Question: Can an owner with transparency concerns request copies of quotes approved by the committee, and is the committee obliged to supply them?
A body corporate organised report indicated varying unit maintenance requirements, and the committee performed maintenance on seven units.
Payment made to the company for each unit’s work was the same amount for each unit. An additional payment of the identical amount was paid for three of the seven units.
Given that the reports varied for each unit, it is difficult to understand why there was unity in the maintenance cost for all units.
Can an owner request copies of the quotes approved by the committee? Is the committee obliged to supply the quotes?
Answer: An owner can request copies of the quotes.
Yes, an owner can request copies of the quotes.
The committee is not obliged to provide them to you. If they don’t, you could arrange to inspect the books and records and access them that way.
Also consider submitting an owner’s motion to the committee requesting the documents be sent to owners. The committee could still vote against this motion, but it may help to make the matter more public.
That said, the way you have presented the issue makes it sound somewhat confrontational. You could request the quotes by writing to the committee for a plain-English explanation of what expenses were undertaken and why. Explain that you are not ‘inspecting’ the committee but are interested in the process and keen to know more.
From the committee’s end, it is reasonable for owners to ask these questions and explaining approval processes can be a good way to build trust. Of course, you can’t explain every minor choice, but having a reasonable flow of information between owners and the committee can help with understanding. If you have made a reasonable decision in good faith you should be prepared to discuss that.
William Marquand
Tower Body Corporate
E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au
P: 07 5609 4924
This post appears in the June 2025 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Do voting tally sheets only apply to secret ballot motions at general meetings? Is there any way to check who voted ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in a committee meeting motion, or is that information not considered an official body corporate record?
We have responded to your article on this post: QLD: Q&A Adjudicators Order to Obtain Financial Records
Our Strata manager and 6 members of the committee act unlawfully and only our new chairperson tries very hard to do everything correctly but is not respected and the wrong doers win by voting against her, even though, she is the only one correct.
How can this situation change, so that the manager and 6 committee members learn the laws and act according to those.
Those committee members are self-appointed, due to most owners renting their properties and are not interested to participate or even send votes to AGM.
How can those few remaining owners achieve for the committee and the manager stop behaving badly.?
Shouldn’t they be forced to educate themselves about the laws in order to stay in their positions?
Hi Susan
The following response has been provided by Chris Irons, Strata Solve:
Let’s clear up a few things in your query. There is no such thing as a ‘self-appointed’ committee member. Committee members are either elected at an AGM, removed (and replaced) at an EGM, or appointed to a casual vacancy. People eligible to be on the committee can absolutely nominate themselves.
Voting in a body corporate meeting is not compulsory. Nor is there any compulsion for people to participate. They really should, of course, but unlike at a political election, there are no penalties for not voting in strata.
You need to be careful when you are saying things like ‘wrong doers’ and ‘behaving badly’. I don’t know what those things mean in a strata context and one should always be careful of accusing someone else of doing the wrong thing, especially when seeming using one’s own name in doing so. It is far better for you to be specific: what exactly is not happening correctly, in your view?
I also don’t know what you mean when you say someone is the only person doing the ‘correct’ thing. There are plenty of instances in strata legislation where legislation is ambiguous. And that means the ‘correct’ thing can be subject to interpretation.
With all of that in mind then, you ask a very good question about how people can become knowledgeable. An ideal way is for people to undertake the free, online committee training provided by the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management. Even if someone is not a committee member, this training is a great way of getting across some fundamental concepts. Then there are places like LookUpStrata, which provide a lot of resources to help people navigate through strata situations. Finally, people can always engage someone like me to give them practical, strategic advice on how to navigate through challenging strata issues.
For the strata manager, if you are not happy with something they have done, and if they are a member of a professional body, you could potentially lodge a complaint about them to their professional body.
Always, though, the fact remains that the horse can be led to water but it cannot be made to drink: you can provide all the resources and assistance in the world, and it will amount to nothing if someone is not interested in reading, understanding and absorbing it.
Re William Marquand and whether out-of-session e-mail communications about BC matters between committee members and without referral to the BCM can be accessed by interested persons under s.205 of the BCCM Act.
The simple answer is YES.
This question was comprehensively examined in the Plantation Adjudication at [2020] QBCCMCmr 533, which can be found via austlii on http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb/au/cases/qld/QBCCMCmr/.
Interestingly, Plantation is a two-parter, one dealing with communications between committee members and the other re access to CCTV footage.
All unit owners in QLD would benefit from reading this Adjudication, just to appreciate how far-reaching, how unfettered the scope of s.205 is.
Just a quick clarification re Michael Kleinschmidt’s Q&A that “a lot owner can access the records of the body corporate by completing and lodging the required BCCM Form 12,” It should be noted that a lot owner can, but does not have to use the Form 12, All that is required under s.205 of the BCCM Act is that the request be “in writing”…and this includes by e-mail. Form 12 is only an ‘Office Form’, ie to be used at the discretion of the person requesting the information. Form 12 is NOT an “Approved Form”, ie one prescribed under the BCCM legislation.
If in doubt, refer to the Commr’s website: History of BCCM Forms v.22
It is unfortunate that Form 12 does not hilight its limited status, eg “Office Form Only”, and what this means and, importantly, what it does not mean. It would help avoid a common problem where some BCMs insist on a s.205 request for information being made out on a Form 12 before they will act on it.
The following response has been supplied by Michael Kleinschmidt, Stratum Legal:
Hi Ross, thanks for your input, as always. Yep, a written request for Body Corporate records is (technically) enough, along with the requisite fee, but why not use a form that has been designed for the job, and which works? It’s like baking a chocolate cake without a recipe – you don’t have to use a recipe, but if you have one and you use it, at least you can be confident about what you are going to get!
I am looking for an answer about government fees paying for inspection of the BC records or/and getting copies. Fees has been always paid into BC Manager’s bank account not into BC administrative bank account. What is correct?
Hi, fees are paid to the BC Manager account to cover the administrative costs of providing the records. see the link for further info:
https://www.qld.gov.au/law/housing-and-neighbours/body-corporate/records/fees-for-access
Hi,
is correspondece sending to an owner by the BC Manager answering owner’s request or sending copies of the BC documents as correspondence from the body corporate and must be available to other owner?
Is correspondence sending by the BC Manager to the Public Trustee related to the BC matter and receiving response the BC correspondence?
Thank you.
The Body Corporate Manager is the delegated authority of the body corporate so correspondence with them is part of the owner’s records and would usually be considered the official position of the scheme.
There can be exceptions to this. For example, some correspondence may be considered as privileged and can be filed in a private folder limiting access. Bannerman’s Lawyers provided some helpful advice about this:
For Your Eyes Only – Owners Corporation Records & Legal Professional Privilege
Our committee have set up a “committee email address” separate from our Strata managers and advised all owners that this is the address for owners to contact the committee. Our Strata management cannot or do not supply access for viewing any of this correspondence. Are these emails BC records and should owners be able to access them?
We have responded to your question in the above article.
Is any member of the committee able to view the levy amounts paid by each lot owner?
Hi Jen
Chris Irons, Hynes Legal has responded to your question in the above article.
Apart from the owner roll, voting papers, POAs and proxies, what other records/registers must the secretary or body corporate manager bring to the AGM?
May owners inspect/scrutinise these documents IMMEDIATELY before the AGM and if so, must an inspection fee be paid?
Hi Carter
Chris Irons from Hynes Legal has responded to your comment in the article above.