Appeal dismissed: park can charge home owners a daily share of the council wastewater bill (QCAT, 2026)

What happened

A group of home owners lived in a residential park operated by Serenitas Communities Holdings Pty Ltd and Serenitas Operations Pty Ltd. Under their site agreements, the home owners were required to pay the park owner for the use of utilities at their sites, including electricity, water and wastewater (sewerage).

The park owner's agent worked out the water and wastewater charges by taking the council's yearly charge for each service, dividing that yearly charge by the number of days in a year to get a daily charge, and then billing each home owner at that daily rate for the number of days they had owned their home during the billing period.

At the first hearing, expert evidence was given that it is "not practically possible to meter wastewater" and that it is "impossible with any precision" to measure the volume of wastewater at a site. That evidence was not challenged and the tribunal at first instance accepted it. An expert also checked the billing calculations and verified that the amounts charged to home owners were not more than the amounts the council charged for the same period.

The tribunal at first instance decided the charges were not contrary to section 99 of the Manufactured Homes (Residential Parks) Act 2003 (Qld), finding that the wastewater charge was separately measured and that the unit of measurement was per residence. The home owners appealed that decision.

What each side wanted

By the oral hearing of the appeal, the home owners had narrowed several grounds down to one: that the first tribunal misread the words "separately measured or metered" in section 99 as they apply to wastewater. They argued that "measured" means working out actual usage by volume for each individual home, not averaging a cost across homes, and that averaging is an arbitrary method that does not fit the protective purpose of the section. They also pointed to section 92, which says a park owner must pay the cost of installing a measuring device or meter, as showing that a device is needed. Their position was that if wastewater cannot be separately measured or metered, then no charge at all can be made for it. The park owner's position, accepted below, was that the per-residence pro rata method satisfied section 99.

What the tribunal decided

The appeal was dismissed. The order recorded in the decision is: "1. The appeal is dismissed."

No money order was made and the published text records no order about costs. The effect is that the decision at first instance stands, so the charges for electricity, water and wastewater were not contrary to section 99 of the Manufactured Homes (Residential Parks) Act 2003 (Qld).

Why the tribunal decided it that way

An appeal to the appeal tribunal under section 142 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld) is available as of right on a question of law, and how legislation should be interpreted is a question of law. The home owners had also alleged an error of fact about whether the wastewater was separately measured, but the senior member said that point fell away once the meaning of "separately measured" was settled.

Section 99 of the MH Act says that where a site agreement requires a home owner to pay the park owner for the use of a utility at the site, the home owner may be required to pay only if the use is "separately measured or metered". Sewerage is one of the services listed as a utility. The difficulty identified was that section 99(1) plainly allows a park owner to charge for a utility, including sewerage, while the accepted expert evidence was that wastewater cannot be metered and cannot be measured with any precision. On the home owners' reading, the right to charge for sewerage would be futile, because it could never be exercised.

The senior member applied section 14A of the Acts Interpretation Act 1954 (Qld), which requires the interpretation that best achieves the purpose of the Act, together with the long-standing principle that it is better for a provision to have effect than to be made void. Authorities cited included Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria v Glenvill Pty Ltd (a construction that renders words workable is preferred where a literal reading would nullify the statute), Cooper Brookes (Wollongong) Pty Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (a literal reading may be departed from where it does not conform to the legislative intent) and Project Blue Sky v ABA (a provision is read consistently with the language and purpose of the whole statute, giving meaning to every word).

Reading the Act as a whole, the senior member held that "measured" and "metered" are deliberately different words: metering lends itself to precise calculation by an instrument, while "measured" is broader and can be equated with "assessed", "quantified" or "evaluated". Support for that distinction came from section 170 of the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008 (Qld), which uses only "metered" and does not list sewerage as a utility. Section 92 was held not to compel the installation of a device; it only says who pays if one is installed. An earlier decision relied on by the home owners, Maddren v Hammond Village Operations, was distinguished because there had been no evidence in that case about whether wastewater could be measured with precision. The senior member also noted that home owners are not disadvantaged by the per-residence approach, because section 99A prevents a park owner charging more than the supplying entity charges, and section 73 and the definition of "utility cost" would apply equivalent limits if the cost were built into site rent instead. On that basis, no error was shown in the interpretation of "separately measured or metered".

What this means if you are in a similar position

If you are in a similar position, paying a park owner, operator or supplier for a utility you cannot see metered, this decision shows how a tribunal reads the words of the governing Act rather than the ordinary meaning of one word on its own. Where an Act uses two different words, such as "measured" and "metered", a tribunal may treat the broader word as deliberately allowing something less precise than an instrument reading, especially where a literal reading would make part of the Act impossible to use.

It also shows how much the evidence matters. The outcome here turned on unchallenged expert evidence that wastewater cannot be metered and cannot be measured precisely at a site, and on expert verification that the amounts billed did not exceed what the council charged. An earlier case that went the other way was distinguished simply because that evidence was not before the tribunal. Protective provisions can also work in more than one way: here the cap in section 99A, which stops a park owner charging more than the supplier charges, was treated as the real protection for home owners rather than the method of measurement.

In this kind of dispute, people usually start by writing to the park owner or operator, setting out the charges in question, the period they cover, the method used to calculate them and why that method is disputed, and asking for the supplier's own bills and the calculations behind the charge. If the written exchange does not resolve it, the next step people generally take is an application to the tribunal.

How to apply: our step-by-step guide to a QCAT application. More decisions: QCAT cases and other civil disputes.

Source: Vandreike v Serenitas Communities Holdings Pty Ltd [2026] QCATA 135 (read the full decision). This summary was prepared from the published decision for general information. It is not legal advice, and the tribunal’s own reasons are the authoritative record.