QLD: Defamation in a body corporate: What you can (and can’t) say

This article discusses key legal risks, protections and communication guidelines relating to defamation in a body corporate.

Defamation is no longer a distant legal concept for media companies and politicians. In Queensland body corporate communities, it is turning up in committee meetings, performance management of caretakers, group emails, Facebook pages and WhatsApp chats.

In this Queensland focused webinar, Brendan Pitman from Grace Lawyers, Tyrone Shandiman from Strata Insurance Solutions and Will Marquand from Tower Body Corporate unpacked how defamation law applies in a body corporate setting, who can be held liable, what insurance may or may not respond, and how to communicate in a way that protects both individuals and the scheme.

This article summarises the key themes from the session so that committees, body corporate managers and owners can better understand the risks and the practical steps they can take.

QLD: Defamation in a body corporate – What you can (and can’t) say in strata | Brendan Pitman, Grace Lawyers + Tyrone Shandiman, Strata Insurance Solutions + William Marquand, Tower Body Corporate – Nov 2025

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What actually counts as defamation?

Brendan started by stepping back from strata and explaining how defamation law works in general.

Defamation law in Australia is based on uniform legislation across the states and territories, along with common law principles that still apply. The law focuses on protecting reputation. It is not about hurt feelings. The question is whether a matter has harmed a person’s reputation in the eyes of others.

For a defamation claim you generally need four elements:

Publication

The matter must be published, which simply means communicated to at least one other person. A private conversation between two people, with no third party involved, will not usually count as publication.

Identification

The matter must identify a person. That can be by name, but it can also be by role or inference. For example, a statement about “the chairperson” or “the body corporate manager” may be enough if people can work out who that is.

Defamatory meaning

The words used must carry meanings that the law considers defamatory. There is no fixed list of “bad” words. Instead, the court looks at what meanings an ordinary reader or listener would reasonably take from the words, and whether those meanings would lower the person in the estimation of others or cause people to shun or avoid them.

Serious harm or serious financial loss

Recent amendments introduced a higher bar so that trivial matters do not end up in full defamation proceedings. The defamatory matter must cause, or be likely to cause, serious harm to an individual’s reputation or serious financial loss to an eligible company.

That last element is important in a strata context. Many day to day complaints about “defamation” in schemes involve rude comments, insults or mild criticism. The language may be unhelpful or upsetting, but it will not automatically meet the serious harm threshold that a court now expects to see.

For companies, serious financial loss usually means a clear link between the publication and a lost financial benefit. Brendan gave the example of an on site caretaker who loses a contract top up because defamatory comments changed the way people voted. In that case, the lost contract could potentially form the basis for a financial loss claim if the other elements are also present.

Concerns notices and offers to make amends

If someone believes they have been defamed, there are several possible responses apart from doing nothing. These include:

a cease and desist letter

making use of codes of conduct that apply to caretakers, letting agents or committee members

sending a formal concerns notice under the Defamation Act

starting court proceedings if the matter does not resolve.

A concerns notice is a mandatory step before commencing defamation proceedings. It is a formal written notice that must meet strict legal requirements. Among other things, it should:

give a copy of the publication or details of where to find it, such as a URL

precisely identify the parts of the publication that are complained about

set out the defamatory meanings (imputations) that arise from those words

explain the serious harm or serious financial loss caused or likely to be caused.

If the matter later goes to court, the meanings claimed in the proceedings must be substantially similar to the imputations raised in the concerns notice. In other words, you cannot allege one set of meanings in the notice and then sue over something entirely different later.

On the other side, a person or body that receives a proper concerns notice can:

do nothing

comply with what is requested

or make an offer to make amends.

An offer to make amends must be in writing, must say that it is made under the Defamation Act, and must meet specific content rules. It should offer to publish a reasonable correction, take reasonable steps to tell others about the defamatory nature of what was said, and offer to pay the expenses reasonably incurred up to the point of considering the offer. It may also include an apology, removal of material or compensation, but those elements are not strictly mandatory.

Offers to make amends are important because courts can take them into account in two ways:

when deciding who should pay legal costs

when deciding what level of damages, if any, should be awarded.

That is why Brendan strongly recommended getting legal advice at the concerns notice stage. Poorly drafted notices and offers can create problems further down the track.

When people talk about “without prejudice” offers, Brendan explained that this refers to communications that cannot be shown to the court while it is deciding the core issues. They sit under a “cone of silence” during that stage, although they can later be relevant to questions about costs and mitigation.

How far do body corporate protections really go?

Many committee members have heard that they are protected when acting in good faith. Brendan explained that this protection is far narrower than people usually assume, particularly in relation to defamation.

In Queensland, the legislation gives committee members a general protection from civil liability for things done in good faith and without negligence in the performance of their functions. However, that protection does not apply to defamatory matter.

There is a separate and much more limited protection for certain types of defamation that arise in the context of a general meeting. In effect:

it only applies to required material for a general meeting

required material is limited to the text of motions and the explanatory notes for those motions

it does not apply to committee meetings, committee minutes, circulars or general correspondence

it only protects the body corporate and committee members who did not actually write the defamatory material in the first place.

Outside that narrow slice of required general meeting material, committee members, owners and others remain exposed to potential personal liability if they publish defamatory content.

Records, republication and social media

A recurring theme in the session was that defamation risk is not limited to the original email or comment. It can also arise when material is repeated or circulated more widely.

Republication and records

Brendan explained the idea of republication with a practical body corporate example.

If 25 percent of owners in a scheme requisition an extraordinary general meeting and their requisition motion or explanatory note contains defamatory material, the committee may still be obliged under the legislation to call the meeting and circulate that material to all owners. In that case, the people who wrote the original material can be liable not only for the first publication, but also for the natural and probable republications that follow as part of that process.

Record requests create similar issues. Owners and other interested persons have a right to inspect or receive copies of body corporate records. However, the legislation allows a body corporate to refuse access to, or copies of, records that the committee reasonably believes are defamatory.

The proper approach is not to withhold entire documents where only a sentence or paragraph is problematic. Instead, the defamatory part should be redacted and the rest of the record provided. That approach balances defamation risk against transparency obligations.

Importantly, Brendan cautioned that records should not be destroyed to try to avoid defamation concerns. Instead, a body corporate could store them in a separate area or folder and apply the redaction rules when it receives a formal records request.

Will reinforced this point from a management perspective. Strata managers are required to keep records. Emails and other communications sent to them in their capacity as managers can end up on the official file. Committees should not treat their manager like a private friend or sounding board. They should assume that anything they write might one day be inspected by someone else.

Social media and Facebook groups

Social media is another area where things can escalate quickly.

Brendan referred to recent High Court authority which makes clear that the host or administrator of a social media page can be treated as a publisher of defamatory comments posted by others, if they have sufficient control over the page and its content. That means that committee members who run building Facebook pages or similar groups may carry legal risk even if they did not personally type the defamatory words.

His suggestions included:

limiting membership of building social media groups to current owners or tenants

disabling comments where appropriate so that posts cannot attract long, unmoderated threads

requiring admin approval for new posts so that content can be reviewed before it appears

keeping the number of administrators small

agreeing on clear guidelines for what will and will not be allowed.

These steps will not remove all risk, but they can help reduce the chance that harmful material sits on a page for long periods without anyone noticing.

Insurance, claims and the reality behind concerns notices

Tyrone’s part of the session focused on what actually happens when defamation claims reach insurers.

From his work as a broker, he sees defamation concerns most frequently in the context of on site managers who hold long term caretaking agreements. Those contracts can be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. In that environment, defamation claims sometimes appear as part of broader commercial strategies around performance management and contract disputes.

He also sees claims between owners and committees, between committee members, and occasionally involving strata managers.

A few key points from Tyrone’s experience:

It is relatively inexpensive to have a lawyer send a concerns notice. Legal fees in the low thousands are common, so the bar to start the process is not high.

Receiving a notice can be extremely stressful for volunteers. Many people worry about being personally liable for very large sums.

Most matters never proceed beyond the concerns notice stage. Court proceedings are expensive and outcomes can be unpredictable, so only cases with significant commercial stakes or particularly determined plaintiffs tend to run to judgment.

On the insurance side:

Some strata office bearers policies contain exclusions for defamation claims. If a committee member is sued personally, there may be no cover.

In some policies, the public liability section that covers the body corporate entity itself may still respond to defamation claims, even where the office bearers section does not.

Some insurers do not apply defamation exclusions at all in their office bearers cover. Tyrone noted that the total cost of defamation claims he has seen over many years is relatively modest compared with overall premium pools, which suggests that including cover would not necessarily be a large financial burden for insurers.

For schemes that cannot obtain defamation cover under their usual strata policy, he mentioned management liability policies as another option. These can provide broader protection, but they come at an additional cost and are generally more suitable for larger buildings.

Tyrone stressed that if you are joining a committee and you plan to pursue performance issues, the best time to think about insurance is before any dispute starts. Once you are already in conflict and defamation has been alleged, it is much harder to put effective cover in place.

Practical tips for committees, managers and owners

The session covered a series of practical messages that apply across Queensland schemes.

Be careful what you say and where you say it

If you are upset or frustrated, pause before you send that email or post that comment. Sleep on it. Re read it in the morning. If in doubt, do not send it or tone it down.

Remember that you are on the record

Committee meetings may be recorded. Webinars and events are recorded. Emails to your manager become body corporate records. Group chats and social media threads can be screenshotted and shared. Do not say anything in writing that you would not feel comfortable seeing read out in a hearing.

Understand that “defamation” is a legal term, not just an insult

Many disputes in schemes involve people using the word loosely. The law requires serious harm or serious financial loss before a court will entertain a claim. However, even if a claim would not succeed, a concerns notice can still create stress, cost and work for everyone involved.

Know your insurance position

Committee members should understand whether their strata policy’s office bearers cover includes or excludes defamation, and whether the public liability section provides any protection for the body corporate entity. If in doubt, ask your broker to explain the options in plain language.

Get early advice if you receive a concerns notice

Do not panic, but do not ignore it. Talk to your broker about whether you may have cover and seek legal advice about your options. An early, well considered response can sometimes resolve matters quickly.

Think about workplace health and safety and bullying obligations

Campaigns of repeated emails, online harassment or organised filming of caretakers and staff can raise workplace safety issues, as well as potential defamation concerns. Bodies corporate have obligations in that space and may need to act, including by enforcing by laws or issuing firm communications about appropriate conduct.

Defamation in a Queensland body corporate is not just a theoretical risk. The combination of close living, passionate stakeholders and digital communication means that reputations can be harmed, sometimes very quickly.

At the same time, the law sets a relatively high bar for successful claims, and there are practical tools and protections available for those who understand how the system works.

The core messages from this webinar were simple. Communicate carefully. Treat every written comment as if it might one day be read by a third party. Make sure your committee understands its insurance position. And if defamation is alleged, get proper advice early rather than reacting in haste.

Brendan Pitman
Grace Lawyers
E: brendan.pitman@gracelawyers.com.au
P: 07 5554 8560

Tyrone Shandiman
Strata Insurance Solutions
E: tshandiman@iaa.net.au
P: 1300 554 165

This information is of a general nature only and neither represents nor is intended to be personal advice on any particular matter. Shandit Pty Ltd T/as Strata Insurance Solutions strongly suggests that no person should act specifically on the basis of the information in this document, but should obtain appropriate professional advice based on their own personal circumstances. Shandit Pty Ltd T/As Strata Insurance Solutions is a Corporate Authorised Representative (No. 404246) of Insurance Advisenent Australia AFSL No 240549, ABN 15 003 886 687.

William Marquand
Tower Body Corporate
E: willmarquand@towerbodycorporate.com.au
P: 07 5609 4924

This post appears in Strata News #772.

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