An owner in a Gold Coast building spent two years complaining that the gardening bill was too high. Every AGM he raised it, every AGM the committee said the contract was competitive, and every AGM the budget passed. Eventually somebody suggested he stop arguing about it and go and read the file.

It cost him $19.35 and an afternoon. The gardening contract had been signed six years earlier, contained an annual CPI escalation and an automatic rollover, and had never once been re-tendered. It also, on page four, bundled in pool servicing that appeared as a separate line in the budget. The building had been paying twice for the same work since 2020. Nobody had been dishonest. The invoices simply had not been read by anyone whose money they were.

This is the most under-used right in Australian strata. Every state and territory gives lot owners a statutory right to inspect the body corporate's records, and the records are far broader than most owners assume. Not just the financial statements you already get, but the invoices behind them, the contracts, the quotes, the insurance documentation, the minutes of committee meetings you were not at, and in most jurisdictions the correspondence.

If you have ever wondered whether your body corporate fees are too high, this is how you find out rather than argue about it.

What Counts as a Record

The scope is wider than the phrase suggests. Depending on the jurisdiction, the records available for inspection generally include:

The roll or register of owners and their entitlements
Financial statements, ledgers and bank statements
Invoices and receipts supporting every payment made
Contracts and agreements, including the manager's agreement, caretaking agreements, and service contracts
Insurance policies, schedules, valuations and claims history
Minutes of general meetings and committee meetings
Correspondence sent and received by the body corporate
Quotes and tenders obtained for works
By-laws or rules, and records of any exclusive use grants
Building and maintenance records, defect reports and compliance certificates

The contracts and the invoices are where the value is. Financial statements tell you what was spent. Invoices tell you what it was spent on, and contracts tell you whether you had any choice about it.

The Rules in Each State

The right exists everywhere. The mechanics, the fees and the timeframes differ.

New South Wales

Section 182 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 allows an owner, a mortgagee, or a person authorised by them to request an inspection. The request must be in writing to the owners corporation and must be accompanied by the prescribed fee, which is a maximum of around $31 plus GST. The owners corporation then nominates a time and place for the inspection.

Note the two features that matter in practice. First, you can authorise someone else to do it for you, which is exactly how professional strata search reports are produced. Second, the fee is a statutory maximum, not an invitation for the manager to quote you their own hourly rate.

Queensland

Under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997, an interested person may ask the body corporate either to permit an inspection of its records, to provide copies, or both. The current fees are modest: around $19.35 to inspect and about 70 cents per page for copies.

Queensland's regime is the most explicitly owner-friendly of the group, and the Commissioner's Office regularly deals with disputes about access, which means there is a well-worn path if you are refused.

Victoria

Section 146 of the Owners Corporations Act 2006 gives lot owners, mortgagees, prospective purchasers and authorised representatives a right to inspect the register and records at any reasonable time, and importantly the inspection itself is free of charge for an eligible person. A fee may be charged for copies, and that fee must not exceed the prescribed maximum.

That distinction gets blurred constantly. If your Victorian manager quotes you a fee to look at the records, they are quoting for something the Act says you can do without paying. Copies are a different matter.

Victoria is also the state where a manager is most likely to raise privacy as an objection, and Victorian commentary has been clear that privacy legislation is not a valid basis for withholding owners corporation records from an eligible person.

The other jurisdictions

Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT all provide equivalent rights under their own strata, community titles or unit titles legislation, with their own prescribed fees and notice periods. The pattern is consistent: a written request, a modest statutory fee, and an obligation on the scheme to make the records available within a reasonable period. Our state guides set out the framework in each jurisdiction.

The Only Real Grounds for Refusal

This is the part worth knowing before you ask, because refusals are usually bluff rather than law. The grounds are narrow.

Legal professional privilege. If a document is genuinely privileged legal advice, particularly advice relating to a dispute with you, it can be withheld. This is legitimate but frequently over-claimed. An email from a lawyer is not automatically privileged, and a contract reviewed by a lawyer does not become privileged.

Defamatory material. A body corporate does not have to produce a document it reasonably believes contains defamatory material. Crucially, to rely on this it must specifically identify which material it believes is defamatory. A blanket refusal across a whole file does not meet that test.

And the one that comes up most often and is not a ground at all:

Privacy is not a basis for refusal. A body corporate cannot decline to produce its records by pointing at privacy legislation. This has been said clearly enough, often enough, that a manager raising it should be treated as either poorly informed or stalling.

Neither is "the committee has not approved it", "you need to give a reason", or "our office does not do inspections". The right belongs to you as an owner. You do not need to justify why you want to look, and a manager's internal process does not override a statutory obligation.

How to Actually Do It

Write the request. Email is fine in most jurisdictions. Address it to the body corporate care of the strata manager. Cite the section if you know it, because it changes the tone of the reply. Say whether you want to inspect, receive copies, or both.
Pay the prescribed fee. Include payment or ask for the payment details in the same email so there is no delay excuse. Check the statutory maximum first so you know if you are being overcharged.
Be specific about scope, but not too narrow. "All records" is valid but produces a mountain. A request for the last three financial years of invoices, all current contracts, the insurance file and the last two years of committee minutes is targeted enough to be manageable and broad enough to find things.
Bring a phone or a scanner. Where inspection is permitted, photographing documents is usually far cheaper than per-page copy fees. Confirm in advance that you can.
Take notes as you go, recording the document, the date and what it shows. If this ends up in a dispute, contemporaneous notes matter.
Follow up in writing if nothing happens. A polite email restating the request, the date, the fee paid and the statutory obligation resolves most delays on its own.

If you are still refused after that, the pathway is your state's tribunal or commissioner. Access to records is a common application type, and it is one of the more straightforward disputes to run because the obligation is clear. Our guide to dispute resolution options sets out how those applications work.

The Eight Documents Worth Asking For

If you only look at a handful of things, look at these.

1. Every current service contract. Cleaning, gardening, lifts, pool, fire, security, waste. Check the term, the escalation clause, the rollover provisions and the termination rights. Long terms with automatic rollovers and CPI escalation are how a competitive price in 2019 becomes an uncompetitive one today.

2. The strata manager's agreement. What is included in the base fee and what is billed separately. Disbursement and "additional services" charges are one of the most common sources of unexplained cost growth. See how to choose a body corporate manager for what a reasonable agreement looks like.

3. Any caretaking or letting agreement. Term, remuneration, escalation, and whether it has been topped up. In some buildings this is the largest single line in the budget and the least examined. Caretaking and letting agreements explains what to look for.

4. The insurance file. Policy, schedule, the most recent valuation and its date, the claims history, and the broker's remuneration. An old valuation means underinsurance. The claims history explains your premium better than anything else. Our guides on what body corporate insurance covers and who pays the excess on a claim cover the rest.

5. Commission and rebate disclosures. Ask specifically for records of any commission, rebate or incentive received by the manager or broker from insurers or suppliers. This is where secret commissions show up, if they show up anywhere.

6. Invoices for the three largest budget lines. Not the totals, the actual invoices. Check whether the work described was done, whether it duplicates another line, and whether the supplier is related to anyone involved in the scheme.

7. Committee meeting minutes for the last two years. General meeting minutes get circulated. Committee minutes often do not, and that is where most decisions are actually made.

8. The capital works or sinking fund forecast, and the fund's actual balance. Compare the plan against reality. A fund tracking well below its forecast is a special levy that has not been announced yet. Our guide to how much a capital works fund should hold explains what a healthy position looks like.

What to Do With What You Find

Most inspections turn up inefficiency rather than misconduct. Contracts that were never re-tendered. A pest treatment billed twice under different names. An insurance policy renewed for nine straight years without a market test. A manager's agreement with a schedule of extra charges nobody remembers approving.

That is still valuable, because it is fixable and it is fixable by ordinary resolution. Take the findings to the committee in writing with the documents attached, and if that goes nowhere, put a motion to the next general meeting. Understanding how the voting works is what turns a discovery into a change.

And if the numbers show your building is genuinely paying above the odds, that is worth knowing in a broader sense too. Comparing what similar buildings pay is exactly the problem this site exists to solve, and contributing your own fee data makes the comparison better for the next owner who goes looking.

Key Takeaways

Every owner has a statutory right to inspect the body corporate's records, and that includes contracts, invoices, quotes, insurance files and correspondence, not just the financial statements you already receive.
The fees are small. Around $31 plus GST in New South Wales, about $19.35 in Queensland, and the inspection itself is free in Victoria for an eligible person.
You do not have to give a reason, and you can authorise someone else to inspect on your behalf.
Refusal grounds are narrow: genuine legal professional privilege, and specifically identified defamatory material. Privacy is not a valid ground.
Contracts and invoices are where the value is. Financial statements say what was spent; invoices and contracts say whether it should have been.
If you are refused, the tribunal or commissioner pathway is well established and access disputes are among the more straightforward applications to run.

Compare body corporate fees across Australia at BodyCorporateFees.com.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. Inspection rights, prescribed fees and timeframes differ between states and territories and are updated periodically. Confirm the current fee and procedure with your state's strata authority or a qualified strata lawyer before lodging a request.

How to Inspect Your Body Corporate's Records (And What to Look For)