This Q&A about whether a lot owner can convert their garage into a bedroom or living space in QLD has been answered by Hayley Gath, Mathews Hunt Legal.
Question: A lot owner in our building has converted their garage into a bedroom and a child is living in it. Although I’ve reported this to the body corporate, they will not take any action.
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A lot owner in our complex has converted their garage into a children’s bedroom.
I’ve reported this to the body corporate about 30 times over the past 3 years. The owner is not concerned and the body corporate just ignores my messages.
This has become quite an issue in our scheme. What can I do about this? Surely it is not right.
Answer: Contact your local council to determine whether approval is required
I assume that the garage is located within the lot. Accordingly, you can:
- review the scheme’s by-laws to determine whether any by-laws are being contravened; and
- if this is a contravention of the Scheme’s by-laws, you can complete a ‘BCCM form 1 – notice to body corporate of contravention to the body corporate’ and send it to the body corporate.
Additionally, you can contact your local council to determine whether approval is required for the occupation of the garage and whether the required approval has been obtained (if any). If the required approval has not been obtained, the council may take steps to address this issue.
If you have a question or something to add to the article, please leave a comment below.
This post appears in Strata News #340.
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Hayley Gath
E: [email protected]
W: Mathews Hunt Legal
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About 34 years ago the then-Caretaker at our complex expanded his 120m2 unit by converting his 4om2 patio (adjacent to his unit and open to the air but with a height limit of 2.4m) into another set of rooms, with walls, windows, 12-tonne concrete roof, etc. The roof also intrudes into common property airspace, which raises Qs of unlawful exclusive use.
No one seems to have picked up that there is no record of this construction being approved either by the body corporate or the local council. Consequently, there is no entry in our s.197 Register for Improvements to Common Property By an Owner For an Owner. There also is no record of any of the subsequent caretakers meeting the costs of maintenance of these improvements, especially replacement of the windows doors etc – or of the extra costs for insurance. Committee is reluctant to do anything about it, even though their Body Corporate Manager has confirmed it is a serious issue.
Hi Ross
The following response has been provided by Hayley Gath, Mathews Hunt Legal:
This is a complex situation. You have correctly raised that there are numerous areas of concern, including:
1. occupation of common property airspace without an allocation of exclusive use, a lease or a licence;
2. the responsibility for maintenance and any increased cost of insurance;
3. the implications for the Body Corporate of the improvement not being contained in the improvements register; and
4. the implications of the structure being built without Council approval.
Given the significant length of time that has elapsed since the improvements were made, acquiescence is also a relevant consideration.
We recommend that legal advice is retained in respect of the improvement.
Let me tell you, if that was happening at my complex there would be hell to pay.
People need to show some respect for others who co share residential space.
Notifying your local shire/city council will likely prove just as efficacious as it did when I once contacted mine several years ago, to let it know that a young couple were living in a unit’s garage. One of the resident co-owners of this unit had asked other owners at an AGM if it would be okay with them if his son (making no mention of a girlfriend as well!) could live in the garage, and no-one at this AGM raised any objection. This co-owner knew only too full well that he was not allowed to let anyone live in his unit’s garage, but he was (and possibly still remains so) the type of person who would try just about anything on if it $uited him to do so. When the officer from the city council promptly attended the unit, the co-owner’s wife kept the council officer talking at the front door, whilst in a mad panic, the son’s girlfriend, who was also at the opened front door, raced back inside and around to the garage’s rear door where she then hastily attempted to hide any evidence that the garage was being used as a bedroom/loungeroom. The officer did not need to enter to carry out an inspection of the garage because he easily intuited from the girlfriend’s panic that it might not be necessary, and it wasn’t, because the son and his girlfriend quickly vacated not only this unit’s garage but also the strata complex. Problem solved. This co-owner was duly worried that if any inspection was carried out on the garnished garage cum boudoir, then some, if not all, of the unauthorised structural alterations he’d made on the sly to the whole unit, might be discovered. Q.E.D.
Hi Allan
The following response has been provided by Chris Irons, Hynes Legal:
Thanks for your comment. It is a great reminder that not absolutely everything which occurs in a body corporate is a body corporate issue.
Yes, you must realise by now why your complaint has been ignored so many times by your contemporaries.
Amazing resilience- 30 complaints on the same subject.
Perhaps a different path to follow is to observe where the conversion of the garage means that one or more cars is being parked on common property, and whether that is illegal for your property.
Ditto – is the garage-dweller causing any other form of nuisance eg noise, rubbish etc?
“[…] …is the garage-dweller causing any other form of nuisance…?”
Like complaining (*carping*) that (br)each time (ch)ill winds blow, it gets more than a bit *parky* in the garage.