Body Corporate
Can body corporate committee members be held personally liable?
Article by Frank Higginson
Current as at October 7, 2026
Computer geeks around the world are familiar with the term GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. That is, flawed input will always produce a faulty output.
A similar concept applies to strata by-laws.
There’s a common misconception in strata-land that when the Titles Office registers a new by-law for a scheme it automatically validates that by-law.
This could not be further from the truth.
The Titles Office will register whatever is given to them.
Provided the new by-laws are presented in a CMS signed the right way and with the right registration fees, they really don’t care. (Actually, I’m sure they do care, but with more than 50,000 strata schemes in Queensland, it is not their job to pressure-test every new by-law that comes their way.)
The new by-law will then appear in the scheme’s Community Management Statement and sit there proudly, looking all official like the other ones.
However, it will only be when a lot owner objects to a body corporate seeking to enforce a by-law that its validity will truly be tested.
This is where painful lessons are learnt when an adjudicator rules against a body corporate because its by-law was invalid and therefore unenforceable.
Section 180 of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 sets out the limitations on what community title schemes can include in their strata by-laws.
Among many provisions, probably the most notable is that a by-law cannot be oppressive or unreasonable.
Arbitrary rules about pool-use hours or access to common property can easily trip up an unwary body corporate. If those rules are oppressive or unreasonable (everyone out of the pool by 6pm) then there’s a fair chance they will be ruled invalid.
In some cases, a body corporate may deliberately choose to include a by-law that it knows is probably invalid to protect against perceived problem behavior in a scheme, such as smoking in individual lots.
They know the by-law can’t be enforced but think that its presence may deter people from infringing.
However, over time as committees and body corporate managers turn over, the corporate memory fades as to why that by-law was placed on the books in the first place.
What was once a known weakness becomes gospel.
A subsequent challenge to the by-law then pits a body corporate with faded corporate memory (and perhaps even an axe to grind) against a lot owner who is sure of their rights, whether supported by formal legal advice or dare we say it, AI.
To avoid the consequent lawyers’ picnic, strata schemes would be wise to review their Community Management Statement to ensure the by-laws on their books are up-to-date, valid and enforceable.
This is doubly-so with recent changes to legislation that affect regulation of smoking in schemes, parking and pet ownership.
A CMS review is a job for strata specialists. Bush lawyers, emboldened by AI, are only going to produce garbage-in garbage-out.
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