Who Is Responsible for Repairs in a Queensland Body Corporate?
Roof leaks, windows, waterproofing, plumbing. The plan type decides it.
It is the most common question in Queensland strata, and it arrives in the same shape every time. Something has failed. A roof is leaking, a window will not close, there is damp coming through a wall. Somebody has to pay, and nobody agrees on who.
The short answer is that it depends on your plan type and where the boundary of your lot sits. That sounds like a lawyer’s answer, but it is genuinely the fork in the road, and most disputes we see come from people skipping past it.
Start with your plan type, not the item
Queensland schemes are registered under one of a few survey plan formats, and the two you are most likely to have are a building format plan or a standard format plan. They draw the line between your lot and common property in completely different places.
Building format plan
Your lot boundaries are defined by the building itself, usually running through the centre of floors, walls and ceilings. Think of a typical unit in a tower or a walk up block.
Because the boundary runs through the structure, the structure is largely common property. The roof, the external walls, the slab, the structural frame: those sit with the body corporate. You own the space inside, and the fixtures and finishes within it.
Standard format plan
Your lot boundaries are surveyed land boundaries, marked on the ground, and the building inside them is yours. Townhouses and villa complexes are commonly registered this way.
Here the position roughly inverts. You maintain your own building including its roof and external walls. The body corporate is left with the land and structures outside the lot boundaries: driveways, visitor parking, shared fencing, retaining walls, common landscaping, and utility infrastructure that serves more than one lot.
Two identical looking complexes can be registered differently. This is not something to assume from the look of the building. Check the plan.
Then check which regulation module applies
Every scheme also operates under one of the regulation modules made under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997. The Standard Module and the Accommodation Module are the two most commonly encountered, and there are others for commercial schemes, small schemes and two lot schemes.
Which module applies affects how maintenance duties are expressed and how decisions get made. Committees frequently do not know which one applies to them. It is recorded in the community management statement.
The items people actually argue about
What follows is the general position for a building format plan, which is where most of these questions come from. Treat it as a starting point for the conversation rather than a determination, because the community management statement can affect the answer and so can the way a particular plan is drawn.
Roof and roof leaks
Where the scheme is a building format plan, the roof is common property, so the body corporate maintains it and repairs leaks originating there. That much is usually straightforward. The argument is normally about the consequential damage inside the lot, and about whether the leak came from the roof at all or from something inside the lot such as a failed shower membrane.
Standard format plan, and the roof over your townhouse is your own problem.
Windows and sliding doors
This is the single most disputed item, and anyone who gives you a confident one line answer is oversimplifying. Windows and external doors sit right on the boundary, which is exactly why they generate arguments. The general position on a building format plan is that the body corporate carries the structural window and door elements forming part of the boundary, while the owner carries what is attached on the inside, such as blinds and internal furnishings. Where the glass, the frame, the tracks and the hardware fall can vary.
Get the plan and the community management statement out before anyone commits to paying.
Waterproofing
Waterproofing membranes in balconies, bathrooms and podium areas are among the most expensive failures in strata, and among the most contested. The membrane may be part of the structure and therefore common property, while the tiling and finishes above it are the owner’s. That split is why so many of these end up in front of an adjudicator.
Recording the state of the membrane before it fails is considerably cheaper than the dispute afterwards.
Plumbing
Whether the pipe serves one lot or more than one is the usual dividing line. Utility infrastructure servicing multiple lots is generally common property. A pipe that serves only your lot, running within your lot, is generally yours. Vertical stacks and shared risers are typically common property even where they pass through a lot.
Structural damage
Structural elements are common property under a building format plan, so cracking, movement and concrete cancer sit with the body corporate. This is also where a scheme discovers whether its sinking fund forecast was realistic, because structural work is rarely small.
Water damage and rising damp
These are two questions, not one. Who fixes the source, and who pays for the damage. The source follows the ordinary rules above. The damage is usually an insurance question, and for a building format plan the body corporate typically insures the building while owners insure contents and improvements.
Rising damp is nearly always a structural or ground moisture problem rather than something originating inside a lot, which usually points to common property.
Pest control and termites
Treatment of common property, and of structures that are common property, sits with the body corporate. Pests inside a lot are ordinarily the occupier’s problem. Termites cut across both, because a termite path does not respect the boundary and the structural damage they cause is often to common property. Schemes with timber elements should be inspecting on a cycle rather than reacting.
Garage doors
It depends whether the garage is part of the lot or is common property, and whether the door forms part of the boundary. On a building format plan a roller door to a basement carpark that everybody uses is common property. A door on an individual garage that forms part of a lot is a different question.
Balconies
Usually a split. The slab and balustrade are commonly structural and therefore common property, while the tiles, paint and anything the owner has added are not. Balustrade compliance in particular is a body corporate safety matter, not a cosmetic one.
Fencing, driveways and retaining walls
For a standard format scheme these are often the main things the body corporate does maintain, and committees underestimate them. A failed retaining wall is a large number, and a shared driveway resurfacing is larger than most forecasts allow for.
Why these disputes drag on
Almost never because the law is unclear. Usually because nobody has established the facts. There is no record of what condition the element was in, when it was last touched, or where the failure actually started. Both sides then argue from memory, and memory favours whoever is more certain rather than whoever is right.
A committee that can produce a dated report describing the condition of common property is in a completely different position from one that cannot.
How a condition report settles it
A common property condition report records what the body corporate is responsible for, what condition it is in, and what needs attention. It does three things that matter here.
- It establishes the boundary in writing, before anyone is emotionally invested in a particular answer
- It dates the condition, which is what allows you to show later that a defect was or was not already present
- It feeds the sinking fund forecast, so the money is being collected for the work that is actually coming
Where building work is about to start next door, a dilapidation report does the same job for a different purpose. It records the condition of your common property before someone else’s excavator arrives, which is the only practical way to demonstrate afterwards that a crack was not already there.
What to do next
- Find your survey plan and confirm whether the scheme is a building format or standard format plan
- Find the community management statement and confirm which regulation module applies
- Check whether the scheme has a current condition report, and how old the sinking fund forecast is
- If the answer to either is nothing or several years, that is the gap worth closing before the next failure
Seymour Consultants has prepared these reports for Queensland bodies corporate since 2001. Our quantity surveyors are members of the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors. If you want the position on your scheme established properly, call 07 5573 4011 with the address, the lot count and the plan type.
This page is general information about how responsibility is usually allocated in Queensland schemes. It is not legal advice, and it does not account for the specific wording of your community management statement or any by-law your scheme has adopted. For a dispute already running, the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management is the starting point.
To discuss your scheme, call 07 5573 4011 or email info@seymourconsultants.com.au.
