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

COMMITTEE MOTIONS; COMMITTEE PROCEDURES; BODY CORPORATE RECORDS - whether committee resolutions to engage a body corporate manager for successive one week periods, passed pursuant to an adjudicator's order, should be deemed void; whether the body corporate failed to meet its obligation to permit an owner to inspect the records because the owner's online access had to be renewed after 10 hours; whether the body corporate should be ordered to keep full and accurate records of motions decided outside a committee meeting because it failed to record the names of committee members who voted.

Act, s 205(2)(a); Accommodation Module, ss 44(1)(d), 63, 125(2)(a).

• [1] Ms Chmelarova says:
  1. the committee exceeded its authority when it passed several resolutions in late 2024 that purported to appoint a body corporate manager for consecutive short periods
  2. her right to inspect the body corporate records was wrongly curtailed after 10 hours in December 2024, and
  3. the body corporate's records of motions decided outside committee meetings do not state the names of the committee members who voted.
• [2] She seeks orders in the following terms:

1.1. The applicant seeks in relation to the committee decision on motion 1 BODY CORPORATE AGREEMENT - MONTH TO MONTH BASIS purportedly passed 22 November 2024 outside of the committee meeting because that motion was void as the committee made a decision on restricted issues that can be made at a general meeting.

1.2. The applicant seeks in relation to the committee decision on motion 2, 3, and 4 BODY CORPORATE AGREEMEENT - WEEK TO WEEK BASIS purportedly passed 22 November 2024 outside of the committee meeting because that motion was void as the committee made a decision on restricted issues that can be made at a general meeting.

1.3. The applicant seeks in relation to the committee decision on 1,2 motions passed outside of the committee meeting on 3 December 2024 that resolution of both motions BODY CORPORATE AGREEMENR - WEEK TO WEEK were void as the committee made a decision on restricted issue that can be made at a general meeting.

1.4. It is declared that Jirina Chmelarova, an owner of Lot 12 of the body corporate for Village Life Wynnum 2 has been wrongfully limited time for access to the BC records via online portal of the body corporate manager Civium for 10 hours on 12 December 2024 within written request and payment of fee.

1.5. That the body corporate for Village Life Wynnum 2 is obliged within 7 days after receiving a written request accompanied by the prescribed fee, to allow Jirina Chmelarova, owner of Lot 12 of the Body Corporate Village Life Wynnum 2 access to records for the body corporate as records are defined in Schedule 6 to the Act as the rolls, registers and other documents kept by the body corporate under this Act (including under the regulation module applying to the scheme). The Body Corporate shall make all reasonable attempts to ensure that the inspection of the body corporate records is no unreasonably terminated by the Body Corporate Manager for the scheme or by the body corporate for Village Life Wynnum 2.

1.6. That the committee of the body corporate for Village Life Wynnum 2 must ensure to keep a full and accurate record of motions in a respect a motion voted on by the committee outside of the committee meeting defined in section 63 of the Accommodation module.

1.7. Other orders or declarations that are just and equitable in the circumstances.

• [3] Via resolutions made on 22 November and 3 December 2024, the committee decided to retrospectively appoint Civium as Village Life Wynnum 2's body corporate manager for several short, consecutive periods that cumulatively covered 1 September to 3 December 2024. Ms Chmelarova correctly objects that the engagement of a body corporate manager usually requires authorisation by ordinary resolution and is beyond the committee's competence.[1]
• [4] The body corporate had attempted to renew Civium's engagement at an annual general meeting on 20 August 2024, but Adjudicator Miskinis made an interim order on 25 October 2024 to prevent Civium continuing to act pursuant to that resolution as it was likely to be found invalid at final orders (which it ultimately was on 18 February 2025).[2] Presumably to mitigate the inconvenience caused by that interim order, Adjudicator Miskinis further ordered that:
  1. Within 2 months of the date of this order, the body corporate is to convene an Extraordinary General Meeting which is to consider a motion to appoint a body corporate manager.
  2. The body corporate may authorize Civium Property Group to continue acting as body corporate manager on a week to week basis, until a new body corporate manager is properly appointed or Civium Property Group is properly re-appointed as body corporate manager.
• [5] The orders did not specify whether the week-to-week appointment of the body corporate manager could be done by the committee, but that was plainly the intention. It would have made little sense to require the body corporate to call a general meeting to appoint a body corporate manager on a week-to-week basis while it waited to hold a general meeting to appoint a body corporate manager.
• [6] The committee acted in compliance with the interim order, appointing Civium for a week at a time until it held an extraordinary general meeting on 3 December 2024 and passed an ordinary resolution to engage Civium for a further three years. Ms Chmelarova now asks that I declare those committee resolutions void.
• [7] I will not. The committee acted in compliance with the interim order. Ms Chmelarova did not attempt to appeal against it.
• [8] Moreover, it would serve no practical purpose to declare those committee resolutions void. Civium has done the work and presumably been paid for it. Declaring the resolutions void now would not change that. Ms Chmelarova has not sought any further relief that hinges upon first establishing that the committee lacked the power to pass those resolutions, nor identified any consequences that would flow from the declarations. As the majority of the High Court put it in Ainsworth v Criminal Justice Commission:

... declaratory relief must be directed to the determination of legal controversies and not to answering abstract or hypothetical questions. The person seeking relief must have a 'real interest' and relief will not be granted if the question is 'purely hypothetical'...[3]

• [9] On 10 December 2024, Ms Chmelarova asked to inspect the body corporate's records via an online portal and paid the prescribed fee. The body corporate was required to permit the inspection within seven days.[4]
• [10] The next day, the body corporate manager emailed Ms Chmelarova a link that would allow access to the records for ten hours over a seven day period from when it was first activated. Ms Chmelarova objected to the time limit but was told:

Unfortunately the system is set up so that a time limit has to be entered. If after the link has expired you haven't found what you are looking for, please let me know and I can resend a new one.[5]

• [11] Ms Chmelarova emailed the body corporate manager on the morning of Friday 13 December to say that she had not found the records she was seeking but the link had expired. The body corporate manager replied the following Monday morning to advise she had resent the link.
• [12] Ms Chmelarova objects that the Act does not apply a time limit to records inspections. That is correct. The Act says only that access to the records must be permitted within seven days.
• [13] But that occurred in this case. Access was granted after one day. When it expired it was renewed, still within the seven days. I do not see the contravention and will not make orders 1.4 or 1.5.

• [14] The body corporate committee must keep a full and accurate record of motions decided outside committee meetings.[6] The record should include the names of the committee members who voted on the motions.[7] Ms Chmelarova says the body corporate is failing to meet this requirement.
• [15] The 22 November 2024 record of motions met the requirement as it named all seven committee members who received the motions and recorded that all motions passed with seven votes in favour.
• [16] The 3 December 2024 record of motions did not meet the requirement. It also named all seven committee members as having received the motions, but recorded that the motions passed with only four votes in favour and none against. It was unclear which committee members voted.
• [17] Ms Chmelarova asks that I order the body corporate to keep full and accurate records of motions decided outside a committee meeting. That is an existing statutory requirement. No purpose would be served by repeating it in the same broad terms as it appears in the Accommodation Module.
• [18] I will not make the requested order, though I trust the body corporate is now clear that it must include in its record of motions the names of committee members who vote.

[1] Accommodation Module, ss 44(1)(d) & 125(2)(a).

[2] Village Life Wynnum 2 [2025] QBCCMCmr 391; Village Life Wynnum 2 [2025] QBCCMCmr 56.

[3] [1992] HCA 10 at [38].

[5] Wanda Rebolledo, Civium, email of 11 December 2024.

[7] Accommodation Module, s 63(6)(e)(i) "record of motions".