Body corporate official swigs beer as Stradbroke Island resort residents demand answers
Residents of a South Stradbroke Island resort called for one of the body corporate officials to resign after he appeared at a meeting to discuss the resorts’ problems while swigging on a beer.
QLD News
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A besieged body corporate official at a strife-torn Gold Coast island resort where power and water have been cut off has provocatively swigged on a beer at a meeting where angry residents demanded he resign.
More than two dozen owners of properties on Couran Cove resort on South Stradbroke island attended a meeting on Tuesday calling for body corporate chairman Darren Phillips to stand down.
Mr Phillips, who dialled into the meeting via Zoom, swigged from a schooner of beer in a move that heightened anger in the room.
He traded barbs with owners, who held an impromptu vote calling for him to not be allowed to chair the annual meeting of the Marine body corporate – one of five body corporates at Couran Cove.
One owner said he was “not suitable” to be chairman and should stand down.
Mr Phillips opened the meeting but closed it almost immediately and ordered the Zoom link to be cut.
He said it was inappropriate to continue amid ongoing legal action and moves to cut power and water to all remaining properties at Couran Cove.
Furious residents demanded the meeting continue and a body corporate lawyer who was in the room said it had been unlawfully terminated.
A stand-in chairman was voted in and the meeting went ahead.
When the meeting resumed, property owners voted to depose Mr Phillips and other body corporate members and replace them with their own representatives.
They also voted to appoint a forensic auditor to investigate the body corporate’s accounts for the last six years.
Power and water was cut to dozens of homes at the once-luxury resort in February amid a bitter body corporate dispute.
High-flying Sydney businessman Simon Napoli, whose companies provide the services to Couran Cove, has alleged that millions of dollars in levies have not been passed on to the main body corporate.
In a statement, Mr Napoli said generators powering the island had only three days’ fuel and “all services” would be suspended this Friday “due to non-payment by the bodies corporate”.
He said the bodies corporate owed “significant” debts totalling more than $25 million.
“We remain committed to working with relevant agencies to deliver suggestions on how to resolve significant infighting between body corporates which has plagued Couran Cove for over a decade,” he said.
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