Legislation

May 2020 – COVID-19

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The government has addressed COVID-19 temporary measures to assist lot owners in bodies corporate. One of those measures requires any penalty interest that would normally be applied to a lot ledger, due to an upaid levy, to not be applied. This measure must be in place from 25th May through to 31st December 2020. After […]

Body Corporate Manager

March 2020 – Duplexes – An inconvenient truth

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There are about 25,000 duplexes in Queensland. When selling a duplex, a problem can arise for the buyer, the seller, or both. There can be some significant blind eye and misinformation being transacted. At one extreme is a duplex that is under body corporate administration by a body corporate manager. In a recent example, the […]

Issues

December 2019 – Disputes take time to resolve

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Back in May 19, an EGM for one of our schemes was held that resolved to move airconditioning condensers to a new location on common property. The six condensers, which are utility infrastructure that forms part of common property (but are maintained by lot owners) were causing nuisance to some lot owners and this is […]

Issues

October 2019 – Unpaid levies

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Unpaid levies can be a financial headache for a body corporate, particularly a small body corporate. When the committee has taken all the inital actions of confirming that levies are getting through to the lot owner and sending reminders, what can they do? The BCCM regulations require that they must take action if the debt […]

Body Corporate Manager

May 2019 – Body Corporate Manager motions

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Lot owners have the right to propose a general motion to appoint a body corporate manager of their preference. Their choice of body corporate manager may not match the committee’s preference. In such cases, a motion with alternatives will appear on the AGM Notice of meeting. Lot owners will then get an opportunity to vote […]

Insurance

March 2019 – Ownership, maintenance and insurance

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A very important concept is to realise that the BCCM legislation complicates whether the body corporate or lot owner should be attributed the ownership, maintenance or insurance responsibility for specific infrastructure.  Let’s go through a couple of examples that are relevant for schemes surveyed as building format plan. Take airconditioning. In the case of an […]

Best practice

February 2019 – Electricity issues with Energex

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This month, a lot owner’s hot water went cold.  A plumber was called who found no issue with the plumbing.  Eventually, Energex was called and identified a fault in the electrical infrastructure on the property.  They also stated that other lot owners would have been affected in the same way.  The plumber charged $200.  The lot owner asked the plumber […]

Best practice

January 2019 – Prospective lot purchaser

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We occasionally get one of the questions listed below from a prospective lot purchaser.  Recently, a client using our bookkeeping service received these questions.  In small schemes, committees can struggle with an answer particularly when the lot owner selling is well regarded by the committee and the committee wants to be helpful.  As always, the committee needs to […]

Best practice

December 2018 – General meeting motions

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A lot owner had some concerns about a motion that was scheduled to be voted upon at an upcoming AGM.  The issue was around the motion wording, the explanatory note, and the attached quotation to the Notice of meeting.  Written and verbal clarification had been sought from the committee and specifically the committee member who had organised […]

Insurance

November 2018 – Insurers have a lot of power

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A recent storm on the Gold coast affected one of the schemes that we manage.  There was water damage to two lots after severe hail cracked and lifted tiles above their townhouses.  The scheme is on a building format plan of survey so the impact to the roofing above the two lots was a body corporate responsibility.  The […]