QLD body corporate records: what must be kept and who can see them

A Queensland body corporate is a record-keeping entity as much as a decision-making one. The Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (BCCM Act) and the scheme's regulation module — most commonly the Standard Module — prescribe which records must be kept, for how long, and who is entitled to see them. Two ideas surprise most committees: the records belong to the body corporate, not the committee, and the right to inspect them is far wider than many committees assume.

What must be kept

The body corporate's records include, at a minimum:

• The body corporate roll — for every lot: the owner's name and address for service, and details of any mortgagee or other interested party who has given notice. Owners are obliged to keep their details on the roll current, and notices are validly served at the recorded address.
• Meeting records — notices, agendas, minutes of general meetings and committee meetings, voting papers, proxies, and the results of motions (including the tallies that prove a special resolution's limbs were met).
• Financial records — accounts, budgets, levy notices and contribution records, invoices, receipts, bank statements, and the financial statements presented at each AGM.
• Statutory and contractual documents — the community management statement, by-laws, insurance policies, engagements of a body corporate manager or service contractor, warranties, and orders from an adjudicator or tribunal.
• Correspondence — letters and emails sent or received by the body corporate, including through its manager or secretary.

Records must generally be retained for at least 6 years — and some documents (the CMS, by-laws, current engagements, orders) remain operative for as long as they have effect, so they are kept indefinitely in practice. Where a body corporate manager holds the records, they hold them for the body corporate and must hand them over when the engagement ends.

Who can inspect the records

The Act gives an "interested person" the right to inspect the body corporate's records and obtain copies. Interested persons include:

• a lot owner (and their agent, such as a solicitor);
• a mortgagee of a lot;
• a buyer or prospective buyer of a lot (and their agent); and
• others with a proper interest recognised by the Act.

The mechanics under the Standard Module:

1. The request is made in writing, with the prescribed fee paid.
2. The body corporate must allow inspection by appointment within a reasonable time — it cannot sit on the request.
3. The person may take copies (a per-page copying fee may apply).

Two points committees regularly get wrong:

• Access is a right, not a favour. The committee cannot refuse because the records are embarrassing, because there is a dispute with the requester, or because it doubts the requester's motives. Refusal or obstruction is itself a dispute an adjudicator can — and does — resolve against the body corporate.
• The right is broad. It extends to financial records, correspondence, and committee-meeting material, not just AGM minutes. The narrow exceptions (for example, documents subject to legal professional privilege in a dispute with the requesting owner) should be applied cautiously and with advice.

Information certificates when a lot is sold

Conveyancing runs on body corporate paperwork. On written request and payment of the fee, the body corporate must issue a body corporate information certificate for a lot within the prescribed time (7 days under the Standard Module), disclosing among other things:

• the contributions fixed for the lot, instalments, and any arrears;
• the balance of the administrative and sinking funds;
• insurance details; and
• other prescribed particulars a buyer needs.

The certificate matters because a buyer becomes jointly liable with the seller for outstanding contributions on the lot — which is why levy status and fund balances are standard pre-settlement searches. Sellers also carry their own statutory disclosure obligations; the certificate is how the body corporate supports both sides. Issuing it late or inaccurately exposes the body corporate to loss claims, so treat certificate requests as deadline-bound work, not routine correspondence.

Privacy and the roll

The roll and records inevitably contain personal information. The practical rules:

• Information on the roll is available to interested persons for scheme purposes — an owner can look up another owner's address for service; that is by design, not a breach.
• Using records access for unrelated commercial purposes (marketing lists, for instance) is not what the right is for, and schemes can seek orders against misuse.
• Committee-only material still lives in the body corporate's records — marking something "confidential" does not remove it from the records or, generally, from an interested person's right to see it.

Common mistakes

1. Refusing inspection because the requester is in dispute with the committee — the classic adjudication loss.
2. Missing the certificate deadline on a sale, or issuing one with stale arrears figures.
3. Letting the roll go stale — notices served at old addresses, and levy notices contested as never received.
4. Records scattered across personal inboxes — a committee changeover loses years of correspondence because it lived in the outgoing secretary's email account.
5. Destroying records early, or losing them when a manager's engagement ends without a handover.
6. Minutes without tallies — a special resolution that cannot be proven from the records is a special resolution waiting to be challenged.

How StrataPilot handles this

StrataPilot is, in effect, the body corporate's record-keeping system: the lot register holds owners, contact details, and entitlements; documents live in a categorised, access-controlled library rather than personal inboxes; meeting minutes, poll results with exact tallies, levy notices, and arrears are generated by the platform and stay attached to the scheme permanently — so a committee changeover hands over a complete record set, and an information-certificate request is answered from live data instead of a shoebox of paper.

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This guide is general information about Queensland legislation, current as at the "last updated" date above — it is not legal advice. For decisions that matter, check the current BCCM Act and your scheme's regulation module, or ask the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management.