Question: What are the lot owner’s rights and responsibilities if they want to install a satellite dish on common property, such as a roof?
In a QLD body corporate, what are the lot owner’s rights and responsibilities if they want to install a satellite dish on common property, such as a roof?
We have an owner who wants to install a Starlink dish. The committee is supportive, but want to make sure we are compliant with all requirements.
Answer: If an owner wants to put something on the common property, for their benefit, to the exclusion of other owners, permanently, then they need (at least) two body corporate approvals.
Starlink is a constellation of internet satellites, operated by SpaceX. First, let’s assume that SpaceX does not go the way Twitter is (‘thanks’ Elon), and Starlink is still operating by the time the committee gets to consider the issue. What then does the committee need to decide?
Regular readers will recall that if an owner wants to put something on the common property, for their benefit, to the exclusion of other owners, permanently, then they need (at least) two body corporate approvals. Approval to put the thing there, and approval to keep the thing there. Where the ‘thing’ is utility infrastructure, such as ‘equipment’ ‘by which a lot … is supplied with’ ‘a computer data … service’ (per the definitions in Schedule 6 of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997), then the second approval, to keep the ‘thing’ there, is covered by the statutory easements in the Land Title Act 1994. In particular, the easement in favour of lots for utility infrastructure in section 115O.
So, a lot owner has a right to keep a Starlink dish in place on the common property roof, so long as it does not interfere unreasonably with the use and enjoyment of the common property (by others) on which the dish is situated. A good way to ensure that does not happen is to think about how that interference may arise when the committee decides on the first approval. That is, the approval to put the dish up in the first place. Assuming the area in question is not exclusive use common property, the installation approval would be given under Section 187 of the Standard Module (or equivalent provision in the relevant regulation module). Committee approval is enough, if the dish install is less than $3000 in cost, the dish does not detract from the appearance of the common property and the committee is satisfied that the use and enjoyment of the dish is not likely to promote a breach of the owner’s duties as the occupier. For example, the dish is not going to create a fire hazard inside the lot with the internet running so blazingly fast! (kidding…).
Section 187 allows the committee to impose appropriate conditions, which must then be complied with. Further, the lot owner must maintain the dish (and cables etc), unless excused by the body corporate. Most bodies corporate will have a standard set of conditions for situations such as these, typically to do with construction standards (wind load ratings etc), penetrations to the roof for cables and fixings (you don’t want leaks!), regular inspections and maintenance (a stitch in time saves nine) and removal (for example on the earlier of the dish no longer being used, or after a fixed period such as 3 years, whichever is the earlier).
Thinking about appropriate conditions can often expose how an installation such as a dish might unreasonably interfere with someone else use of the common property. For example, the install location may create a sun shadow blocking light to solar PV, or a radio shadow blocking signal to a terrestrial TV antenna. Discussing draft conditions with the lot owner is also good practice because with minor ‘tweaks’ to the installation proposal, it’s possible that some conditions can be done away with (for example cables may be able to be run under ridge capping, into the roof and secured on a truss, rather than the colorbond roof being penetrated and silicon sealed (OMG, when will builders realise that silicon does not fix everything!). So, hopefully, that gives your body corporate a head start.
This post appears in the February 2023 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Michael Kleinschmidt
Bugden Allen
E: michael.kleinschmidt@bagl.com.au
P: 07 5406 1280
Leave a Reply