Question: Can a body corporate require approval for removing trees within a lot’s boundaries?
After checking with our immediate neighbours in our townhouse complex first, we cut down the trees so more sunlight could reach our lot. The committee of our townhouse complex said that body corporate approval was required to remove trees within our lot boundaries because we’ve altered the lot’s appearance.
Our understanding was that “altering the lot appearance” referred to things like changing a door or repainting a wall, not trees within the lot.
We also feel we’re being targeted. Other units have cut trees and the committee raised no issue. This is the first time we’ve had a request like this made. Is the body corporate obliged to pursue this?
Answer: Body corporate approval is generally required for changes to a lot’s external appearance, but refusing approval for tree removal would be difficult to justify.
Generally speaking, if you are making changes to the external appearance of a lot, you will need to make an application to do this. Check your by-laws. There is usually one in there about this.
Still, I don’t know that the body corporate could refuse a request like this. Maybe the trees are part of the essential character of the complex, but if you are responsible for maintaining them, that responsibility would also likely extend to your right to remove them.
As it is, there is probably nothing to do. If the body corporate wants to make an issue of the situation, they could give you a breach notice, but it wouldn’t bring the trees back.
And, you shouldn’t consider yourself as ‘targeted’ just because the body corporate has reminded you of an expected procedure. As an owner you should know what those procedures are or take the time to ask in advance if you don’t. You obviously thought about this situation enough to ask your neighbours. As an owner in a body corporate, it is important to understand that your neighbours are not just the people who live next to you, but all of the other owners in your complex.
This post appears in the May 2026 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
William Marquand
Tower Body Corporate
E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au
P: 07 5609 4924
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