their own unit details through the platform.
- Pet Applications — Residents submit digital pet applications complete with photos. Trustees approve or decline within the platform, and a full register of all approved pets is maintained.
- Vehicle and Domestic Worker Registry — Residents register vehicles and domestic workers per unit. Trustees have instant visibility across the full scheme register at all times.
MARKET CONTEXT
Sectional title ownership is a fast growing form of property ownership in South Africa. Despite this growth, the software and technology infrastructure serving the Body Corporate management sector has not kept pace. Most available property management tools in South Africa are designed for rental portfolio management or managing agent use, rather than for the trustee themselves. Centenant STM is positioned as the first platform in the South African market built exclusively around the trustee’s operational role.
The platform also positions itself as complementary to managing agents rather than competitive. Managing agents are responsible for financial administration, legal compliance, and scheme secretarial functions. Centenant STM addresses the day-to-day operational layer — the maintenance, communication, governance recording, and registry management that trustees perform between managing agent touchpoints.
AVAILABILITY
Centenant STM is available immediately across South Africa. Trustees can register at no cost and begin using the platform immediately. The pricing model is straightforward with all features included. There are no setup fees, no contracts, and no feature tiers.
The platform is cloud-based and accessible via web browser on desktop and mobile devices. No software installation is required
ABOUT CENTENANT
Centenant is a South African property technology company building digital infrastructure for the community scheme management sector. Centenant STM is built and maintained in South Africa, for the South African property market.
Centenant’s approach is to build purpose-built tools for specific roles within the property ecosystem rather than general-purpose property software. The company believes that better digital tools produce better-governed schemes, which in turn protect property values and improve the quality of community living for South African residents.