Firstly, we have many integrations.  Lot owner ledgers and body corporate accounts are reconciled automatically every day.  Our phone system alerts us automatically to the caller’s name when a committee member makes contact.  Our reminder system generates scheduled alert emails to the committee nominee when periodic tasks need deciding and actioning by the committee.  Our automatic email and SMS reminders ensures lot owners do not get stung with arrears fees.  Our internal reminder systems ensure we don’t miss important dates in the calendar of your body corporate.  Our bespoke management software enables us to send through year end financials within three business days of the end of your financial year.

Secondly, our contracts are designed to be largely inclusive.  We don’t spend our time tracking our activities and invoicing a body corporate for every minute of the day.  Our approach is based on our contract which includes all small time bound tasks.  If it is a long task, the committee nominee will be advised and the committee will have the option of completing the task themselves, or alternatively we will timesheet and invoice for the task. No surprises, no bill shock.

Lastly, we think outside the box.  Using our specialist software, that’s how we can offer a DIY or bookkeeping or full service offering unlike any other body corporate manager business in Queensland.  Whilst other managers will take two weeks to organise their records should you not renew a contract, our efficiency enables us to readily handover all records within one business day of our contract ending with you (a very rare occurrence) subject to new banking details having been advised.

Our system automatically issues an email and or TXT warning of an overdue payment every month.  There is no charge for this.  Additionally, the email is sent after the due date for the levy but before any penalty fees are applied (which is legislated as one month after the due date).  A lot owner who then pays in full before the penalty fee date will have not been hit with any additional payments.  Happy days!

Contrast this with a typical body corporate manager approach.  The notice is often issued only after the penalty fee date so usually they must pay both the penalty amount (2.5% of the outstanding levy) and an arrears notice fee (typically $39).  Usually, there can be confusion and the lot owner pays one of the amounts but not both or not quickly enough and a second penalty kicks in which spirals into additional arrears notice fees being issued.  Outcome – lot owner very unhappy – but a very happy body corporate manager who is earning arrears notice fee revenue for what many would consider an automated task.

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.

Committee options

We recommend that a committee should consider a lot owner’s motion before an AGM notice is finalised and issued.
Lot owners generally look to the committee for guidance about lot owner sponsored motions so a communication to lot
owners from the committee is a useful initiative.

• The committee may have no relevant view on the motion. Lot owners can be advised that the committee has no view. This can be separately communicated, included in the AGM notice or both.
• The committee may form a view that the motion is likely to be ruled out of order by the presiding chairperson on the day of the AGM. The committee might choose to advise the lot owner and accept a motion resubmission that might enable the motion to not be ruled out of order.
• The committee may be significantly against the motion. Lot owners could be advised to vote NO, and the committee should give reasonable arguments as to why the motion should be voted down.
• The committee members may be split in their support for the motion. In this case, lot owners could be advised that the committee is in disagreement about the merits of the motion and has no guidance to give lot owners.
• The committee might be significantly in favour of the motion. The committee might choose to ask the lot
  owner to withdraw their motion so that the motion can be put to the AGM as a committee motion. The lot owner might want to see final wording of the committee motion before agreeing to withdraw.
• The committee might be significantly in favour of the motion provided that the motion wording is modified to address committee concerns. If the lot owner does not want to comply and does not withdraw their motion, the committee can put an alternate motion to the AGM that does address the committees’ concerns. Together, these motions are known as ‘a group of same motions’. This most commonly occurs when the lot owner motion is ‘an improvement to common property by a lot owner’. Usually, the lot owner is proposing a motion that is of direct benefit to themselves and usually no one else. When the project cost is more than
  $3,000 – the motion must be considered at a general meeting (and cannot be approved by the committee)

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.

The reconstruction was complex for a number of reasons. Firtstly, there were 26 lots but the lot numbering according to titles was 1-28 with no lot 9 or lot lot 20. This does happen from time to time and is usually as a cosequence of a staged development of the scheme. Additionally, the lot owners used a different numbering scheme for their physical and postal address. For example lot 18 was actually known as unit 25. This also happens from time to time and is usually a consequence of the allocation of postal addresses by local council differing from the titling numbering. Fortuately, Tracsafe’s DIY software copes with both these situations.

The next issue was the requirement for a water levy as the body cororate is billed in bulk and must recover the cost from lot owners using the water meters that are read on site by the committee. The prior body corporate manager was unable to cope with this requirement and was issuing separate invoice to lot owners for the water. Tracsafe’s DIY software was able to incorporate these lot expenses into the lot ledgers so that lot owners had a single levy notice and lot ledger to review.

The scheme was using both discounts and penalties on levies. Seemingly arbitrary remission of interest and approval of discounts made the rebuild very difficult. Tracsafe’s DIY software correctly implements the legislative requirement for discounts and penalties and was able to address the prior manager’s actions.

In summary, Tracsafe’s DIY software has seen nearly all possible scenarios in Queensland strata and is able to address most.