This article discusses whether bodies corporate can shift garage door maintenance responsibilities to individual lot owners through an exclusive use by-law.
Question: Can our body corporate shift responsibility for maintaining electric garage doors to individual lot owners? If so, would an exclusive use by-law be the right way to achieve this?
I live in a small complex of townhouses in Queensland, regulated under a building format plan. At the moment, the body corporate is responsible for maintaining the electric garage doors for each lot.
Some lot owners think it would be more efficient and economical if each owner were responsible for their own garage door. Can the body corporate shift the maintenance responsibility to the relevant owner by making the garage doors part of each lot’s exclusive use area? If so, what process does the body corporate need to follow?
Answer: This would require a resolution without dissent, with all affected lot owners consenting to the grant.
When common property is granted by way of exclusive use, the lot owner takes on some maintenance obligations over the area, along with any conditions of the grant.
Depending on how the lots were titled (i.e. the boundary of the lots in respect of the car park), there may be common property (such as the external face of the garage) that can be granted by exclusive use on the condition that the lot owner becomes responsible for the maintenance.
This would require a resolution without dissent, with all affected lot owners consenting to the grant.
Todd Garsden
Mahoneys
E: tgarsden@mahoneys.com.au
P: 07 3007 3753
This post appears in the February 2026 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
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