Its Your Body Corporate
BY: JOHN ATKINSON, SUNSHINE COAST GENERAL MANAGER
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This article is addressed primarily to owners in a strata title scheme, otherwise known as a body corporate. A body corporate is comprised of the owners in the scheme.
Whether you have purchased the lot to live in or to rent, you have made a significant investment and, in doing so, have also incurred some significant responsibilities.
The Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 provides that the body corporate must:
"administer the common property and body corporate assets for the benefit of the owners of the lots included in the scheme;
enforce the community management statement (including any by-laws for the scheme); and
carry out the other functions given to the body corporate under this Act and the community management statement."
The legislation also provides for a committee to be elected to act on behalf of the owners and the appointment of professional service contractors, a resident manager (in many cases - certainly in larger complexes) to perform the duties of the Caretaking and Letting Agreements and a community manager to handle the administrative and financial responsibilities.
So with all these guys acting on my behalf why should I be involved?
The employees of the body corporate need direction from the owners - this generally, and properly, comes from the committee.
All the positions on a committee (3 executive and a maximum of four others) are rarely filled. Those who do serve on committees are people who generously give of their own time in the interests of all owners but they are (usually) not omniscient and don't necessarily have any more time than you do.
So here is a thought. If you genuinely can't spare the time for three or four meetings a year (by telephone if geography is a problem) then make yourself - and your co-owners - a promise to sign up next year or the year after.
And if this is the case, support those who are making an effort on your behalf, give them support in the way of feed-back on the decisions they make and the overall condition of the complex and please, please, vote at your annual general meetings - preferably in person or, at the very least, by way of the Voting Paper provided.
