Question: Can a QLD body corporate committee authorise the treasurer to approve minor expenses without a full committee vote?
We have been advised by the BCCM team that all committee decisions, including expenditure, must be voted on either at a committee meeting or by a vote outside a committee meeting. Including an item of expenditure in a budget does not give authority to spend the money, and the legislation does not provide a delegation process to permit an individual committee member to make body corporate decisions on their own.
The examples I used were common property electricity bills and the purchase of a light bulb. Holding a meeting or circulating a vote outside a committee meeting and waiting 21 days is not practical for expenses like these.
Can an amount be delegated to the secretary and/or treasurer by committee vote? If not, why not?
Answer: The legislation does not allow formal delegation of decision-making to an individual committee member, but in practice, committees routinely handle minor routine expenses informally and ratify them at the next meeting.
The BCCM Office is right (unsurprisingly) that the legislation requires committee decisions to be made either in a committee meeting or by a vote outside a committee meeting (VOC). However, as with many things in body corporate law, the legislation sets parameters for how schemes can operate but does not set out methods of operation within those parameters.
If committees had to hold a formal vote every time a light bulb needed replacing or an electricity bill needed paying, most schemes would grind to a halt. The practical balance is that committees routinely make decisions via email, phone, and informal conversations, and then ratify them after the fact at a committee meeting or a general meeting, if necessary. Provided committees are making decisions within their spending limits, the majority of sites find a comfortable balance that allows expenditure to be transparent while also facilitating the scheme to get on with day-to-day operations.
Regarding delegation, the legislation does not provide a mechanism for the committee to delegate decision-making authority to an individual member formally. So a resolution saying “the treasurer can approve expenditure up to $500” may not have strict legal effect under the BCCM framework. That said, in practice, many committees do operate this way informally, with one or two members handling routine matters and the full committee ratifying those decisions later. It is not a formal delegation so much as a practical arrangement that gets confirmed through the ratification process.
For genuinely routine and low-value expenses like electricity bills and light bulbs, the most practical approach is usually to let the relevant committee member or manager handle it, keep a clear record, and ratify at the next available opportunity. The right approach will vary depending on the size and culture of your scheme, so think through what is necessary at your site. Most commonly, you will see this in practice through the various invoice approval systems that are available. This is typically where the treasurer and possibly another committee member are approving invoices through an online system, and the body corporate manager handles the payment process.
If your committee wants a more structured framework, it is worth considering passing a resolution that authorises expenditure up to a set amount for defined categories of routine maintenance. That won’t constitute a formal legal delegation, but it puts the committee’s intentions on record and gives whoever is actioning the expense a clear mandate to work from.
This post appears in the July 2026 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
William Marquand
Tower Body Corporate
E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au
P: 07 5609 4924
Thank-you William.
No submitted owners motion for this particular issue to our upcoming AGM.
I was going to discuss the process in which invoices are being approved though, as the BCM had stated in an email a month ago, that since they started managing (3 years ago), the Chairperson has requested all invoices are approved by himself being the chair. From what I understand, there needs a resolution for this to occur and as a committee member for the last five years I have not seen this nor voted on it. This is the type of thing that is occuring that I am wanting to have cleaned up, and the cause of my owner motions to have a new managing agency appointed.
Maybe this should be a motion submitted by the committee ?? (that if I can get the other committee members to be productive).
As Treasuer, I have asked a few questions regarding things relating to the managament of funds, and I assume that highlighting these ‘errors’ has not sat well, and both Chairman and Manager have become quite evasive.
I have tried to talk with Chairman to find out what I have done to upset him so that I may apologise, explain or whatever was needed, and to note that I was just doing my role as Treasurer. Unfortunatly it was very unproductive as he refused to communicate with me in a mature manner, calling me pedatic and not willing to work with me to resolve our relationship in the slightest.
So I assume I will need to do the formal steps to ask the committee about the expense. I also assume that this should be addressed before the financial report for this FY just ended is drafted, so that it can be noted that the expense is flagged in the upcoming financial statements as a disputed transaction or a receivable debt pending recovery for our AGM next month, so the financials are not voted on as correct in the AGM without this notation?
Thank-you again for your knowledge.
In the first week of April 2026, our Chairman engaged a plumber for a water leak creating a large puddle on his property (Lot 8). He approved payment of the invoice directly with the BCM, without any of the committee involved or aware of the invoice.
The committee only became aware of this mid-June, when the BCM attached the Chairman’s email and invoice, to an email in response to my (Treasurer) request for an invoice for the major leak on BC common property in November the previous year.
The April invoice states that there was “water leaking through the block retaining wall” into Lot 8, and that they “isolated the irrigation in the house above” (Lot 7). We are on a standard format plan, and the water through the retaining wall is between Lot 7 and Lot 8 and is not near BC common property.
After seeing this invoice, I asked Lot 8 what happened with the puddle, and he told me “all clear … all irrigation was ruled out…dried up without intervention, that’s all anyone knows”.
I have also since been told, that Lot 7 had a leak somewhere after their water meter, and with permission from another lot that is vacant, has connected to their water meter instead, and Lot 7’s water meter is turned off.
So clearly, this leak was the cause from Lot 7 entering onto Lot 8, and has nothing to do with the BC. How do I address this expense which has already been paid by the BC funds? I have already asked the BCM in an email what the formal process is to address this. She replied to other parts of my email, but neglected to respond to that part.
Our FY ended 31 Aug and we have our AGM coming up in October. I have submitted six motions as a lot owner to address a number of issues within our BC incorrect to try and get it back to compliant etc. This is certainly going to further tensions between myself and the Chairman, who during a meeting one on one that I asked for to try to resolve whatever issue he has with me, repeatedly called me pedantic.
All owners have the right to submit claims for reimbursement to the body corporate. Sometimes, especially when it comes to emergency situations like leaks, it makes sense for an owner to engage a contractor to control the issue asap rather than working through the body corporate process. If the expenses incurred are reasonable and the process was legitimate the body corporate can review the reimbursement claim and make the payment to the lot owner.
From your description here it doesn’t sound like the leak was caused by a failure of the body corporate property so I think you are correct in asking why the invoice was paid. You say you have submitted motions to the AGM for owners to vote on and perhaps one of these includes a question about this. Otherwise you could submit an owners motion to the committee asking about the expense – the committee is required to respond to these motions within six weeks.
If you can’t get an answer that satisfies you proceeding you dispute via the commissioners office may be the next best avenue.
Before that you might consider whether it is possible to reach any middle ground independent of third party assistance. As you indicate you and chair are likley to clash at some point. Is there any way the relationship could be improved. It depends on the individuals but it’s worth asking the question to see if there is a middle path.