QLD: Can a committee member be appointed to inspect common property?

Question: How do we make sure common property issues get picked up and reported when most of our committee members don’t live in the scheme?

The majority of our committee members do not live in the scheme, and we don’t have an on-site manager. We have some older maintenance issues that remain unresolved.

Can the committee approve one member to inspect the garden and report any issues back to the committee, then review that report at a committee meeting and decide on next steps, such as obtaining quotes? Are there other practical options for monitoring and managing common property in a scheme like ours?

Answer: In this situation, committees should recognise the potential for an information gap and take practical steps to monitor common property.

There is no legislative requirement for committee members to live onsite, and it’s increasingly common to have committees with no onsite residents.

Committees in this situation must recognise the potential for an information gap resulting in unreported site issues.

At larger schemes, the committee might engage a caretaker or facilities manager to assist with site operations.

Arranging for periodic safety or building condition reports can also provide coverage and understanding of scheme issues.

The committee can also set up more informal channels, such as making sure they get reports from helpful tenants or property managers. Individual owners are also entitled to identify issues and raise them with the committee.

There is no fixed way to run a scheme, but the key thing is to think through the potential issues and risks, and consider ways to mitigate them.

In this case, you say that some committee members live onsite. There is no problem with those people acting as the eyes and ears for the whole committee if people are comfortable with that.

As a next step, you could raise your concerns with the committee. Even if they are already addressing these issues, it never hurts to review the systems that are in place to make sure the body corporate is running efficiently.

This post appears in the June 2026 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.

William Marquand
Tower Body Corporate
E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au
P: 07 5609 4924