This article discusses VIC maintenance plan loophole, focusing on how committees may use maintenance plan amendments to approve works without a special resolution.
Question: Can a committee alter a maintenance plan to approve works that would normally require a special resolution, creating a potential loophole in the legislation?
If a committee can amend a maintenance plan at any time, does this create a loophole in the legislation that allows committees to make significant changes—normally requiring a special resolution—by first approving those changes through an updated maintenance plan?
Answer: Vic certainly has a maintenance plan ‘loophole’, of sorts.
Yes, it is certainly a ‘loophole’, of sorts. In the context of very large owners corporations, there is arguably a need for this loophole, to which a committee is still accountable to their owners at the AGM, as passing a special resolution to change the colour of the paint in the gym, or add couches to the foyer, or info-screens to the lift, etc. Although these are all potentially debatable as ‘significant’, they would otherwise be an insurmountable obstacle.
Interestingly, the Victorian government appears at least partially aware. During their recent solar panel grants for apartments program, they have allowed for owners corporation to approve the panels being installed on common property by either special resolution, OR incorporation into a maintenance plan (and not requiring the special resolution).
One good way to fix the situation would be to provide a definition of the word ‘significant’ in the regulations, which can be amended quite readily by the government.
Alex McCormick
SOCM
alex@socm.com.au
P: 03 9495 0005
This post appears in the December 2025 edition of The VIC Strata Magazine.
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Read next:
- VIC: Q&A Managing maintenance when owners deny the existence of the owners corporation
- VIC: Q&A Can an owners corporation revoke a resolution?
- VIC: Building Better Strata Committees
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