In this video, OMB Solicitors Partner, Juliette Nairn discusses ways in which a committee can protect its body corporate community from COVID-19.
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Thank you everyone for being able to join me today.
One of the things that I particularly wanted to touch on for our body corporate managers and also for our committees who are responsible for our body corporate buildings here in Queensland is I’ve obviously been doing a lot of reading and we all have been doing a lot of reading about COVID-19 and I wanted to particularly look at how that affects bodies corporate.
I was reading an article which actually came up on channel 7 News where in New South Wales they are actually asking the government, being the state or federal government, to provide bodies corporate or owners corporations, as they call it in Sydney, with some more guidance or regulation or a specific health directive with respect to these high-rise buildings.
Now when I think about that and actually what they called them in the news article, which I found a little bit offensive, was they actually called them cruise ships on land. Now when I think about that, I feel that in Queensland we don’t need that.
We have our Queensland legislation. We know quite a lot about the virus and how it’s spreading and affecting us at the moment. And I’ve noticed that all of our body corporate managers and committees, particularly in Queensland, have stepped up with respect to the health and safety of these buildings. So what people have been doing and if we analyze and look at it, it is a little bit like having a lockdown in our own individual houses, whether we’re freestanding or part of a body corporate.
We are taking special care to make sure that there is hand sanitiser. I’ve seen visitors book at reception. We use the toggle only to access buildings. People are cleaning down lifts on a very regular basis. Common property facilities have been closed down, particularly with those areas where a lot of people are involved and accessing or trying not to touch the light switches and the door frames or the hallways and those sorts of things in our strata buildings. But once we’re within our own lot, we are actually just doing those normal day-to-day things, washing our hands well, making sure air conditioning systems are cleaned properly and also looking at opening the windows and getting some fresh air in.
The same applies if we go all the way down the basement to our garages. So when other states are asking for further directional regulation, I don’t believe we need that for our body corporate Gold Coast in Queensland because we have our body corporate managers who are leading the way in providing those directions for the committee and making sure that we’re still completely compliant with the legislation. But doing it from a perspective of a health and safety and welfare of all of our lot owners within a building.
When I think about a body corporate and those structures, there are actually some recreation facilities that we can still use within those environments and one very good example that comes to my attention is tennis courts. Everyone getting outside a little bit and having a game of tennis bring your own rackets, bring your own balls, clean down the facilities but if we lock down those areas as has been done through the Queensland directive being swimming pools, barbecues and those high areas where we get communal gatherings together and everyone has been practising their social distancing within the buildings we are doing a very good job in Queensland, particularly in our body corporate buildings in making sure that we are flattening that curve and doing the right things.
If any of our managers or committees need some assistance we’ve been putting out some fliers to help everyone but by maintaining that social distancing we don’t need extra government legislation or directives over the top of us to help us. Everyone’s really running with the ball well and doing a great job.
I just wanted to say thank you to all our body corporate lawyers Gold Coast communities out there for keeping us all safe and well and here at OMB, we’re doing the same thing in our offices. We’re basically half work from home, half in the office but we’re here to provide you with anything that you need. Thank you very much.