Hynes Body Corporate and Strata Lawyers

Trusted by 100s of Bodies Corporate across Queensland

When Australia’s foremost body corporate businesses look for legal advice, they turn to Hynes Legal. Hynes has been a leading provider of professional services to the sector for more than 15 years, working closely with the most respected names in the industry.

Speak to our team today!

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Queensland’s Leaders in Body Corporate & Strata Law

Finding solutions that are better for our clients

Finding new solutions to age-old problems, Hynes are the first in the industry to offer a better solution to the problem of by-laws that are not legally enforceable. Unlike a traditional by-laws review, we create a new set of by-laws specific to a body corporate or strata scheme.

A new set of by-laws puts body corporate committees in a far better position to regulate the scheme while also presenting a more cost effective option than the traditional by-law review process. For a free assessment of your by-laws click on the link below.

Body Corporate and Strata Resources

Free Resources For Body Corporate Managers and Committee Members

Hynes provides resources and educational content to help committee members bridge the knowledge gap and become effective and productive participants in their committees.

The resources include blog articles and educational webinars that address the most common of body corporate committee members’ concerns and provide practical advice for resolving these without needing to lean heavily on the Body Corporate Managers.

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Improving the work of Body Corporate Managers

Why Choose Hynes Legal

Hynes’ team of legal advisers brings years of practical know-how in dealing with every aspect of the strata sector. There is no substitute for lived experience in this industry.

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Be the first to know

If there’s a change in the sector, you’ll hear about it from us first. Whether it’s an email update or a thought-provoking webinar, our team are on the pulse with practical information and advice you can use in your business today.

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Commercially-driven advice

Hynes builds long-term relationships with clients by working together to achieve a desired outcome. By focusing on solutions, we provide advice that is best-suited to each individual situation – and sometimes pursuing a resolution through the courts may not be the best path towards an optimal outcome.

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Legalese-free

Our legal team, headed-up by Queensland’s foremost strata law expert Frank Higginson, delivers advice you can understand, free of legal jargon and high on practicality.

Popular Body Corporate FAQ’s

What is a body corporate?

The easiest analogy for a body corporate is it is like a company. In a company, there is a board of directors and a group of shareholders. The company itself owns the company assets and the shareholders each own (in effect) their proportionate share of those assets.

So if you own shares in BHP you own a (very small) proportionate share of all of BHP’s assets – from copper and coal mines to shale oil reserves and so on.

A body corporate is the same but on a much smaller scale.  Inside a body corporate are individual lots and common property.  The lots (or units/apartments) are the pieces of property inside the body corporate that are owned by the actual owners themselves – which is where owners live in or rent out.  The body corporate owns everything else, which is known as common property – like the pool, the gardens, roads, lifts etc, and each of the lot owners own a proportionate (but not separate) share of this common property.

Each of the lot owners is a member of the body corporate by virtue of their ownership of a lot. They can only leave the body corporate by selling their lot – in the same way that you leave BHP by selling your shares.

The body corporate is a separate legal entity and can enter into its own contracts and manage its own legal proceedings (through its committee).

Can I get out of my body corporate?

In theory, yes, but the practicalities mean the answer is usually no.

If you lot is physically in a tower or part of a gated community the answer is definitely no.  The local authority will simply not allow that.

If you are in a duplex or something very small it might be possible but the first place to check is the town planning restrictions.  The local authority may have approved the scheme only because it was strata titled.  Leaving a small body corporate like this means dissolving the body corporate – which will only be able to be done with the support of all other owners.

Is the body corporate a business?

No. A body corporate is a not for profit organisation and is not a business in its own right. This is confirmed by the Australian Taxation Office.  A Queensland body corporate is expressly not allowed to carry on a business.

Owners’ email addresses or phone numbers are private

Correct, but only to the extent they are not part of the body corporate records. Once they are on the body corporate record, other interested parties are entitled to them.

Can a body corporate evict a tenant?

No.

Ultimately, people who are tenants of lots are there under a tenancy agreement with the owner of the lot concerned. It is not for a body corporate to interfere with people’s individual property rights.

The Act does not refer to tenants.  It refers to occupiers – which means both long and short term tenants as well as their potential guests (and owners who live in the building).

A body corporate can do something about problem occupiers – as much as the process is unwieldy. The by-laws of the body corporate (which regulate how people relate to each other in the scheme and along with the overriding statutory obligation not to unreasonably interfere with other people’s use and enjoyment of their lots) can be enforced against owners and occupiers.

Where can I find your previous work and results?

Hynes Legal has advised hundreds of bodies corporate on a range of issues from cabling for new information technology infrastructure to easement disputes and management rights issues (amongst other things). You can view our Recent Work and Litigation Results, here.