For unit owners / intending purchasers this must be worrying
From http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25076302-421,00.html
A BULLET has been fired at a Gold Coast penthouse amid a bitter body corporate fee feud that is dividing apartment communities across Queensland.
Police are investigating and the State Government has ordered a review of controversial legislation enabling millionaire penthouse owners to slash their body corporate levies at the expense of other unit owners.
Tensions are rising among many of the state's 340,000 apartment dwellers, with one warning yesterday: "It's getting to the stage where someone is going to get hurt."
The shooting incident, which shattered a penthouse window, followed a bid by wealthy apartment owners in riverside Surfers Paradise highrise The Pinnacle to have their body corporate levies halved and the fees of residents on lower floors doubled, The Courier-Mail reports.
Trouble erupted in December when penthouse owners applied to the Commercial and Consumer Tribunal to change the lot entitlements in The Pinnacle.
Unit owners in almost 30 other buildings in Brisbane, the Gold and Sunshine coasts have filed similar applications.
The claims are based on a controversial legal precedent, known as the Centrepoint case, which has led to massive increases in body corporate fees for thousands of lower-floor unit owners across the state and hefty decreases for those in penthouses.
This followed a successful 2004 court challenge by unit owners in Brisbane's Centrepoint Apartments to the long-held practice that bigger and more expensive apartments attract higher body corporate levies.
The landmark case has since sparked civil war in many apartment buildings, which are attracting growing numbers of residents.
"It's completely unfair," Gold Coast Labor MP Peter Lawlor said.
He has been campaigning for legislative changes for five years to stop body corporate fee hikes and he said the issue would become "a tidal wave" if something was not done.
Airline pilot Michael Corr, who owns a one-bedroom unit in The Pinnacle, slammed the move by penthouse owners as "greedy and completely immoral".
"These guys are worth millions and they are trying to screw everyone else in the building," he said.
Mr Corr said if the penthouse owners were successful, their body corporate fees would plummet from about $30,000 to $12,000 while lower-floor unit owners would see their fees jump by up to 70 per cent to almost $7000.
But penthouse owner Nigel Neaves said the current body corporate fee structure was "inequitable and ridiculous".
He said he was paying 10 times more in body corporate fees than lower-floor residents to use the same facilities.
Sub-penthouse owner David Callard said too many unit owners had been "getting away with low body corporate fees for years".
From http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25076302-421,00.html
A BULLET has been fired at a Gold Coast penthouse amid a bitter body corporate fee feud that is dividing apartment communities across Queensland.
Police are investigating and the State Government has ordered a review of controversial legislation enabling millionaire penthouse owners to slash their body corporate levies at the expense of other unit owners.
Tensions are rising among many of the state's 340,000 apartment dwellers, with one warning yesterday: "It's getting to the stage where someone is going to get hurt."
The shooting incident, which shattered a penthouse window, followed a bid by wealthy apartment owners in riverside Surfers Paradise highrise The Pinnacle to have their body corporate levies halved and the fees of residents on lower floors doubled, The Courier-Mail reports.
Trouble erupted in December when penthouse owners applied to the Commercial and Consumer Tribunal to change the lot entitlements in The Pinnacle.
Unit owners in almost 30 other buildings in Brisbane, the Gold and Sunshine coasts have filed similar applications.
The claims are based on a controversial legal precedent, known as the Centrepoint case, which has led to massive increases in body corporate fees for thousands of lower-floor unit owners across the state and hefty decreases for those in penthouses.
This followed a successful 2004 court challenge by unit owners in Brisbane's Centrepoint Apartments to the long-held practice that bigger and more expensive apartments attract higher body corporate levies.
The landmark case has since sparked civil war in many apartment buildings, which are attracting growing numbers of residents.
"It's completely unfair," Gold Coast Labor MP Peter Lawlor said.
He has been campaigning for legislative changes for five years to stop body corporate fee hikes and he said the issue would become "a tidal wave" if something was not done.
Airline pilot Michael Corr, who owns a one-bedroom unit in The Pinnacle, slammed the move by penthouse owners as "greedy and completely immoral".
"These guys are worth millions and they are trying to screw everyone else in the building," he said.
Mr Corr said if the penthouse owners were successful, their body corporate fees would plummet from about $30,000 to $12,000 while lower-floor unit owners would see their fees jump by up to 70 per cent to almost $7000.
But penthouse owner Nigel Neaves said the current body corporate fee structure was "inequitable and ridiculous".
He said he was paying 10 times more in body corporate fees than lower-floor residents to use the same facilities.
Sub-penthouse owner David Callard said too many unit owners had been "getting away with low body corporate fees for years".