Question:
I own a sectional title unit in which my 78 year old mother lives. The body corporate announced in their newsletter last week that they are going to lock all the taps in the gardens of the downstairs garden units, because of the large water bills. My mother spent thousands on her little garden which gives her great pleasure.

Is the body corporate allowed to do this?

Answer:
From your question it appears that the scheme in which your mother lives does not currently have separate water metres to measure the consumption of water used by the individual residents for their gardens. Additionally, it is not clear whether the nature of 'your mother's' garden is unregulated common property or whether she holds exclusive use rights to that area. In either case I presume that the garden is common property, as this is the norm in sectional title schemes. The body corporate has a statutory obligation to control, manage and administer the common property for the benefit of all owners.

As communal expenses in sectional title schemes are divided amongst owners based on the participation quotas allocated to their sections, it is possible for owners with larger participation quotas to subsidize those with smaller participation quotas in respect of expenses which to a greater or lesser degree only benefit certain owners. Your mother may use proportionately more water than the other residents in the scheme with gardens and there may even be owners whose sections do not have gardens and who therefore use no water for gardening whatsoever. However, all owners would have to contribute to the communal water bill and this may well result in some owners effectively subsidizing others.

The short answer is that the body corporate does have the power to lock the taps on common property water pipes in the gardens outside the ground floor sections, but this does not mean that your mother can be deprived of the right to water her garden.

I see two possible solutions to this problem:

1. Your mother can continue to water her garden using water from within the section as opposed to the outside garden tap; or

2. If you or your mother can rally the support of the majority of owners to request in writing that the body corporate, at its own cost, install separate water metres to measure the water used to water the gardens, then the trustees are obliged to give effect to this request in terms of prescribed management rule 33(3). If a separate water metre is installed in your mother's garden then there is no reason for the body corporate to lock her garden tap as she, and not the body corporate, will be paying for the water that she uses from that tap.