year the state government will change the way body corporate fees are decided for Queensland’s more
than 350,000 unit owners. The Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 will be changed
so there is a better and fairer system for working out shared costs within apartment complexes or other
community title schemes. This is a much-needed change. The act has a loophole, or at least an
anomaly, which unfairly allows some unit owners to get away with paying less than their fair share of
body corporate fees. The act required all unit owners to contribute equally to the body corporate for
building maintenance et cetera, meaning that a ground-floor, one-bedroom unit or a 26th-floor, fourbedroom
penthouse has to pay the same. Equal is not necessarily equitable.
Since the act was introduced in 1997, lot owners could apply to have their lot entitlements and
thus body corporate fees reduced at any time. Penthouse owners can effectively slash their own body
corporate fees, but these costs are merely passed on to the others in the complex so that a ground-floor
studio unit owned by a retiree or a pensioner would be left paying much more than they had budgeted
for when buying the unit—in some cases double—and this has forced many unit owners out of their
homes. The situation needs to be fixed if affordable housing options are to be available to a wide range
of Queenslanders. Essentially, what this will mean is that an owner of a small one-bedroom place on a
lower floor at the back of a unit complex would not be required to contribute as much towards common
expenses as someone with a more expensive place such as a four-bedroom, top-floor apartment with
views.
The Queensland government will allow these buildings and complexes which had lot entitlement
adjustments made to revert to their original method of dividing body corporate fees when the plan was
registered. In 2008 consultations were held to hear how the existing lot entitlement system was working
and how it could be improved. Unit owners will now have more certainty about what body corporate fees
they are up for. It is important we adopt the most appropriate rules as they underpin the growth of
apartment living in Queensland, which more people are turning to each year and which is needed to
cater for our rapidly growing population.
