Question: Can an owners corporation recover the cost of repair work to private property in the Magistrates Court, or must it go to VCAT?
Our owners corporation understands that recovery of levies in arrears must now go to VCAT. We want to know whether recovering the cost of repair work carried out on lot property is treated differently.
Answer: Recovering repair costs from a lot owner is still a debt owed to the OC and must be pursued through VCAT.
There are now a number of Magistrates’ Court of Victoria cases following the decision in Buckley that provide that VCAT has exclusive jurisdiction to deal with levy recovery proceedings. One of the reasons why the Magistrates’ Court says they don’t have jurisdiction is because of section 30(2) of the Owners Corporation Act 2006 which provides that sections 31 and 32, and Division 1 of Part 11 apply to the recovery of money owed to the owners corporation by a lot owner.
Whilst section 48(4) provides that an owners corporation may recover as a debt from a lot owner the cost of repairs, maintenance or other works carried out under 48(3), that amount is still an amount due by a lot owner to an owners corporation.
What is strange about the situation is that by this logic, when there is a debt, the owners corporation must issue a fee notice and final fee notice first in order to trigger the requirement for VCAT proceedings to be initiated.
Unless and until the Parliament changes the legislation, the safest course would be to issue an application in VCAT only when there is money owing by a lot owner to an owners corporation.
This post appears in the May 2026 edition of The VIC Strata Magazine.
Phillip Leaman
Tisher Liner FC Law
E: ocenquiry@tlfc.com.au
P: 03 8600 9370
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