Question: Our heritage-listed apartment has a serious ventilation problem. The body corporate won’t approve ducting through the common wall. How hard can we push for approval when we’re the ones paying?
Our apartment is in a heritage-listed building that has been retrofitted, with split-system air conditioning connected to the garage below. The apartment has only one window, on a busy, traffic-heavy street. Testing shows excessive CO2 levels and low oxygen levels unless windows are open wide most of the day, which creates significant noise and pollution. We’re not allowed to keep the front door to the atrium open, and we can’t keep windows open in wet weather due to water ingress into the apartments below. The result is severely inadequate ventilation.
We’ve requested permission to run ventilation through the front wall of the building, which was refused due to heritage features. We’re not allowed to mount anything in the window, frame, or front wall. How much leverage do we have to push for ducting through a common wall up to the roof to bring in fresh air? We would pay. We prefer not to sell, but we will if we can’t resolve this. Engineers and architects have inspected, and this appears to be the only viable solution.
Answer: Build an evidence-based case through a structured process. The stronger the package you put to owners, the harder it becomes for the body corporate to reasonably refuse.
As the saying goes, ‘knowledge is power’. Knowledge is data, plus understanding.
Step 1: collect objective, impartial data, of sufficient quality to be used as evidence in Court (if required) for all the relevant factors; i.e. indoor air quality, including with respect to oxygen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, diesel particulates and other particulates (and the list goes on, consult an environmental scientist for the best criteria to gather evidence in respect of).
Step 2: compare that data against the relevant building, environmental, and other standards required for residential premises, and receive an expert’s opinion on whether there is a problem, its nature, size, and seriousness, and what is, objectively, required to solve it.
Step 3: engage an engineer, architect, or other suitable expert (e.g., HVAC) to propose practicable solutions, the pros and cons, and the likely costs of each.
Step 4: engage a lawyer to advise on the legal constraints and the pros and cons of each option. That would also likely include comparing the solutions against the relevant heritage constraints.
Step 5: get a quote for the works for the most practicable option.
Step 6: using the ‘package’ prepared by your lawyer, put the proposed solution to the relevant vote, whether at the committee or general meeting level, to seek the approval/s required to implement the solution. Such approvals are usually:
- an approval to put the ‘works’ in place for the solution (for example, the ducting to the roof and the fans, etc., on the roof) and
- an approval to keep such ‘works’ in place (for example, a licence, lease, or grant of exclusive use over the affected area/s of common property). See the example of a proposed lift for a disabled resident in Jansea [2015] QBCCMCmr 302.
With respect to ‘keeping the works in place’, it may well be that the statutory easement for utility infrastructure, in favour of lots, and against the common property, is already available to you. As for the former issue of approval to put the works in place, improvements to the common property over $3,000 in value typically require approval by ordinary resolution at a general meeting.
Why do all the earlier ‘Steps’? Because when it comes to the vote, the ‘package’ given to owners contains all the information and documentation to set up the position that only an unreasonable body corporate would refuse to vote in favour of the improvement.
However, beware. As I write this answer, the law has recently been clarified by the Court of Appeal. Disputes about the exercise of statutory easement rights are disputes that the Commissioner’s Adjudicators can determine. Disputes about whether those easement rights exist, are properly questions for a Court; see Hing v Holland [2026] QCA 87.
This post appears in the July 2026 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Michael Kleinschmidt
Bugden Allen
E: michael.kleinschmidt@bagl.com.au
P: 07 5406 1280
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