Body corporate is about sharing: investment, responsibility and space.
They are effectively small communities, where the activities and attitudes of residents, whether owners, tenants or visitors, can significantly impact others.
Therefore, you must be well aware of your personal responsibilities and obligations when you own or live in a unit title property.
To ensure your community runs harmoniously, body corporate residents need to consider others and communicate well.
We all know that “common sense” is often confused with “common knowledge”, and the thing about “common knowledge” is it’s usually not as well-known as you think.
People often have different ideas of what constitutes consideration – which goes hand and hand with communication.
In the interests of communication, here is a list of ideas to promote harmony at home:
Body corporate guidelines for residents
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Ensure you always park your car in the designated space or leave it outside. Even if you only plan to be five minutes, don’t block anyone or anything with your vehicle.
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Treat shared spaces with the same respect you treat your home. Gardeners and grounds people work hard to keep these areas tidy, so make sure you clean up after yourself and leave any common property in the condition you found it in. If it’s not up to standard, either report it or clean it up yourself.
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Keep the exterior of your property tidy. Buying a unit in a body corporate is a shared investment. A failure of one person will have a detrimental impact on the value of the entire body corporate. Appearance is one of the key responsibilities all body corporate residents share.
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Keep the noise down. Shared spaces mean there’s going to be some noise, there’s no way to avoid it, but most council laws prohibit loud noise, especially between 11 pm and early morning. Repeated rowdy late nights on the balcony won’t make you many neighbouring friends.
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Apologise to neighbours when you get it wrong. Whatever the reason, acknowledging you messed up and letting them know it won’t be a regular occurrence will help smooth any rough edges.
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Don’t hold grudges. If your neighbour did something annoying or inconsiderate, glaring at them every day for the next two years will only give you wrinkles. You don’t have to like them, but a polite conversation will often clear things up.
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Discuss problems openly. If your neighbour has lived next door for a year and repeatedly done something driving you wild, don’t assume it’s about you. Without clear communication, they’re most likely clueless about your feelings.
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Approach confrontation calmly and rationally. A Zen approach is your best way forward. If you’re not feeling peaceful, sleep on it and wait until you have some perspective.
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Listen when confronted with issues. If you are asked to turn the volume down, please don’t lose all sense of proportion and start acting like they threatened a puppy. Calmly listen to complaints. When you’ve had a chance to calm down, take action.
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Be the bigger person. You’ve had words. The neighbour asked you to turn the volume down, going inside and turning the volume up is petty. Pettiness is pointless and has a habit of escalating. Skip all that discomfort by letting things go.
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If you see something broken or suspect a problem around the body corporate, let your committee know. Body Corporates can be large and we all tend to stick to certain areas. If a problem hasn’t been addressed for a long time, it could be because the committee doesn’t know about it.
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Yes, your upstairs neighbour might be noisy and finding a car space is a boss-level challenge. Keeping the noise down, parking in designated areas, obeying the rules, generally keeping your unit clean and tidy all promote harmony and are necessary tasks for body corporate residents.
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Committee members do not have extra rights. Being on the committee is all about service and representation. You may get to see some projects undertaken, likely the ones that affect your unit, but it does not grant additional privileges. Yes, other owners should be grateful for your service, but there should be no difference in treatment of committee members and other body corporate residents. Rules and legislation apply to everyone equally.
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Unless you’re engaged with the process, keep complaints to a minimum. If you’ve reported the same issue to the committee several times but have never kept up with the response (refer to committee minutes) please don’t keep bringing it up. There may be priorities that need addressing first. Unless you’re involved in the process, you’re just abdicating responsibility. Instead, consider joining the committee and get involved.
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Observe the rules, even if others don’t. Other people’s bad behaviour is not permission for you to behave badly as well. Set an example and do the right thing.
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Refrain from bullying, or worse, helping others bully. Disagreements happen in shared environments; it’s a fact of life. Argue on the facts. A robust discussion on issues will help everyone. Never resort to bullying, discrimination, intimidation, and threats. More importantly, don’t support those who engage in those behaviours. This is everyone’s home, and all have a right to feel safe and supported in this environment.
