Question: I requested copies of body corporate correspondence but have received no acknowledgement or fee advice. What should I do?
I recently requested by email copies of documents referred to in minutes of our body corporate committee meeting as follows: “the minutes state, in item 10 (e), that the area of overgrowth bordering XXX Street is the responsibility of the City of XXXX and that several communications have been made to the Council requesting maintenance. Please provide copies of that correspondence and any responses received from Council.”
I have not received any acknowledgement of this request or the requested copies. I understand I need to pay a fee to obtain the copies. However, I have not been advised of the amount or where to pay it. Can I pay $7 to my levy account and ask the body corporate manager (BCM) to use this amount, and keep the remainder for future levies? I believe that, under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997, the body corporate must provide copies within 7 days of receiving a written request and fee.
Answer: Submit a BCCM Form 12 with a specific, narrowly worded document request.
To make a formal request for documents, you should submit a BCCM Form 12: Requiring Information from a Body Corporate.
There is a mandated fee for this, being 70 cents per page.
It is best if you make this request specific, that is, for a particular document that you need.
If, as per your correspondence, you ask for documentation like ‘any responses received from Council ‘, you may be surprised by the number of documents a request like this generates and the per-page fee that comes with it. Why not just ask your body corporate if there was a response from Council to the inquiry and what it said.
If you want the documentation, body corporate correspondence and records can be voluminous. If you print out even a basic email, it can often run to many pages if it includes signatures, previous replies and so on.
You might say that the body corporate manager or committee should exercise judgement and provide what is necessary, but this then leads to questions of judgement and then complaints over that. If a body corporate manager gets a request for ‘all documents’, expect them to provide all documents.
It’s an imperfect system that stems from having legislation written in the late nineties that didn’t consider the modern digital world. There’s an urgent need to update both what is a body corporate record and how people can access these records. For now, we all have to use the system as it is.
As an alternative to the record request, you could also arrange a search of the books and records where you can access the entirety of the records and access the ones you need.
I don’t think paying a nominal fee to your account will gain you access to these records. That’s not how the system operates, and you are probably wasting your time trying to bend it to your will.
You might also consider what the issue is here and whether the request for documentation is going to resolve it.
From the correspondence, it sounds like there is some dispute over whether Council or a body corporate has responsibility for a portion of land. The body corporate has stated in minutes that it believes it is Council land. Presumably there is some evidence to support this. The body corporate has also requested that Council clear the area. This doesn’t sound like particularly confidential information, and indeed, it seems it has largely been disclosed. If there has been a response from Council, that will presumably be dealt with and disclosed.
From the body corporate perspective, if an owner is asking for information like this, maybe just sending it to them is the easiest way.
From your perspective, is obtaining these emails going to change the management of your issue?
I’m sure there is a bigger story here. In a well-run body corporate with a collaborative atmosphere, an issue like this is probably easily handled without ever becoming an issue at all. On the other hand, if combative relationships are dominating the running of the scheme, minor issues like this can quickly take excessive time, energy and money to resolve. All parties involved should think about this and how they can play a part in making resolution easier.
William Marquand Tower Body Corporate E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au P: 07 5609 4924