Tensions explode at Block body corporate meeting

This season’s contestants are already clashing, with tensions boiling over during the show’s earliest-ever body corporate meeting.

Tensions flared on Monday’s episode of The Block when one couple call a body corporate meeting – the earliest in the show’s history – to confront another team about breaking the rules.

Contestants Steph and Gian had left their rivals miffed when Steph’s father, a qualified builder, suddenly appeared on-site and appeared to work late into the night to help them complete their room.

As some of the other teams noted, without a site induction or confirmed payment for his work, his presence working on-site was a clear breach of the game’s rules.

None of the other teams confronted the couple about the potential rule breach, but Steph soon realised that her fellow contestants seemed to be behaving weirdly around her.

Steph promised to play by the rules.

It all came to light when Brisbane couple Leah and Ash called for a body corporate meeting, sitting down with the rest of the teams and raising the issue of Steph and Gian’s alleged rule-breaking.

“We’re sitting down, about to have a coffee, and then we realise, “Oh. This is about us. We did something wrong,’” Steph told the cameras of the meeting.

Leah in particular dominated the meeting, lecturing Steph in front of the group about having bent the rules, and telling her she “didn’t want excuses” about what happened.

“We’re the most compliant people, and I’ve said that from the beginning. We did not want my dad to pick up a tool,” Steph insisted – before promising to properly induct and pay her father for his work.

But Leah kept going, eventually leaving Steph in tears as she continued to lecture her about the incident.

Sat down the other end of the table, WA couple Kyle and Leslie were visibly unhappy with how Leah and Ash handled the situation. Eventually, Kyle cracked, yelling that Leah “wasn’t letting anyone else explain” or contribute to the meeting.

Kyle finally speaks up.

Leah had taken the lead at the meeting.

Leah seemed stunned at the interruption – and speaking to the cameras after the meeting, she intimated that it was the beginning of a Block feud.

“I’ve never even heard him speak! That was the first time I’ve heard the man speak,” she said of Kyle. “And right now? Actually, don’t speak to me again.”

The early drama comes despite host Scott Cam having announced a few changes to the game last week, designed to make life easier for contestants: They’d be given their entire budget for the renovation ($250,000 per couple) upfront. They’d be given the show’s full, 12-week production schedule in advance, so they could plan ahead.

And Cam revealed he would also hire and pay for all plumbers and electricians on site, making them a communal resource so that individual teams wouldn’t run up massive bills employing trades when they didn’t have anything to do.

The changes were all welcome news to this season’s crop of contestants as they set about renovating five 1950s brick houses in Charming St, Hampton East – but 2021 contestants Kirsty Lee Akers and Jesse Anderson weren’t as pleased.

“This year’s block is a walk in the park! This would have been amazing to have, oh and the roof/walls and bed to sleep in looks awesome too,” the couple wrote on social media.