Question: What can owners do if a body corporate breaches by-laws, excludes owners from meetings, and uses unlicensed people for works and finances?
Our body corporate has repeated governance issues. By-laws and regulations have been breached, and some owners have been locked out of online meetings.
A committee member has organised or carried out works such as water ingress repairs and tennis court repairs, even though these jobs require licensed contractors. Owners face a significant increase in levies, which we believe results from poor financial management over the past year.
What practical options do owners have to address these issues? What enforcement or consequences apply if the body corporate continues to act improperly?
Answer: Someone has to put their hands up to do the job.
You can really attack this two ways. The first is to go and seek orders preventing things from being done the way they are, which will mean you need to be able to prove (in effect) breaches of the Act somewhere.
The alternative – and quicker – approach would be to rally owners to change the committee and import better governance. That would mean you need to replace the current members with new conscripts.
It is one of the issues with strata. Someone has to put their hands up to do the job, and if it’s not you, you can potentially be stuck with people not doing it the way you would like it done.
This post appears in the May 2026 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Frank Higginson
Redchip Strata Law
E: FrankH@redchip.com.au
P: 07 3193 0500
The most common problem in Qld are the rogue committees. Every word Heather said is correct.
She is lucky that she could gather other owners to get rid of them by voting in better people.
It is unfortunately, not possible in every complex .
She is also lucky, that their situation has been only for 2 years and probably not as bad as at some other complexes, where bullying, intimidation and damage to owners property by rogue committee people, towards the owners, mismanagement of funds, no communication or any transparenty which is all done
In full support of the manager, who supposedly adviced to the committee that they can do whatever they want, because nobody can sue them”
/the secretary advised to the members of the committee at the committee meeting/
Our committee is not voted by owners, they do not work for owners and they do not abide the laws.
And when the owner with 5 years of records of these actions including not to disclose the venue of the AGM to the owners, even on the day of the AGM together with the manager, has no power start any action against the wrongdoing of few people, because these people are financially protected by the owners they abuse.
There is zero accountability, and there are no consequences for these actions of the same few for constantly breaking laws and engage in their wrongdoing often of criminal nature, not just the bad governance.
And the harm is continuing, and will be continuing in unregulated Qld of unlicensed Strata companies and legally
protected “so called volunteers” until the laws are changed and the power of maintaining people’s most important assets, /their home/ is removed from these wrongdoers and taken seriously in Qld.
Nobody is forced to be a volunteer.!
And if the rogue committee cannot be removed, for many owners the best options would be the most feared one , which is the appointment of the Administrator,
Thank you for your reply. There doesn’t seem to be any penalty for breaches of regulations and by-laws. I feel it is best and some other owners agree to leave our forever homes. The money we would be spending on the move is better then putting money into an unqualified project manager come contractor’s pocket.
I am living in the complex mentioned here, I don’t know the date of this question but it has all escalated since. We have all put our hands up. Motions have been put forward to relieve these people from their position and not put to a vote until 6-8 months later and failed. We have a rogue body corporate. We have 7 members but they only use 4. Unfortunately the government adopts the opinion owners abuse the body corporate but we have the body corporate abusing us. Regulations, by-laws or any rules that have been sent through are ignored. The body corporate would be covered by insurance should legal action be taken to sue. Owners do not it comes out of their pockets. At the moment that is what the body corporate is doing “special levies” we have a body corporate that is making owners pay up front large amounts of money for work that has become worse due to their ignoring the problems over the last 2 and a half years. The work being carried out by unqualified persons is still not repaired, we are being patched up at great expense.
Hi Heather
Frank Higginson, Redchip Strata Law has responded with the following:
If you are a minority of 3, its is probably time to get legal advice about whether the 4 are acting reasonably or whether there are any other grounds to attack their decision making or control.
Frank Higginson
Redchip Strata Law
W: https://strata.redchip.com.au/
E: FrankH@redchip.com.au