This Privacy Policy deals with the collection, security, use and disclosure of personal information gathered by Prudential Investment Company of Australia and its subsidiaries including those trading as Body Corporate Services Love Owners Corporations pursuant to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the ten National Privacy Principles set out in that Act.
Information provided by you to Love Owners Corporations will be used in a manner to ensure that Love Owners Corporations is able to fulfil all of its functions and duties under the various Strata Management Acts and associated regulations.
The kind of information that is collected may include your name, address, telephone number, email address. In certain circumstances, sensitive information relating to your health may also be collected.
Should personal information be obtained from a third party, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you know:
(a) the identity of the third party and how to contact them;
(b) that you have the right to access the information;
(c) the purposes for collecting the information;
(d) whether the third party will disclose the information to other third parties;
(e) the law that requires that information to be collected; and
(f) the consequences (if any) if that information is not provided.
We may contract with a third party and they may require the disclosure of your information to fulfil their obligations to us. For instance, for bulk mail deliveries we may utilise the services of a mailing houses which requires the disclosure of your name and address. In those types of circumstances, we ensure that your personal information will only be used for the specific purpose for which it was provided.
If you do not provide this information or we are unable to gain the information from a third party we may not be able to deal with you, or provide you with our services efficiently. If ever we collect personal information, we do so for the purpose of establishing and maintaining our relationship with you and the reason for its collection will always be explained.
Nevertheless, personal information is usually used or disclosed only after having obtained your consent, either expressly or by implication or where we are entitled or required to. The information provided by you to Love Owners Corporations will be used to, for example:
(a) maintain the strata roll;
(b) obtain and update insurance policies;
(c) aid in identification of products and services which may be required by you;
(d) maintain our relationship with you; and
(e) comply with legislative and regulatory requirements.
We only collect sensitive information with your consent or when we are required to by law. Sensitive information is defined as being any information about a person’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinion, membership of a political association, religious beliefs or affiliations, philosophical beliefs, membership of a professional or trade association, member of a trade union, sexual preferences or practices, criminal record or health information.
Love Owners Corporations Internet Privacy Policy
If you visit an unsecured area of our website (where you are not required to log on) to browse or download information, we will record the date and time of your visit, the page that you viewed, the path you followed to get there and the information, if any, that you downloaded. This information cannot be used to personally identify you. The information is used for statistical and maintenance purposes which aid with the continual evaluation of the website.
We take all reasonable steps to ensure that your information is properly protected from unauthorised access, disclosure or modification. Our security measures include, but are not limited to, encrypting the data sent from your computer to our server, firewalls and virus scanning tools. Any information so collected is stored on our server, which can only be accessed by our staff.
We do not use any information collected from our website to send unsolicited advertising material (SPAM) to your computer.
Other information may be collected when you apply for an online product, make a payment online or send us a query via email.
Online Purchase and Payment.
When purchasing online products or making a payment online, the information required by online forms may be collected, used or disclosed by us. The manner in which this may occur is explained on any such online forms.
When purchasing a product with a credit card, your credit card number is not stored and your information is not transferred over the internet to your card provider
If you own an apartment or townhouse in Victoria, or you sit on your owners corporation committee, a piece of legislation has just passed Parliament that will change how your building handles unpaid fees, how it authorises legal action, and how proxy voting works at meetings.
It is called the Consumer Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. If you haven’t heard about it yet, that’s understandable. It is a general consumer bill covering everything from auctions and rental laws to used cars and illegal tobacco, and the owners corporation changes sit inside it as a handful of clauses, so most of the coverage has gone elsewhere.
Victoria has traditionally taken a harder line on unpaid owners corporation fees than most other states. The Bill introduces a formal framework so that an owner who is struggling to pay can request a payment plan. After a fee notice or final notice arrives, the owner applies in writing using a standard form, and the owners corporation has 28 days to accept or refuse. If it does not respond inside that window, the plan is treated as accepted on whatever terms the owner proposed. Silence is not a neutral option.
While a request is being assessed, and while a plan is being complied with, recovery action stops. The owners corporation cannot issue a final notice, charge penalty interest, or apply to VCAT to recover the debt. Refusal is possible, but the grounds are limited, and they are tightest for owner-occupiers, meaning people living in the lot as their principal place of residence.
Broadly speaking, an owner-occupier's request can only be refused where the plan would threaten the owners corporation's financial position, where the owner has failed to honour a previous plan in the past two years, or where the term requested runs beyond twelve months.
Much of the practical detail still sits in regulations that have not been finalised, including what evidence an owner has to provide.
Section 18 of the Owners Corporations Act 2006 sets out the resolution an owners corporation needs before it can start court or tribunal proceedings. A special resolution is hard to reach in a large building where most owners do not vote, so this has been a genuine barrier.
The Bill moves some proceedings down to an ordinary resolution. This covers proceedings which are not about recovering money, and claims worth no more than twice the owners corporation's total current annual fees.
Anything larger still needs a special resolution. In practice, acting on a rule breach or pursuing a smaller claim should become considerably easier to authorise.
This is one of the changes added to the bill later on and has had almost no coverage. The Bill replaces section 89D(1) of the Owners Corporations Act so that a person cannot vote as a proxy on behalf of more than one lot owner.
The 2021 reforms capped how many proxies one person could hold, but that cap was worked around by spreading proxies across several employees of the same organisation. A one-proxy-per-person limit closes it off.
If your building relies on proxies to reach quorum, this changes your maths, and it is worth raising with your manager before your next annual general meeting.
Altering a plan of subdivision, for example to change common property boundaries, has historically been very hard, because a single owner refusing to consent could stop a change the rest of the building supported.
The Bill does not remove that consent requirement. What it does is widen the circumstances in which VCAT can consent on behalf of the members who will not agree. Section 34D of the Subdivision Act 1988 already allows an application of this kind, and until now VCAT could make the order where the members refusing consent owned more than half the lot liability. The Bill adds a second pathway, where more than half the membership has already consented.
The effect is that a majority-supported change is no longer automatically dead. It still means going to VCAT, so it is not a shortcut.
There has been a lot of talk about broader strata reform, and it is easy to assume it has all landed. It has not. An expert panel reviewing the Owners Corporations Act made 51 recommendations. The Government accepted 17 in full, 3 in part and 26 in principle, and this Bill delivers only a slice of that.
Sector commentary suggests a second tranche is unlikely before 2027. Two related changes are already confirmed and do not depend on this Bill: an officer-in-effective-control requirement for management companies from June 2027, and mandatory continuing education for managers at five hours a year, expected around 2028.
The Bill was introduced to the Legislative Assembly on 3 June and passed that House on 30 July. The Legislative Council amended it and passed it on 14 August, and the Assembly agreed to those amendments on 26 August.
So it has passed both Houses, but it is not yet law. It becomes an Act on Royal Assent, and individual provisions then start on dates set by proclamation. None of those dates has been announced. As of writing, none of these changes has come into effect and doesn’t impact you just yet.
You can check the current status at legislation.vic.gov.au by searching for the Bill by name.
As the bill hasn’t come into law yet, there isn’t anything you need to do just yet. However, if you want to start preparing for these changes if they come into law, here’s where you can start.
First off, chat with your manager about whether the arrears process is ready. The 28-day clock and the deemed acceptance rule mean a request sitting unopened in an inbox can cost the owners corporation control of the terms. Payment plan information is also expected to have to go out with fee notices, so those templates will need updating.
Then look at the numbers. Model what happens to your cash position if several lots enter plans at once. Owners corporations run on fixed budgets funded entirely by owners, so a pause on recovery lands on everyone still paying, and smaller buildings feel it hardest. You’ll need to confirm which tier your scheme sits in while you are there, because tier five schemes are expected to be outside the framework.
Two smaller things: Minutes must not identify who has asked for a plan, so check how your building records arrears discussions. If you’ve also been relying on one person holding several proxies to reach quorum, raise the new cap before your next AGM.
Once again, keep in mind these changes haven’t come through yet. Wait for Royal Assent and for the relevant provisions before commencing.
Is this law yet? No. It has passed both Houses and becomes an Act on Royal Assent. Individual provisions then commence on dates set separately.
Does anything change for my building today? No. Your current rules, fee notices, arrears process and voting thresholds all continue to apply.
Can I ask for a payment plan right now? Not under this framework. Many owners corporations already offer informal arrangements, so it is still worth talking to your manager if you are struggling. The change is that it becomes a right rather than a courtesy.
If an owner is on a payment plan, can they still vote? Yes. An owner complying with an agreed plan is treated as not being in arrears for voting and committee eligibility purposes.
Does this bring in licensing for owners corporation managers? No. Licensing is supported by the Government but sits in a later round of legislation.
Most of the practical work here falls to your manager rather than your committee. The payment plan framework in particular changes how arrears are handled day to day, and the 28-day clock means the process needs to be right before commencement, not after.
If Love & Co manages your building, we are already working through what has to change. If you sit on a committee elsewhere and aren't sure whether your manager has this in hand, it is a fair question to ask.
Either way, if you want to talk through what these changes mean for your building, get in touch.
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