When a common property tree fails in a Queensland scheme, the first question is rarely “whose tree was it?” The tree is almost always the body corporate's. The real question is whether the body corporate knew, or ought to have known, that it was a problem — and whether it acted.
The statutory duty
Section 152 of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld) requires the body corporate to maintain common property in good condition and to manage it reasonably for the benefit of lot owners. The relevant regulation module — Standard, Accommodation, Commercial or Small Schemes — sets out the duty in more detail.
Trees on common property are common property. There is no separate category for living assets and no exemption because a tree is natural rather than built.
The duty is not just to repair — it is to maintain
“Good condition” is a maintenance standard, not a repair standard. Adjudicators have found contraventions where a body corporate allowed a common property item to deteriorate to the point where it caused damage to an owner's property — in Waterline At Oceanside [2021] QBCCMCmr 44, a utility pipe whose deterioration damaged a resident's vehicle.
The parallel for trees is direct. A committee that has never had the trees assessed is not maintaining them in good condition; it is waiting to find out whether they were.
Not to ownership alone. It attaches to knowledge of the risk combined with failure to act. That cuts two ways for a committee: never looking is not protective, and having a report you did not act on is worse than having no report at all.
The WHS layer most committees miss
A body corporate that engages contractors — gardeners, cleaners, pool technicians, painters — is a person conducting a business or undertaking for the purposes of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld). Section 19(1) then applies to workers whose activities it influences or directs, and section 19(2) applies to other persons, which includes residents and visitors.
So a scheme with a mature tree over the visitor car park is carrying two overlapping duties: the BCCM duty to maintain common property, and the WHS duty to provide a work environment without risks to health and safety. They are enforced by different bodies and they do not cancel each other out.
What a committee should actually have on file
- A tree register for common property — every significant tree recorded individually with a quantified risk of harm, not a general grounds report.
- A documented inspection cycle, resolved by the committee and minuted. Annual is the defensible baseline for schemes with mature trees over occupied areas.
- A prioritised works schedule with dates, and evidence of completion.
- Post-event re-inspection after significant storms — on the Sunshine Coast that is a live issue every summer.
- Sinking fund provision for the works the register identifies, so the budget is not the reason nothing happens.
The conflict-of-interest problem in strata
Committees routinely ask their grounds contractor to “have a look at the trees”. It is free, it is convenient, and it produces exactly the document that will not help. The contractor is not usually risk-qualified, the assessment is not documented to any method, and any recommendation to remove comes from the party who would be paid to remove it.
If the assessment is ever tested — by an adjudicator, an insurer, or a court — the question will be whether the body corporate obtained competent, independent advice. A verbal opinion from the mower contractor does not meet that description.