Saturday evening around mid July about 7 pm, a downstairs unit owner (an inner suburb of Brisbane, Qld) heard very loud sound of pouring liquid from upstairs unit onto her bathroom ceiling (above her bathtub/shower area).  Male & female persons (young couple) live in the upstairs unit.  While the sound of liquid pouring onto the ceiling of downstairs unit, this/these upstairs tenant/s was/were making the rubbing noise in their bathtub that could be heard in the downstairs bathroom, and caused a pool of liquid above the downstairs unit’s bathroom ceiling.

Not long after that, the pool of liquid was dripping down into the downstairs bathroom and kitchen.  The downstairs unit owner quickly took photos and also recorded this leak incident as the evidence, as this leak had also happened a couple of years ago.  Straight away, after that, while this re-occurred leak was still happening, the downstairs unit owner tried to call the upstairs unit agent; but, the upstairs unit agent hung up on the phone call.  In an effort to alert someone of the issue, the downstairs unit owner called the body corporate company’s emergency line with the hope for their staff member to promptly organise a tradesperson to investigate the cause of this leak and completely stop it and/or to fix the issue before getting worse.

As the airspace between units (such as, ceiling cavity) is legally part of common area that body corporate is responsible for; therefore, the downstairs unit owner rightly reported about this issue to the body corporate; especially, after the upstairs unit agent (who’s responsible for the leak which came from upstairs unit) refused to communicate with the downstairs unit owner.

The downstairs unit owner spoke to the body corporate staff member; but, the staff mentioned that before she could call a tradesperson, she needed to ask manager or body corporate committee chairperson first, as the cost would be very high to call out an emergency tradesperson outside office hours.  Minutes later, she told the downstairs unit owner that she’s not allowed to send the emergency plumber, and suggested the downstairs unit owner to contact body corporate office during business hours.  The downstairs unit owner sent the photos & video evidence to the body corporate manager during business hours, not long after this re-occurred leak incident took place.  Un-expectantly, it took 11 days after the downstairs unit owner called, for the upstairs unit agent to arrange for a plumber to attend.  When the upstairs agent & her plumber came, they went to the upstairs unit first and stayed up there for a big long while before coming to the downstairs unit.

The upstairs agent accompanied her plumber most of the time while her plumber was in upstairs unit, and the same happened while in the downstairs unit.  After they left downstairs unit, the upstairs agent accompanied her plumber to his vehicle and she was in his vehicle, while he drove out.  This plumber issued an invoice to the upstairs agent on 23/07/2025 with due date 30/07/2025.  The upstairs agent’s plumber didn’t mention that ‘no water was present on the incident day’, he mentioned on his report/invoice that ‘no water was present at the time of inspection’, which was on Wed.23/07/2025, 11 days after the incident day.
– With this plumber’s summary, body corporate committee chairperson gave instruction to body corporate manager to issue special charge to the downstairs unit owner’s levy account on 20/08/2025 for recovering the cost of the plumber, which the body corporate didn’t arrange and didn’t pay for, and the downstairs unit owner did not cause the leak, and the leak didn’t come from downstairs unit.  Besides, the downstairs unit owner reported the leak, while it’s happening; but, the upstairs agent & body corporate were the ones who failed to arrange the tradesperson to attend on the incident day.
– The downstairs unit owner disputed this wrong invoice and tried to clarify with all of these facts.  Then, the body corporate committee directed the body corporate manager to advise the downstairs unit owner that if the downstairs unit owner wants this body corporate invoice to be cancelled, the downstairs unit owner must arrange another licensed plumber (at the downstairs unit owner’s expense) to find the cause of this leak, despite it was from the upstairs bathroom that happened few months ago while the upstairs tenant/s was/were inside their bathroom, which was not belong to the downstairs unit owner and the leak was not caused by the downstairs unit owner.
The questions are : –
– Do you think these instructions by body corporate committee to body corporate manager are correct and fair?
– If no, what will be your suggestion to this downstairs unit owner?  If the person can’t afford to move and can’t afford the fee/s for the private lawyer and/or for the complicated process of the application to BCCM and/or QCAT about this additional way of harassment & unfairness toward this downstairs unit owner, as the community legal services organisations can’t help with the case/s that relate/s to the body corporate laws.
Please note : this body corporate committee and/or body corporate committee chairperson and people in his network have kept trying to do many different things to keep disturbing this downstairs unit owner, as this chairperson doesn’t want to spend body corporate funds to fix many issues, which this downstairs unit owner found and raised on many occasions for years, even via motions for AGMs.

This chairperson also has people to back him up and to lie & cover up for him.  The body corporate manager even omitted the evidence files of photos and replaced some words on the downstairs unit owner’s motions to be as ‘no evidence’ on the voting paper for AGM about some other issues, which this downstairs unit owner found and tried to ask for resolving with the reasonable & affordable solutions.  Moreover, the majority of voters are investors including this chairperson, who also tried to manipulate the votes by writing to suggest them to vote ’no’ with his lies & covering up.  Then, they believed in his lies & followed his suggestion, even those motions are for health & safety of residents, as majority of them don’t live in the building.  No-one could stop this chairperson and/or his people to keep doing such things yet, as they have done many bad things toward this downstairs unit owner in secret.
Another question is : –
– What other steps are possible for the downstairs unit owner to legally explore to resolve/stop these issues apart from the ones which have already mentioned?