Everything was going ok and appropriate general meeting motions were passed. Unfortunately, the meters are located with the lot boundaries and not on common property. Consequently, every lot owner needs to formally consent to the body corporate upgrading the meter. Additionally, the expense should be a lot owner expense and not be a body corporate expense.

Unfortunately, not every lot owner consented. Whilst the body corporate legislation allows for this situation … some lot owners billed by meter and the unmetered lot owners billed by lot entitlement … Urban Utilities does not support the arrangement. Only if all lots have compliant water meters will they change to billing by usage. Private water billing companies such as Fairwater meters have the same business rule.

So, the poor body corporate is stuck with billing by lot entitlment … for ever.

Previously, sellers were obliged to obtain a S206 certificate for a lot in a body corporate. The S206 had to be presented with a contract for sale. After a contract was entered into with a buyer and usually subsequent to the contract going unconditional, the buyer would usually obtain a Form 13 Information certificate which gave details of levies and current status of the lot ledger so as to enable apportionment of monies at settlement.

In the new legislation, the seller must obtain a Form 33 Body Corporate certificate which must be given to a potential buyer before a contract is signed. This is a much more comprehensive document than the prior S206 and incorporates elements of both the S206 and the Form 13 into the content of the new Form 33.

A good place for further understanding is to read this REIQ webpage –

https://www.reiq.com/articles/property-sales/new-body-corporate-certificates-to-apply-from-1-august-2025

A Form 33 Body Corporate certificate can be obtained from the body corporate after payment of the prescribed fee.

One of our schemes was recently asked to remove a tree that was impacting a neigbour. The neighbour had filled out the relevant QCAT forms and submitted their request to the body corporate that we manage. However, this scheme was defined by survey as a standard format plan of survey (SFP) and not as a building format plan of survey (BFP). The tree was within the boundary of one of the lots and in this instance the ‘treekeeper’ was the lot owner and not the body corporate. Consequently, we advised the neighbour to resubmit the paperwork and direct it to the lot owner.

In a reverse situation, and in a different scheme, the tree of a neigbour was impacting more than one lot owner within a scheme that we manage. The scheme we manage was again a scheme defined by a standard format plan of survey (SFP). Two lot owners were directly impacted by the tree and the body corporate also had a portion of common property that was being impacted. In this case, a single letter was sent to the neighbour that was jointly written and signed by the two lot owners together with the body corporate. The three parties may end up filing a joint QCAT application if the neighbour does not take action in regard to their tree. Interestingly, you do not need to be a ‘directly adjoining’ neighbour to raise a tree dispute. If you are impacted by a tree, you have the right to raise a dispute with a tree keeper.

No by-law was being contravenved through their action since the relevant by-law was only specific that the space be used for ‘parking’. Provided that both the car and the scooter fit within the allocated EUA space, our advice was that a lot owner should be permitted to use the space for this purpose. Even though there is restricted access to the designated bicycle and motorcycle parking area, it should not be expected that access be granted via a lot owner’s exclusive use area.

In prior cases, such as Las Rias [2022] QBCCMCmr 167, adjudicators have held that crossing a lot owner’s EUA to access another area infringes on the lot owner’s exclusive rights to the space.

The body corporate is now exploring alternative solutions to address the issue.

However, there are no body corporate policemen employed to check up on committees and their conformance. It is for concerned lot owners to hold committees to account by using the mechanisms provided within the legislation. Recourse to adjudication and conciliation through the BCCM commissioner’s office is the only lengthy pathway when lot owners do not agree with committee actions.

Scattered throughout the legislation are ‘penalties’ for developers, body corporate managers, committees, lot owners and lot occupiers. This could be for failing to perform certain tasks or failing to observe by-laws. It is possible, that an aggrieved party might succeed in obtaining an order that they must themselves enforce through the courts for a monetary penalty to be applied to the bad actor. With the exception of by-law enforcement by the committee against a lot owner or lot occupier, this outcome is rarely seen.

Committee members are volunteers who hopefully put the best interests of their scheme first before their own self interest. Our book, Queensland body corporate DIY – A handbook to self-management, can help committees on the straight and narrow.

If your body corporate doesn’t have a current tax agent, and you want to contact the ATO or you want to appoint a tax agent, this might be a huge problem for you. The problem arises if the ATO recorded authorised contacts are no longer known to the committee or no longer cooperating with the committee. The ATO will only accept changes to contacts when the form NAT 2943 is signed by an authorised contact that is recorded in the ATO system.

If you have a body corporate manager, you will generally find that the principal of the BCM company has been appointed the public officer and the tax agent has updated the ATO records to reflect the change. So, before you transition to self management, make sure that you appoint authorised persons from the committee and make sure the existing tax agent updates the ATO records through the ATO online portal or the existing public officer updates the ATO records using form NAT 2943.

Tracsafe is trying to make things better. Have a read of the complaints letter that we have submitted to ATO.

The Act permits a maximum levy penalty rate of 2.5% per month and we recommend setting penalties at that maximum rate. The penalty must only be applied to a lot ledger one month after the levy falls due and payable. Since a levy must be issued one month in advance of the due date, there really is no excuse if payment is not made for two months. Our committees rarely get requests from lot owners for a penalty to be waived. If you were a Tracsafe client, you would have received a levy notice by both email and post (if wanted) ensuring two separate ways of communication. It is extremely unlikely that the levy was not received by the lot owner. Additionally, a reminder email is likely to have been sent advising that payment was overdue prior to the penalty being applied. Each month that the levy remains unpaid will incur further penalty. This is a strong mechanism to ensure lot owners pay their levies.

Discounts are best used when the money is neeed urgently; typically this is usually for a special levy for a major project with time constraints and where the body corporate has insufficient funds to proceed until the levy monies are receipted. The Act permits a maximum discount of 20% if the levy is paid in full on or before the due date. If you are just one day (not one month like a penalty) overdue – you do not get the discount. Unlike penalties, if you are overdue – you incur a large financial impact 20% vs 2.5%. Without penalties – once you miss the discount there is no further incentive to pay the levy. Because of these issues, committees come under a lot of pressure to consider discount relief from lot owners who missed the discount. This often causes unhappiness fro lot owners and difficulty for committees in making consistent decisions. Finally, the use of discounts on regular standard levies makes the financial statement and budget statements more complex than they need to be.

In summary, our advice is to always use penalties (at the maximum rate of 2.5% per month) on every levy. Do not use discounts on standard levies and only use discounts on special levies where the monies are needed as soon as possible because the body corporate has insufficient funds.

The BCCMA prohibits by-laws that restrict the leasing of units or restrict the type of residential use that can be made of the unit. By-laws seeking to prohibit the short term letting of units are therefore invalid.   Whilst other legislation (Planning Act 2016) may mandate no short-term accommodation on your scheme, a by-law to directly enforce the correct usage has been found to be invalid on multiple occasions.

As part of the development approval of a scheme, the permitted use of scheme land will have been determined by the applicable local council with regard to their specific local planning code. For example, in Sunshine Coast Council, a scheme may be approved as ‘Multiple dwelling’ or ‘Short term accommodation’. Short term accommodation is defined in the Sunshine Coast Planning Scheme 2014 as ‘Premises used to provide short-term accommodation for tourists or travellers for a temporary period of time (typically not exceeding three consecutive months) and may be self-contained’.

For a fee, a local council will supply a letter that identifies the usage permitted by your scheme.  If the reply identifies that short-term accommodation is not permitted on your scheme, then there is a pathway for the Committee to enforce. If short-term accommodation is permitted, the pathway is limited to investigating with local council whether a Material Change of Use of the development could be contemplated.

We have worked with UOAQ (Unit Owners Association Qld) and their legal experts to craft a by-law that we consider may not fall foul of the Body Corporate police.  

1. All owners acknowledge that ‘short term accommodation’ is not a permitted use of lots within this scheme’s development approval (as identified and as such term is understood in the attachment marked ‘XX’), and that the body corporate and all owners must comply with all applicable laws and regulations, at all times. 
2. If the committee becomes aware that a lot is being used for ‘short term accommodation’, the committee may, by resolution, carry out any or all of the following actions:
a) advise the relevant owner of the lot that ‘short term accommodation’ is not a permitted use of a lot within this scheme’s development approval (as identified and as such term is understood in the attachment marked ‘XX’) and demand an immediate cessation of the use of the lot in such manner;
b) report the usage of the lot to the XYZ Council requesting enforcement action;
c) issue a notice of breach of this bylaw to the relevant lot owner;
d) obtain necessary body corporate approvals to commence (or defend against) proceedings in a court, tribunal or forum of competent jurisdiction, including (without limitation) the Queensland Planning and Environment Court and/or the Magistrates Court in relation to the enforcement of the provisions of this by-law and/or any other applicable law and/or regulation.

Rather than giving our spin on the new regulations, we recommend reading the summary of the changes to the Standard module regulation as written by the queensland government legislators. You can download it here directly from our website.

The changes across all the regulations are very similar. Notwithstanding, there is a separate explanatory note for each regulation. Here is the small schemes regulation summary of changes.