Who Pays for What: Body Corporate vs Unit Owner Electrical Responsibilities in QLD

Byron Knight — Licensed Electrical Contractor, Master Electrician

QLD Lic. 1511406 · 20+ years’ experience · Southern Gold Coast · Updated June 2026

It’s one of the most common calls we get on strata and body corporate properties: something’s stopped working, and before anyone talks about scheduling a repair, the first question is “who’s actually paying for this?” A unit owner assumes it’s a body corporate problem because it’s “part of the building.” The committee assumes it’s the owner’s problem because it’s “inside their unit.” Both can be wrong, and the answer genuinely isn’t always obvious — even to people who’ve lived in the scheme for years.

This guide sets out how Queensland law actually splits electrical responsibility between the body corporate and individual unit owners, where the boundary sits, and the specific exceptions that trip up even experienced committees.

The legal starting point

Queensland doesn’t use the term “strata title” the way other states do — the correct term is a community titles scheme, governed by the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (the BCCM Act) and, for most residential schemes, the Body Corporate and Community Management (Standard Module) Regulation 2020. Other modules exist — Accommodation Module (common for schemes with a letting agent or short-term holiday rentals, relevant to parts of the Gold Coast with a heavy short-stay presence), Commercial Module, Small Schemes Module, and Specified Two-Lot Schemes Module — and each has broadly similar but not identical provisions. What follows describes the default position under the Standard Module; your scheme’s specific by-laws and community management statement always take precedence where they say something different.

The core legal test sits in section 20 of the BCCM Act. In plain terms: all utility infrastructure in a community titles scheme — which includes electrical wiring, cables, and switchboards, not just water and gas — is common property, and therefore the body corporate’s responsibility, unless it’s positioned within a lot, services only that one lot, and isn’t part of a boundary structure. All three conditions need to be true before responsibility shifts to the owner.

The default split — what’s body corporate, what’s yours

Translated into the situations that actually generate service calls, here’s how electrical responsibility typically lands in a standard Queensland community titles scheme:

The pattern: shared infrastructure and common areas sit with the body corporate. Anything wired inside your walls, servicing only your unit, sits with you — even if part of it happens to be physically located outside your four walls.

The exception that catches people out constantly

Section 180(4) of the Standard Module Regulation is the single most common source of disputes we see. It states that fixtures or equipment that only serve one lot are the lot owner’s responsibility to maintain — even if that equipment is physically located on common property.

The classic example: an individual split-system air conditioner with its condenser unit mounted on a common rooftop or external common wall. The unit only services one apartment. Under the Standard Module, maintaining and eventually replacing that condenser — including its electrical connection — is the lot owner’s job, not the body corporate’s, despite the unit physically sitting on land everyone in the scheme technically owns a share of. The body corporate’s role is generally limited to approving the installation location and making sure it doesn’t create problems for other owners.

This surprises a lot of owners who assume “if it’s not inside my unit, it’s not my problem.” For electrical equipment specifically, the test is about who the equipment serves, not where it’s physically located.

Exclusive use areas — a further wrinkle

Many schemes grant individual owners exclusive use of part of common property — a courtyard, a carport, a balcony — through an exclusive use by-law. Where that applies, maintenance responsibility for the exclusive use area typically shifts to the benefiting owner, including any electrical fittings serving that area, unless the by-law explicitly says otherwise.

But this isn’t absolute. Structural elements and certain higher-value building components can remain the body corporate’s responsibility even within an exclusive use area, regardless of what the by-law says, under section 192(3) of the Standard Module. Adjudicator decisions in this space have gone both ways depending on the specific wording of the by-law and what was actually installed by whom. If a dispute involves an exclusive use area and any real money, it’s worth getting specific advice on your scheme’s actual by-law wording rather than relying on the general rule — this is genuinely one of the more legally contested corners of body corporate law in Queensland.

Common scenarios — worked examples

The table above covers the general rule. Here’s how it plays out in specific situations we’re regularly called out for on Gold Coast schemes:

Is the body corporate a “PCBU”? A common misconception

Many committees assume that because they’re responsible for common property, the body corporate automatically carries the same workplace safety duties as a business under Queensland’s Work Health and Safety Act. That’s usually not correct.

Engaging a contractor — including an electrician — to carry out repairs does not make a body corporate a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) under the WHS Act. Where a body corporate is responsible only for residential common areas and doesn’t directly employ any staff, the WHS Act generally doesn’t apply, and committee members don’t carry “officer” duties under that Act. The position changes if the body corporate directly employs a worker, or where common areas are used for commercial purposes — both genuinely different circumstances from a standard residential scheme engaging tradespeople as needed.

This doesn’t reduce a body corporate’s real, separate obligations under the BCCM Act to maintain common property in good condition, or its obligations around emergency and exit lighting compliance under AS/NZS 2293 — see our guide on electrical emergencies in commercial and strata buildings. It just means the specific PCBU/WHS framework that applies to a shop or office fit-out — covered in our DIY vs licensed electrician guide — doesn’t automatically apply to a residential body corporate in the same way.

Who pays the electricity bill vs who pays for the repair

These are two separate questions, and mixing them up causes unnecessary arguments. Where units are individually metered, each owner is billed directly by their electricity retailer for their own usage — that’s a metering and billing arrangement, not a maintenance responsibility. Where there’s no individual metering for a shared service (like common area lighting or a shared hot water system), the body corporate typically pays the account and recovers the cost from owners through levies, based on the scheme’s contribution schedule lot entitlements.

Who pays the electricity bill and who pays for a repair are determined by different rules — metering and billing follow usage arrangements; repair responsibility follows the common property test described above. A unit owner paying their own electricity bill doesn’t automatically mean they’re responsible for maintaining the wiring — and a body corporate covering common area power doesn’t mean it’s responsible for every fault behind an individual owner’s front door.

What to do when responsibility is genuinely unclear

Some situations sit right on the boundary — literally. When it’s not obvious which side of the line a fault falls on:

1. Check your scheme’s community management statement and by-laws first — they can override the default position, particularly around exclusive use areas.
2. Ask a licensed electrician to inspect and identify exactly where the fault sits — inside the lot boundary, within a boundary structure, or in common property. This single fact usually resolves most disputes on its own.
3. Raise it with your body corporate manager or committee if the electrician’s finding doesn’t settle it — many disputes come down to interpretation of a specific by-law, not the underlying facts.
4. If it remains unresolved, Queensland provides a formal dispute pathway: raise it with the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management, which can appoint an adjudicator. Adjudicator decisions can be appealed to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) if a party is dissatisfied with the outcome.

In our experience, the vast majority of “who pays” disputes resolve at step 2 — once a licensed electrician has actually inspected the fault and can say plainly which side of the boundary it’s on, most committees and owners accept the finding without needing to escalate further.

Practical advice for committees and property managers

A few things that consistently save Gold Coast body corporates money and friction over electrical maintenance:

• Get the boundary documented, not just assumed. When an electrician attends a job near the common property/lot boundary, ask them to note in writing exactly where the fault was and which side of the line it sat on. This becomes useful evidence if the same question comes up again.
• Set up a preventative maintenance programme for common property electrical. Scheduled testing of the main switchboard, common area lighting, and emergency/exit lighting catches faults before they become disputes about who pays for an emergency call-out.
• Use one electrical contractor who understands body corporate boundaries, rather than defaulting to whoever’s available. A contractor unfamiliar with the BCCM framework can misattribute a fault, creating an unnecessary dispute between the committee and an owner.
• Review exclusive use by-laws for electrical clarity when they’re drafted or amended. A by-law that clearly states who maintains electrical fittings in an exclusive use courtyard or carport prevents an argument two years later.
• Keep the community management statement accessible to owners, not filed away with the body corporate manager alone. Most disputes we see start because nobody has actually read the current by-laws.