A Queensland body corporate must elect a committee at every annual general meeting, made up of lot owners or people who act for them. The committee runs the body corporate day to day and makes decisions for it, but it cannot set levies, change owners’ rights or decide anything the law reserves for a resolution of the owners.
Explanatory noteGeneral information about schemes under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (the BCCM Act), not legal advice. Most of what follows is stated for the Standard, Accommodation and Commercial modules; small schemes and two-lot schemes differ, as noted. The official place to check is the Queensland Government’s page on the committee’s role, where the Commissioner’s office also runs a free information line.
1.Who sits on it
A committee needs at least 3 members. In a scheme of 7 lots or more it can have up to 7; with fewer lots, the ceiling is the number of lots. Schemes under the Small Schemes Module have a committee of at most 2, a secretary and a treasurer, and schemes under the Specified Two-lot Schemes Module have no committee at all.
- Chairperson
- Chairs every general and committee meeting they attend. A ruling that a motion is out of order needs reasons, recorded in the minutes, and the meeting can overturn it. The chair carries no more authority than any other member.
- Secretary
- Sends out meeting notices, gathers nominations before the annual general meeting and prepares the ballot papers. Minute-taking often falls to the secretary, though the legislation does not require it.
- Treasurer
- Has few duties under the legislation. Where there is no manager, the committee may ask the treasurer for a reconciliation statement of the fund accounts. Budgets and levy notices are often done by the treasurer, but nothing requires it.
- Non-voting members
- A body corporate manager or a caretaking service contractor, once engaged, becomes a non-voting member of the committee automatically.
The three executive positions can be held by one person, or any two of them together. Holding two positions still gives that person a single vote.
2.What the committee cannot decide
The Queensland Government lists the committee’s restricted issues. Among them, the committee cannot decide:
- to set a body corporate levy or change one;
- to change the rights, privileges or obligations of lot owners;
- anything that must be decided by an ordinary, special, majority or without-dissent resolution of the body corporate.
A motion that conflicts with the Act, the regulations or the by-laws, or that would be unlawful or unenforceable, is also beyond it. When the committee cannot decide what an owner has asked for, it has to say so, and the owner may need to take the motion to a general meeting: the next annual one, or an extraordinary meeting the owner asks for.
3.Four ways owners decide
At a general meeting each motion passes or fails by a type of resolution, and the voting paper has to name it. Where the law names no type, an ordinary resolution will do, and the committee may be able to decide the question itself. People who abstain are left out of the count in each of the four types below. A fifth, the termination resolution, is used only on a motion to end a community titles scheme.
- Ordinary resolution
- Passes when more votes are counted for the motion than against it. The commonest type, used for adopting the budgets and setting yearly contributions.
- Special resolution
- Needs all three: at least two-thirds of votes cast in favour; votes against from no more than 25% of the lots; and those against holding no more than 25% of the scheme’s contribution schedule lot entitlements. Used, for example, to change by-laws (other than exclusive use ones).
- Resolution without dissent
- Passes only if nobody votes against. Needed to sell or dispose of part of the common property, or to add or amend an exclusive use by-law.
- Majority resolution
- Passes when yes votes exceed half of the lots whose owners may vote. Votes must be in writing and proxies are not allowed.
4.How the committee votes
The committee decides either at a committee meeting or by a vote taken outside one. At a meeting, a motion passes when a majority of the voting members present and entitled to vote are in favour; a tie means it is lost. A member counts as present in person, by proxy, or by electronic means if the committee has allowed it. A proxy must be another voting member, may hold only one proxy, and lasts for a single meeting; the owners can limit or ban committee proxies by special resolution.
For a vote outside a meeting, notice of the motion goes to every committee member and every lot owner at the same time, and members have 21 days to return written votes to the secretary. The count is against all voting members entitled to vote, not only those who reply. A motion with no decision in 21 days is treated as not passed. A record of the result goes to all members and owners within 21 days, and the next committee meeting confirms it.
A member cannot vote at all, at a meeting or outside one, while they or the entity that nominated them owe the body corporate a debt. A member with a conflict of interest must tell the committee and cannot vote on that issue. A proxy cannot be used for a member who owes a debt or has a conflict of interest.
5.An owner’s motion to the committee
Any owner who wants the body corporate to decide something can put a motion to the committee, handing it to the secretary in person, by post or electronically. What happens next runs on a clock:
The decision period
The committee has 6 weeks from the day the motion was submitted. Animal requests follow their own, shorter timetable, set out in the guide to by-laws.
An extension, if needed
Within those 6 weeks the committee can give the owner written notice that it needs more time, why, and a new deadline no more than 6 weeks later.
No decision
If neither deadline is met, the motion is treated as not passed. The committee need not decide at all where the same owner has, within the last 12 months, put a motion on the same issue or put 6 or more motions, but it must tell the owner that this is the reason.
A motion that is not passed is where many disputes begin. Before the Commissioner’s office will take a dispute, an owner must first try to settle it within the body corporate, and putting a motion to the committee is one of the ways it names. The guide to disputes follows what comes after.