Body Corporate and Community Management (Standard Module) Regulation 2020 (Standard Module)

The applicant body corporate seeks an orders overturn the defeats of certain motions at its annual general meeting and deem them to be passed. The named respondent is the dissenting voter.

The question for determination is whether a body corporate can be an applicant is such circumstances, given it seeks to challenge and overturn a body corporate decision.

Act, s 227(1); 276(1)

• [1] The applicant is a body corporate which seeks to challenge the defeat of certain motions at its recent annual general meeting (AGM), held 19 March 2025.
• [2] Specifically, it seeks the following order:

That the owners (respondent) vote against the storage cage allocation for motion 14 and 30 be overturned and the motions be carried.

• [3] The motions each required a resolution without dissent and the motions the subject of the application are recorded as being defeated by only one owner, Mr Quick, who is named as the respondent.
• [4] Although it is not clearly expressed in the application, I infer from the materials that the body corporate considers the dissenting owner's opposition was unreasonable.
• [5] I note the respondent says that in fact he was not the only dissenting voter on those motions. While that is a very concerning allegation, because of what follows, I do not need to address that issue further.
• [6] I can deal with the application very briefly, because unfortunately it is fundamentally flawed.
• [7] The adjudication service exists to resolve disputes between parties - subsections 227(1) and 276(1) of the Act. There are limited exceptions, to which subsection 227(2) applies, allowing that an application may satisfy the definition of 'dispute' even if there is no respondent or affected person for the application. However, that provision is designed for cases where there is in fact no dispute and the applicant requires a declaration about the operation of the Act, for example an order to change the financial year of a body corporate. That exception does not apply in this case.
• [8] While the combination of parties in this application - body corporate versus lot owner - satisfies the definition of 'dispute' in section 227(1), there must still be a relevant dispute between those parties to be resolved. A defeat (or passing) of a motion at a general meeting of owners is a decision of the body corporate, and that is the decision under dispute in the application. The problem here is that, by definition, a body corporate cannot be in dispute with itself, according to the ordinary meaning of that word. Accordingly, I cannot make an order overturning the dissenting votes(s) and declaring the motions carried on the application of the body corporate.
• [9] That is not to say there cannot be a dispute in this circumstance about the defeat of the motions. If a person with a legitimate interest, ie, an owner, wishes to challenge the defeat of the motions, they can do so, but they will need to make the application in their capacity as an owner and name the body corporate as the respondent. The dissenting voter(s) can be named as affected persons.
• [10] It may however be wise for the body corporate to firstly run the process again, to deal with the various concerns raised by Mr Quick in his submission about the appropriateness of the motions he opposed and the legitimacy of the vote count.
• [11] I also suggest that whomever makes the new application (if at all) provides more detailed grounds in support, than were provided in this application. The body corporate simply said "The storage cage allocations are already in use for the scheme and the motions are just formalising their allocation onto the CMS." Had I accepted the application as being properly made, I probably would have dismissed it for the lack of a compelling submission as to why I ought to make the requested orders. Presumably, the body corporate's decision would be attacked on the grounds that the opposition to the motion(s) was unreasonable, but the applicant would also have to go further and explain why that were so.