Question: Our committee wants to engage a specialist to review our management rights holder’s performance and potentially issue a breach notice. Do owners need to be consulted before any of this happens?
Can a committee engage a company to review a management rights holder and issue a breach notice without informing owners? Should the committee consult owners before taking action? The management rights holder is a large company, and from what I can see, most owners are happy with their services.
Answer: A committee can engage a specialist to review a management rights holder’s performance without consulting owners first. Issuing a breach notice as a follow-up is a reasonable course of action.
Yes. To some extent, what you describe is common practice. If a committee thinks a management rights holder is not committee’s spending limit, and it may be reasonable for the committee not to advise owners of this step. If any report into the rights holder’s performance finds they are performing below standard, the committee has various strategies available, but issuing a breach notice as a follow-up is a reasonable course of action.
This post appears in Strata News #798.
William Marquand
Tower Body Corporate
E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au
P: 07 5609 4924
so if there are no minutes of engaging a RAN inspector and the VOCA was done almost 8 weeks after the RAN inspection carried out is the RAN valid?
what if the committee chairman simply had a verbal discussion with one or some of the committee members and then engaged a Consultant to carried out an inspection report at 7.30 am on a Monday 15/1/26 and then had VOCA on 10th March 2026 after the report was carried out.
is this RAN valid in that a request for minutes of the issuance of a RAN be issued not provided by the committee or the BC strata manager?
Important Clarification: “Not consulting owners” does not mean a committee can act in secret.
While it is true that a committee can engage a specialist and issue a Remedial Action Notice (breach notice) without convening a general meeting vote, provided the specialist’s fee is strictly within the committee’s statutory spending limit, the committee must still follow strict transparency and notification procedures.
Under Queensland body corporate legislation, a committee cannot simply make these decisions behind closed doors. They must follow standard statutory practices for making and implementing a committee resolution:
Committee Resolution (Meeting or VOCM) and Advance Notice: The decision must be formally made by the committee, either at a properly convened committee meeting or by a vote outside a committee meeting (VOCM). Owners must be given advance advice of the proposed meeting agenda or the VOCM motion at the same time notice is given to committee members (except in an emergency, where notice must be given as soon as reasonably practicable).
Minutes and Transparency: The committee is legally required to ensure full and accurate minutes are taken, and a copy of the minutes (or the full and accurate record of the VOCM) must be distributed to all lot owners within 21 days of making the decision. This ensures all owners are fully informed of how body corporate funds are being spent and what actions are being taken.
The 7-Day Right of Opposition: Most importantly, under the Standard Module, the committee generally cannot give effect to the resolution (i.e., actually sign the contract to hire the specialist or formally send the breach notice) until 7 days after those minutes or records of motions are distributed to owners. This gives owners a strict 7-day window to submit a notice of opposition. If this notice is signed by or for the owners of at least 50% of the lots in the scheme, the committee is legally blocked from carrying out the resolution.
The Emergency Exception: The committee can only bypass this 7-day waiting period and act immediately if the resolution is necessary to deal with an emergency. To use this exception, the action must genuinely be an emergency and the spending must still be within the committee’s spending limit (or authorised by an adjudicator). It is important to note that engaging a specialist for a performance review or issuing a standard breach notice is highly unlikely to meet the strict legal definition of a genuine emergency, which adjudicators typically define as a dangerous or serious situation that arises unexpectedly and requires urgent action, such as a burst pipe.
While formal consultation via a general meeting vote isn’t strictly required for decisions within the committee’s spending limit, formal committee resolutions (via a meeting or VOCM), full notification, and transparency to the owners are mandatory. Unless there is a genuine emergency, the owners always retain the ultimate 7-day veto power if at least half of the lots disagree with the committee’s actions.