Strata Building Management
State elective: Queensland management rights
Goal: explain what a Queensland management rights business is made of, what licence you need to run it, and what to check before you buy one.
What management rights are
In Queensland, especially on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, the building manager often owns the job as a business. Management rights are a package of three things, bought and sold together:
- A caretaking agreement with the body corporate: you look after the common property and get a salary from the body corporate’s admin fund.
- A letting authorisation from the body corporate: permission to run a letting business from the scheme, renting out lots for any owners who appoint you. Owners don’t have to use you.
- A manager’s unit (and often an office or reception lot), which you own.
The business is valued mostly on its net profit: the caretaking salary plus letting income, minus the costs of running both. Buyers pay a multiple of that profit, set by the market, the length of the remaining agreement, the size and mix of the letting pool and the condition of the building. The unit is valued separately as real estate. Banks lend against management rights, which is part of why the model has lasted.
Similar arrangements exist elsewhere (NSW onsite managers who are also licensed agents, holiday resorts in other states), but nowhere else has a statutory framework built around them like Queensland’s.
The law that shapes the business
The law:
- The body corporate can’t sell caretaking or letting rights. The developer creates them at the start, and later owners can only buy an existing business.
- Under the Accommodation and Commercial Modules the caretaking agreement and letting authorisation can run up to 25 years, including options. Under the Standard Module the limit is 10 years (Lesson 2).
- Selling the business means transferring both agreements to the buyer, and the body corporate must approve the transfer. It can’t unreasonably withhold approval, but it can check the buyer is suitable.
- Owners can extend (“top up”) the agreements by resolution at a general meeting, within the module’s maximum. Top-ups are valuable to the manager, so they’re often contested by owners. The rules on how and how often they can be granted have been argued before adjudicators; get advice before proposing one.
- The caretaker must follow two codes of conduct: the one for caretaking service contractors and the one for letting agents.
- Owners can end the arrangement through a remedial action notice process (Lesson 3 and the Queensland elective), or by agreement, but a manager who is terminated can’t sell the business. That’s why remedial action notices are taken so seriously.
The licence
The law: to collect rent or let lots for other people in Queensland you need a licence from the Office of Fair Trading. Management rights operators usually hold a resident letting agent licence, which lets you do letting work from within the one scheme. A full real estate agent’s licence also covers it. The training comes from units of the Certificate IV in Real Estate Practice.
The Office of Fair Trading has been clear that managing short-stay rentals for owners, including through Airbnb, Stayz or Booking.com, needs a licence too. It has prosecuted people who did it without one.
Trust accounts: rent and holiday letting money belongs to the owners until it’s paid out, and must go through a trust account with audits. Mistakes here are the fastest way to lose a licence.
Permanent letting and holiday letting
| Permanent letting | Holiday letting | |
|---|---|---|
| Tenants | Long-term residents under the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008 | Guests on short stays |
| Income | Commission on rent (often 6 to 10%), letting fees | Higher commission, plus booking, cleaning and linen charges |
| Work | Inspections, leases, bond lodgement, repairs requests | Reception, check-ins, cleaning, guest problems, marketing, OTA (online travel agent) platforms |
| Risks | Vacancies; tenancy disputes | Seasonality; noise and party complaints from other owners; platform competition |
Your duty to owners in the letting pool and your duty to the body corporate can pull against each other. A noisy holiday guest earns you commission, and also breaches the by-laws you’re meant to help enforce. Under the codes of conduct you have to handle that honestly. Practitioner tip: treat by-law breaches by your own guests exactly as you would anyone else’s, and tell the committee what you did about them. Owners notice quickly if you don’t.
Due diligence before you buy
Industry practice: buyers use a specialist management rights lawyer, an accountant who knows the industry, and a broker. Use your own advisers, not the vendor’s. Check at least:
| Area | Questions |
|---|---|
| Agreements | Years left, including options? Any top-ups pending or disputed? Duties schedule realistic for the hours? Salary reviews (CPI or market)? |
| Accounts | Do the profit figures reconcile with the trust account and tax returns? How much income is permanent versus holiday? Any one-off income? |
| Letting pool | How many lots are in it? Any owners about to leave? What does a typical owner’s letting appointment say? |
| Body corporate | Relationship between the current manager and committee? Remedial action notices in the last five years? Any disputes before the Commissioner? |
| Building | Condition, defects, the sinking fund forecast (big works ahead mean unhappy owners and noisy disruption), cladding, insurance claims history |
| By-laws | Any by-laws restricting short stays, the use of the office, signage or car parking for guests? |
| Competition | Other letting agents operating in the building, or owners letting through platforms? |
| The unit | Is it suitable to live and work in for years? |
At Banksia Court
Banksia Court isn’t a management rights scheme, but imagine it were. The four short-stay lots are let by an outside agent, not you. A guest party leaves broken glass by the pool. You clean it up (it’s common property and a hazard) and report it to the committee with photos, without pointing fingers at the competing agent. Then you talk to the agent directly. In a management rights building, the same thing happening with your own guest calls for exactly the same report.
On the job
If you’re in Queensland, find your scheme’s regulation module, the remaining term of any caretaking agreement and letting authorisation, and who holds them. If you’re considering buying, write the due diligence questions above into your own checklist and add five that are specific to the building you’re looking at.
Sources
- Queensland Government, Role of a service contractor and letting agent, Engaging a service contractor, Transferring an engagement
- Queensland Government, Apply for a resident letting agent licence
- Queensland Department of Justice (2026), Licensing failure lands short-term letting agent in court
- Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld), Schedule 2: codes of conduct
- LookUpStrata, Caretaking agreement extensions and the committee
General education, not legal advice. Strata law is different in every state and territory and it changes often (NSW and Victoria both changed theirs in 2025 and 2026), so check the current Act and your own agreement, and get advice before acting on anything here.