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

COMMITTEE MOTION; GENERAL MEETING MOTIONS; ADMINISTRATION OF COMMON PROPERTY - where the body corporate locked common property power points in the basement car park to prevent their use by owners and refused to unlock them despite a general meeting resolution to permit reasonable use by owners; whether the body corporate must unlock the power points.

Act, ss 35(1), 101(2); Accommodation Module, s 44(1)(b).

Within one week, the respondent must unlock the power points in the basement car park.

• [1] Mr Crighton is an owner at Sandbar Burleigh. He says he occasionally used the power points in the basement car park to run a vacuum cleaner, and to trickle charge the conventional battery of a special interest car built in 1937. He seems to mean that he was charging a regular lead acid car battery in an old internal combustion engine vehicle; he was not charging the battery of an electric vehicle.
• [2] The body corporate committee resolved to lock the basement power points on 18 April 2024. Mr Crighton wrote to the committee and urged it to reconsider, pointing out the cost to the body corporate was negligible. The committee declined his request and ratified the decision at a committee meeting on 9 July.
• [3] The committee submitted a motion to affirm its July resolution to an annual general meeting (AGM) on 9 December 2024 (motion 13). Motion 13 passed.
• [4] Mr Crighton submitted a motion to the same AGM proposing "that residents be permitted reasonable use of common property power points for their own use" (motion 17). Motion 17 also passed.
• [5] Since then, the basement power points have remained locked. On 28 January 2025, the committee declined a motion submitted by Mr Crighton to give effect to motion 17 by unlocking the basement power points.
• [6] Mr Crighton seeks orders in the following terms:
  1. An order requiring the Body Corporate to promptly implement the decision of Motion 17 at the AGM held on 9 December 2024 'THAT residents be permitted reasonable access to Common Property power points for their own use'.
  2. An order restraining the Body Corporate from frustrating the intent of the AGM decision by imposing unreasonable constraints on, or protocols related to, the use of these power points.
• [7] The committee opposes the application, arguing:
  1. by-17.4(c) (recently renumbered to 17.2(c)) prohibits occupiers from using common property facilities "for any purpose for which they were not intended for use", and the power points in the basement car park were installed with lockable covers and intended for use "exclusively by authorised personnel for maintenance purposes"
  2. by-law 25.6(d) prohibits "maintenance, repair work, or external cleaning" of vehicles in exclusive use car parks
  3. free use of the power points may lead to a fire involving an electric vehicle, bike or scooter
  4. someone may trip over cables plugged into the power points, and
  5. the power points are not monitored, so unsafe use may go unnoticed.

• [8] The common property is owned by all lot owners as tenants in common and they have a right to the reasonable use of it.[1] Owners at Sandbar Burleigh were exercising that right with respect to the basement power points until the committee resolved to lock them in April last year. As recently pointed out by two adjudicators in similar circumstances,[2] the committee could not unilaterally remove that right, as a decision to change the rights, privileges and obligations of owners is a restricted issue for the committee.[3]
• [9] The body corporate's decision in favour of motion 13 at the December 2024 AGM did nothing to correct that irregularity. It ratified the committee's decision of July 2024 to deny Mr Crighton's request to continue using the basement power points. It did not ratify the earlier decision made in April to lock the power points.
• [10] The minutes of the committee's July decision claimed Mr Crighton's request was made for the purpose of trickle charging, which was described as a fire risk. Mr Crighton disputes that characterisation of his request, but the point for present purposes is that the decision on motion 13 was quite narrow and specific. It was a decision to endorse the committee's refusal to allow Mr Crighton to use a basement power point to run a trickle charger, not a decision in support of locking the power points and preventing all owners from using them for any purpose.
• [11] By passing motion 17, the body corporate then decided that reasonable use of power points on common property should be permitted. That decision was not irreconcilable with the decision in favour of motion 13. Owners may have felt that Mr Crighton's intended use of the power points in July (as represented by the committee) was unreasonable. Or, as Mr Crighton puts it:

It was eminently open to the meeting to accept that actions of the Committee in July in restricting access were reasonable, but to decide that in view of the arguments put to the December meeting that restriction should not be continued.

• [12] The committee must put the lawful decisions of the body corporate into effect.[4] Motion 17 required it to permit reasonable use of common property power points. While it did not specifically mention the basement power points or state that they should be unlocked, no use of those power points, reasonable or otherwise, is possible while they remain locked. Hence, leaving them locked is at odds with the body corporate's decision.
• [13] The committee's claim that the basement power points were only intended for use "by authorised personnel for maintenance purposes" is unsubstantiated. Consequently, I do not accept that using the power points to power electrical devices by plugging them in and switching them on in the usual fashion amounts to using the power points for an unintended purpose contrary to by-law 17.2(c).
• [14] The power points will not necessarily be used for "maintenance or repair work or external cleaning" of a vehicle in an exclusive use car park contrary to by-law 25.6(d). An owner may simply wish to charge their phone while occupied with something in the basement. If an owner does carry out maintenance of their vehicle in the car park, the body corporate can enforce the by-law against them with respect to that conduct. It is not a valid reason for the committee to unilaterally curb all owners' rights to the use of the power points, nor to refuse to implement a general meeting resolution.
• [15] The committee's other concerns with respect to fire, trip hazards, and monitoring are reasons it opposes the use of the basement power points by owners. But it lacks the power to strip that right from owners irrespective of its reasons, especially in the face of the body corporate's decision on motion 17.
• [16] I will order the body corporate to unlock the basement power points.

[1] Act, s 35(1); Platt v Ciriello [1997] QCA 33.

[2] Winchcombe Place [2024] QBCCMCmr 321 at [20]- [23]; Sanchelsea [2024] QBCCMCmr 180 at [25]- [32].

[3] Accommodation Module, s 44(1)(b).

[4] Act, s 101(2).