Qbcc Insurance Premium Table 2022 Alterations

[Cassaundra Marley]

Insurancetaken out under the Queensland Home Warranty Scheme is calculated based on the insurable value of the work, including any associated works such as landscaping, fences, air conditioning and more. In relation to evaluating the insurable value, the QBCC states the following:

Basically, yes. The QBCC is very clear that insurance is required for any residential building with a roof, including new homes, garages and carports, manufactured homes (like a kit home or moveable dwelling), houses in over-50s villages (excluding registered retirement villages), townhouses, duplexes, units or apartments up to three storeys above a car park. Home warranty insurance must also be taken out for the installation of residential swimming pools. Regardless of the type of work being conducted, contractors must be insured with the QBCC if the works cost more than $3300. This includes building, extensions, additions, alterations, renovations and repairs to the residential dwelling.

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I live in a building format strata building. The unit owner above has been renovating for over a year. Their initial application stated they were carrying out minor renovations, but I believe they have removed internal walls.

So, I think you have done the right thing in alerting the body corporate to your concerns, but if you are not getting the response you need, it may not be productive to spend too much time thinking about what should happen. As an individual, you are in a position to take action, so why not take it?

In this case, nothing can stop you from making an insurance claim. As an owner, you pay for the insurance and are entitled to claim against it. If you contact your committee or body corporate manager, they should be able to provide you with a claims form. You can also contact your insurance broker or insurer directly if need be. In turn, the insurer may have some questions for the body corporate, and that may prompt action.

Any renovation that touches on common property would need body corporate approval. If the renovation is under $3000, the committee can approve it. Over that amount and it should be determined at a general meeting. Of course, it can be difficult to wait for a general meeting and different schemes have different ways of handling this. Speak to your body corporate about their preferred process.

A unit owner has made several unauthorised changes to common property over the past years, including installing skylights, a cover over their balcony and a keypad lock to their main entrance door. The body corporate would like to reinstate all affected common property to its original state. Is there a statute of limitations preventing the body corporate from taking such action?

Unauthorised improvements to the common property by lot owners / occupiers are distressingly common. Whether through ignorance or outright avoidance, body corporate approval is often not sought when it must be.

The question posed presupposes that the improvements should be removed. The normal process is for the lot owner / occupier to ask for permission; in fact, usually two permissions. The first is the authority to make the improvement. The second is to keep it there. Statutory easements may help with either or both of these permissions, as may by-laws.

Rather than proceeding to (most likely unlawfully) pull down the improvements, a better and more reasonable approach is to put the lot owner on notice that, after a search of the body corporate records, no consent/s to the making of the improvements, or the right to keep them where they are, have been given. The lot owner is then invited, within a reasonable time (at least a month), to ask for the body corporate approvals required.

Still, if you are doing renovations, it is a good idea to ask in advance what permissions you need. Sometimes the answer will be easy like this, but owners often undertake works only to find they have interfered with the common property and caused a bigger issue. Checking first is a lot simpler than resolving a problem after the fact.

Adjudicators have consistently held that bodies corporate are entitled to issue contravention notices to the current owner of a lot for breaches caused by a previous owner. For example, in The Peninsula [2021] QBCCMCmr 121 (17 March 2021), the Adjudicator relevantly stated:

Similarly, the body corporate may have concerns about the impacts of your wood heater causing a nuisance or hazard. A relatively recent case in Qld found, for the first time under strata caselaw in Qld, that second-hand smoke was a hazard.

We have a unit on the Sunshine Coast in a 30 year old building. The body corporate is considering replacing garage doors. Some owners would like to pay the difference to increase the height of their garage doors.

Generally, body corporate law is established to allow everyone to have the same thing or for items specific to a lot to be the responsibility of that lot owner. These are the principles being applied here. They make good sense.

One other possibility is that you could vote on making all garage doors taller. Taller garage doors would be an improvement to the common property. If enough owners voted in favour, all owners could get a taller door while keeping them as common property.

Therefore, it is very important that bodies corporate have an improvements register and ensure that it is promptly updated with the required details, otherwise a body corporate risks becoming responsible for costly maintenance to improvements made for the benefit of one lot.

The body corporate is required to make reasonable decisions. Part of reasonability can be proving an explanation for why a decision has been made. Without that, the decision can be viewed as arbitrary, which seems to be the case here.

Whatever the vote is about, you might see it as an opportunity to clarify your position. Even if you think something has been decided there may be some reasons why a further vote will help determine that position and set the path for follow up action.

Otherwise, and unless you have a by-law that states otherwise, any changes to an exclusive use area need to be approved by the body corporate. If one type of installation was approved but another put in, the body corporate would likely be in a strong position in disputing with the lot owner over the changes made.

The Body Corporate committee gave me permission to remove old tiles on the back verandah of my ground-floor apartment and replace them with new tiles. The tilers had to remove the balustrade railing and a large metal screen situated right in the middle of my verandah. After the work was completed, the tilers refused to replace the railing and screen.

I have enjoyed the delightful ambience of not having to negotiate around that ugly, outdated heavy metal monstrosity that serves no purpose and restricts what little light I have coming into my dark unit.

The committee have served me with a breach notice for not replacing the screen. My screen was the only one left in my building. I have asked for an exemption but they are undecided. Some members agree with me wholeheartedly but the chairwoman has taken exception with me and has not approved another request I have for insect screens which all other owners are allowed. What are my rights here?

However, in most circumstances this type of improvement will be regulated by the by-laws for the scheme. The owner should review the by-laws and check whether there are any approval processes required before carrying out the proposed installation. If approval is required, the committee can impose reasonable and relevant conditions in relation to the improvement.

Our complex does not have a by-law relating to renovations to lots. The addition of a new by-law is proving difficult because of the voting rules for a Special Resolution. Our main concerns are renovations which affect the structural integrity, plumbing and electrical installations, as well as the installation of hard flooring. Does current legislation offer any protection to complexes regarding unauthorised renovations if there is no by-law in place?

Regulating renovations can be difficult. Special purpose by-laws help, but architectural and landscaping codes are better. The former requires a special resolution, the latter a resolution without dissent. Not having either, your recourse is to the other by-laws and the legislation.

By-laws regulating noise or nuisance for example, if breached, can stop a renovation in its tracks (assuming the body corporate takes prompt and proper action!). By-laws regulating external appearance of a building, or placing things on the common property (e.g. skip bins) without approval, can provide the means to impose reasonable conditions on renovations.

As for what parts of the legislation may be helpful, that will always turn on what the renovations entail. For example, if a renovation is extensive enough and involves the floor coverings, then the renovations may have to be compliant with the current transmissible noise standards. Plumbing, electrical and structural works can trip other parts of the legislation, again depending on what is proposed; for example, inappropriate structural works may breach the statutory easement for support.

Even if your scheme does not have this specific law, most by-laws have a version similar to this. There may be some variations around the colour of the screens permitted to ensure they are in keeping with the appearance of the complex or the level of approval.

Was any change made to legislation in 2009 regarding minimum energy efficient rating for air conditioning units in class 2 (apartment) buildings? I was under the impression that air conditioning units now need to be a minimum of 4-star energy efficient rating.

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