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Housing and community recovery representatives from the Queensland government have visited residents at Couran Cove after essential services were suspended earlier this week due to claims of unpaid levies.
Key points:
- Essential services were cut off on Wednesday for some residents at Couran Cove, on South Stradbroke Island
- Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman says government housing and communities teams are checking on residents
- Multiple disputes are before the courts and body corporate commission
The service provider notified residents last week it was "not commercially viable" to continue supplying services, claiming it was owed millions of dollars in arrears.
Residents have met with the office of Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman this week to discuss the issue after services including water and electricity were switched off on Wednesday.
"It is incredibly distressing," Ms Fentiman said.
"Clearly things have gotten out of hand in these disputes on the island.
She said her department would work with residents to see what could be done.
"It's the subject of multiple disputes before the Body Corporate Commission and in the Supreme Court as well so it's not appropriate for me as the Attorney-General to intervene," she said.
Couran Cove Island Resort, on South Stradbroke Island, is home to a mixture of permanent residents and holiday home owners who are obliged to pay levies to their body corporate to access the services that are otherwise commercially unavailable.
'Morale not good'
Resident Sharon, who asked for her last name to not be included, said the past few days had been very difficult.
"We still don't have power, our generators are using a lot of fuel so we keep ducking across to the mainland to get fuel," she said.
She said it was inconvenient and expensive.
She said some parts of Couran Cove had all services, while they were cut to others.
"Morale is not good. You've got families who are infighting amongst themselves because the tension is so high," she said.
"We're scared to leave our property unattended because we don't know what they're going to do."
Changes to laws
The state government last year passed changes to body corporate laws, to improve the governance for the body corporate scheme on Couran Cove.
The Attorney-General put out a media statement in November 2022 saying changes included fairer rules for voting at general meetings, increased transparency in body corporate decision making, and strengthened laws to prevent conflicts of interest.
"We prioritised huge governance improvements, conflicts of interest and really brought the body corporate legislation for Couran Cove into line with standards that we would all expect for body corporates," Ms Fentiman said.
"But of course many of those disputes are still ongoing, they are still before the court.
"We have to wait for the courts and the Body Corporate Commissioner to make findings as to the specific disputes on Couran Cove."