Body corporate rules: what they mean for tenants in ACT units

Which rules you must follow

Under the Unit Titles (Management) Act, a tenant is bound by each rule of the owners corporation as if they were the owner, except rules about paying levies (section 107). Two limits apply:

• Rules that conflict with your standard tenancy terms don’t bind you (section 107(4) and standard term 66). The Renting Book gives this case: a rule banning overnight visitors conflicts with your right to quiet enjoyment.
• Except pet rules. If the rules cover keeping animals, you must comply.

What you get before you sign

Your lessor must give you the owners corporation rules before the tenancy starts (standard term 13). They usually come in a unit title rental certificate, which the owners corporation prepares for the lessor. The certificate also covers pool safety for common property, embedded networks for electricity or gas, and ceiling insulation.

Pets in units

There are up to three layers to check:

1. Your lease: if it requires consent, ask your lessor in writing. They need ACAT’s approval to refuse. See pets in rentals.
2. The owners corporation: you can keep a pet if the building has a “pet friendly” rule. If it doesn’t, you need the owners corporation’s consent, which it can only withhold on reasonable grounds. It’s taken to consent if it doesn’t reply in writing within 3 weeks (section 32).
3. The default rules, if your building uses them, allow up to 3 animals (not counting caged birds or aquarium fish), subject to supervision and cleaning, with written notice to the owners corporation within 14 days.

Assistance animals don’t need the owners corporation’s consent.

Noise and nuisance

The default rules say you must not make, or allow, noise that’s reasonably likely to cause substantial annoyance to others in the building. There are also rules about nuisance and the use of common property. Your building may have its own registered rules on top of these.

Repairs and costs

• Your lessor or agent is your contact for repairs, including problems with common property. They must take all necessary steps to get the owners corporation to make common property repairs as quickly as possible (standard term 58). See repairs.
• Your lessor pays owners corporation charges and levies (standard term 45).

When the owners corporation deals with you directly

• The owners corporation can give a tenant a rule infringement notice (section 109). Not complying with it is an offence.
• You can ask it to give a notice to another unit’s owner or occupier (section 111).
• Its executive committee can enter your unit at reasonable times, with reasonable notice except in an emergency, to investigate a suspected breach or do required maintenance.

Disputes

• With the owners corporation, its manager or other occupiers under the rules: as an occupier, you can apply to ACAT (section 125). ACAT can order someone to do or stop doing something, order payments up to $1,000, or order removal of an animal causing a nuisance.
• With your lessor about owners corporation issues, such as common property repairs: that’s a tenancy dispute. See how ACAT tenancy applications work.
• Advice: the Tenancy Advice Service doesn’t cover strata or body corporate problems, but can help with the tenancy side. See free tenancy advice.