Trustees of Wadeville Business Park Body Corporate v Bluetrim Senior Liquors CC

The applicants were the trustees of the Wadeville Business Park Body Corporate, a sectional title scheme and community scheme. The respondent, Bluetrim Senior Liquors CC, owned Unit B3 in the scheme. After an armed robbery at the respondent’s liquor warehouse on 29 April 2023, the respondent sought to enhance security. It requested permission to install a 'cat ladder and door' to access a security room, but the trustees, through the managing agent, indicated that the proposal and drawings were inadequate and later rejected the proposal. Despite this, the respondent proceeded with installation. The applicants later discovered that the respondent had also erected a separate security hut on common property adjacent to its section without seeking or obtaining prior written consent from the trustees. The applicants demanded removal of both structures. During the adjudication process and an inspection in loco, the applicants indicated that they had ultimately approved the cat ladder and door, leaving only the security hut in dispute. The respondent argued that the security measures were urgently required to protect staff after the traumatic robbery and that the hut was positioned for optimal visibility of entrances and gates.

• Whether the respondent unlawfully placed or attached structures on common property without prior consent of the trustees in breach of the scheme’s conduct rules and the STSMA.
• Whether an adjudicator could order removal of the security hut under section 39(2)(d) of the Community Schemes Ombud Service Act 9 of 2011.
• Whether the dispute concerning the cat ladder and door remained live after the applicants retrospectively allowed it to remain.
• Whether security concerns justified non-compliance with the scheme’s approval procedures for alterations affecting common property or the exterior appearance of the scheme.

The application was granted in part. The respondent was ordered, in terms of section 54(4) of the CSOS Act, to remove the unauthorised security hut within 14 days of receipt of the order. No ruling was made regarding the cat ladder and door because that issue had become moot after approval was granted. No order as to costs was made.

An owner in a sectional title scheme is bound by the body corporate’s conduct rules and may not erect structures on common property or make alterations affecting the exterior appearance of a section or common property without prior written consent of the trustees and compliance with the scheme’s prescribed approval process. Where a structure is installed on common property without such approval, section 39(2)(d) of the CSOS Act authorises an order directing its removal. Security concerns do not, without more, exempt an owner from compliance with these requirements.

The adjudicator observed that the applicants sympathised with the respondent’s traumatic experience during the armed robbery and supported efforts to improve security, but stressed that such measures had to be pursued in accordance with the STSMA and the scheme rules. The adjudicator also noted that an alternative placement inside the warehouse had apparently been suggested, although this was not decisive to the outcome.

The decision reinforces that owners in sectional title and community schemes must comply with body corporate rules and prescribed approval procedures before erecting structures on common property or making alterations affecting the external appearance of the scheme. It also illustrates the CSOS adjudicator’s remedial powers under section 39(2)(d) of the CSOS Act to order removal of unauthorised structures, even where the owner acted for practical or security reasons. The case is a useful example of the primacy of scheme governance and trustee consent in sectional title administration.