Role of the body corporate

The role of a body corporate in Queensland is to administer common property and body corporate assets for the benefit of all of the owners, and to undertake functions required under body corporate legislation.
What is a body corporate?

A body corporate is a legal entity which is created when land is subdivided and registered under the Land Title Act 1994 (PDF) to establish a community titles scheme. All of the owners in a community titles scheme are automatically members of the body corporate when they buy their lot.
Community titles scheme

Community titles schemes allow you to privately own an area of land or part of a building, as well as share common property and facilities with other owners and occupiers.

A community titles scheme is made up of 2 or more lots, so it could be a:

• duplex
• residential unit block
• townhouse complex
• high rise accommodation building
• shopping complex
• business park

Queensland has more than 43,000 community titles schemes with a total of over 400,000 individual lots.

What a body corporate does?

The body corporate is given powers under the legislation to carry out its necessary duties.

The body corporate:

• maintains, manages and controls the common property on behalf of owners
• decides the amounts to be paid by the owners to make sure the body corporate can operate
• makes and enforces its own rules, called by-laws, which tell owners and other people who live in the scheme what they can and cannot do
• takes out insurance on behalf of owners, such as public risk insurance over the common property and building insurance
• manages and controls body corporate assets
• keeps records for the body corporate, including minutes of meetings, roll of owners details, financial accounts, registers of assets, improvements to common property by owners, engagements and authorisations.

The body corporate makes decisions about these and other things at general meetings and through the committee.