Question: Half our townhouses have a letterbox on common property within their exclusive use driveway, so is maintenance lot owner’s responsibility or the body corporate’s?
Our complex has 120 townhouses under a Standard Format Plan, Accommodation Module. Fifty per cent of the townhouses have exclusive use driveways separated by common property garden beds. Those lots have a personal letterbox positioned at the end of the driveway on common property. The remaining lots have their letterbox attached to the external wall of their garage.
Australia Post states that the setup, placement and maintenance of a letterbox is the homeowner’s or property owner’s responsibility, as it is not a public utility.
Where a standalone letterbox services a single lot and sits on common property within an exclusive use area, is maintenance and repair the responsibility of the lot owner or the body corporate?
Answer: It depends on whether the letterbox sits in an exclusive use area or on plain common property.
Owners are responsible for maintaining the part of common property within their exclusive use area, unless the by-law provides otherwise (section 182(2) of the Body Corporate and Community Management (Accommodation Module) Regulation 2020). So a letterbox sitting within an exclusive use area is the lot owner’s responsibility.
A letterbox sitting on common property that isn’t part of any exclusive use area is the body corporate’s responsibility. The exception is if a lot owner installed the letterbox themselves as an approved improvement to common property. They remain responsible for maintaining it, but when we’re talking about letterboxes, there is a small chance this may be the case.
On the Australia Post point: its position that a letterbox is the property owner’s responsibility because it isn’t a public utility is something of a red herring. It only means the letterbox isn’t Australia Post’s responsibility. It doesn’t decide who maintains it between the lot owner and the body corporate.
This post appears in Strata News #810.
William Marquand Tower Body Corporate E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au P: 07 5609 4924
