Right of owners to attend body corporate committee meetings

QLD

Committee & Governance

What is the right of owners to attend body corporate committee meetings? When owners attend committee meetings, what recourse do they have if excluded from discussions during the meeting?

Owners (or their representatives) have a legislative right to attend committee meetings. What recourse do attending owners have when:

the chairperson requires the owner to leave meetings when the discussion or vote doesn't directly relate to them, such as an alleged by-law breach by another resident, and/or
the committee members intentionally talk to each other in such a low tone so as to ensure it is inaudible to attending owners.

Such actions fly in the face of transparency, often the cornerstone of harmonious community living.

The committee can decide whether a non-committee member may or may not be present for an item of business.

The committee has the power to decide whether a person who is not a committee member that is attending the committee meeting may be present for an item of business about by-law contraventions, starting a proceeding, defending a proceeding, and a dispute between the body corporate and certain other persons (such as owners, occupiers, caretakers). Those items of business need not relate in any way to the non-committee member who is attending the committee meeting for the committee to decide that the person must not be present while the item of business is being conducted. The non-committee member must leave the meeting for those items of business, if that is the committee's decision. If you do not want to be required to leave, you will need to be on the committee (though there are other reasons why a committee member may still be required to leave a committee meeting from time to time).

When the non-committee member is present in the committee meeting, that person may observe the meeting and only speak to the committee if invited to do so by the committee. The non-committee member can be directed to leave the committee meeting (and must comply with such direction) if the person speaks to the committee without invitation.

If the non-committee member is unable to hear the discussions taking place in the committee meeting, it will depend on the interpretation of the word 'observe' as to whether there is anything the committee needs to do to accommodate attendees. A request to the committee to increase the volume of their voices when discussing items of business would be a good start if that has not already occurred.