The like-for-like test
The BCCM Act defines an improvement broadly — putting up a new building, a structural change, or a non-structural change (installing air conditioning is the standard example), where a "change" includes adding, removing or substituting something. Maintenance isn't defined at all.
Adjudicators have filled the gap with a like-for-like rule. Replace a timber fence with a similar timber fence: maintenance. Replace it with a Colorbond fence: improvement — the thing itself has changed. Repaint the wall the same colour: maintenance.
The rule has sensible give in it: if the original product genuinely can't be sourced, using a close modern equivalent doesn't automatically make the work an improvement — the body corporate replacing discontinued foyer tiles with a similar modern tile is still maintaining, not improving.
Why fight over the label? Because maintenance runs through the ordinary spending rules (the committee spending limit, and the two-quote requirement above the major spending limit), while improvements have their own approval ladder — and picking the wrong track invalidates the approval, not just the paperwork.
The three improvement limits (body corporate improving common property)
For schemes under the Standard, Accommodation and Small Schemes Modules, a body corporate improvement to common property needs one of three approvals, based on total cost:
1. Basic improvements — committee approval. Up to $300 × the number of lots, decided by committee resolution — but doubly capped by the committee's ordinary spending limit. The default committee spending limit is $200 × lots, so unless the scheme has raised it by ordinary resolution, $200 × lots is the real ceiling. And the cap works in the other direction too: even where a scheme has set a generous committee spending limit, the committee can never approve an improvement above $300 × lots.
2. Ordinary resolution range. Above the basic limit, up to $2,000 × the number of lots: ordinary resolution at a general meeting — and here is the trap — only one such approval per year. A 12-lot scheme that uses its ordinary-resolution slot on landscaping in March cannot approve EV chargers the same way in August; the second project waits, or goes to a special resolution.
3. Above $2,000 × lots: special resolution at a general meeting.
Worked example, 12 lots on default settings: the committee can approve improvements to $2,400 (its spending limit, sitting under the $3,600 basic cap); a general meeting can approve up to $24,000 by ordinary resolution, once a year; anything beyond needs a special resolution.
And the anti-avoidance principle from the spending rules applies here identically: if several improvements make up one project, the approval level is set by the project's total cost. Splitting the pergola from its roof from its lighting doesn't lower anything.
Lot owner improvements to common property
Owners improving common property for their own benefit — the awning, the air conditioner bracket, the courtyard structure — need approval too. The committee can approve where all three conditions hold:
- total cost under $3,000
- the improvement doesn't detract from the appearance of a lot or the common property
- the body corporate is satisfied its use won't breach the owner's duties as an occupier — causing a nuisance being the obvious one.
Fail any condition and the request goes to a general meeting for ordinary resolution. Either way, the owner must comply with any conditions, must maintain the improvement, must give the body corporate details of the work and its value — and can be up for the difference if the improvement raises the scheme's insurance premium.
Changes inside your own lot
The body corporate legislation doesn't restrict what an owner does within their lot — but the by-laws frequently do. Hard flooring is the running Queensland example: timber and tile floors generate so many noise disputes that many schemes require approval for flooring changes by by-law. External-appearance by-laws catch things owners assume are theirs alone (solar panels on a standard-format-plan roof, for instance). And even a change no by-law touches can still breach the nuisance provisions if it unreasonably interferes with someone below. Check the by-laws before the renovation, not after the complaint.
Getting the classification right, on the record
The sequence for any proposed work is: classify it (like-for-like or a change?), pick the approval track (which limit, which resolution), aggregate honestly (whole project, GST included), then decide with the required quotes where the spending rules demand them. A committee that can show that chain — this was assessed as maintenance/improvement for these reasons, approved under this limit, on these quotes — is essentially dispute-proof. A committee that can't is relying on nobody ever asking.
That chain is what StrataTrade produces as a by-product: the job scoped once with the work clearly described, quotes returned in comparable form, and the decision and its reasoning recorded permanently against the building — so when the classification question is asked two committees later, the answer is in the record, not in anyone's memory.
This article is general information about Queensland body corporate law, not legal advice. Figures are the defaults under the current regulation modules for community titles schemes — different rules apply under the Commercial, Specified Two-lot Schemes and BUGT frameworks, and your scheme's limits or by-laws may vary. Confirm before relying on any figure.