The Gold Coast has a higher proportion of apartment dwellings than any other Australian city outside inner Sydney and Melbourne, and a very different stock: beachfront towers from the 1970s and 1980s, walk-up blocks through Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach and Burleigh, and a large volume of newer high-rise along the coastal strip and the light rail corridor. Renovating any of it means working within the Body Corporate and Community Management Act, and the practical constraints are as important as the legal ones.
This guide covers what you own, what you need approval for, what the buildings physically allow, and the specific issues that arise in Gold Coast apartment stock.
For more detail on this part of the project, see Bathroom Renovation Costs on the Gold Coast: Real Prices, Real Timelines.
What You Own
You own a lot as defined on the survey plan, plus an interest in the common property. The plan is the authority, and the assumption that you own everything inside your front door is wrong more often than not.
Usually yours
- Internal non-structural wall linings, paint and finishes
- Floor coverings laid over the structural floor
- Kitchen and bathroom fixtures, cabinetry and fittings
- Internal doors and hardware
- Light fittings, switches and power points within the lot
- Built-in joinery and non-structural partitions
- Appliances
Usually common property
- The structural slab, structural walls and columns
- The building’s external walls and, in most schemes, the windows and sliding doors within them
- Balcony slabs, balustrades and the balcony waterproofing membrane
- The bathroom waterproofing membrane, even though it sits beneath your tiles
- Plumbing and drainage serving more than one lot
- Electrical mains and services in common ducts
- Air conditioning condenser locations and any external plant space
- The roof, the lobbies, the lifts and the car park structure
Get a copy of the survey plan and the community management statement before you plan anything. On the Gold Coast, where so much stock is high-rise, the boundary definitions vary considerably between schemes.
Body Corporate Approval
What generally needs it
- Any work affecting common property — which includes most bathroom and laundry renovations, because of the membrane
- Removing or altering any wall
- Changing floor coverings from carpet to hard flooring, because of acoustic transmission
- Air conditioning with an external condenser
- Anything altering the external appearance — window replacement, balcony enclosure, awnings, blinds, screens
- New penetrations through the slab or external walls, including exhaust ducting
- Relocating plumbing connecting to common stacks
- Balcony tiling and waterproofing works
What generally does not
- Painting internally
- Replacing kitchen cabinetry in the same position without touching stacks
- Replacing light fittings and internal doors
- Recarpeting like for like
Getting it
- Read the by-laws first. Gold Coast schemes vary from permissive to extremely restrictive, particularly in the towers, and some contain hard prohibitions on hard flooring above ground level.
- Submit a complete proposal — drawings, scope, materials, program, contractors with their QBCC licence numbers and insurance certificates, and the acoustic performance of any new flooring.
- Understand what level of approval is needed. Some works can be approved by the committee; others require a general meeting resolution, and in some cases the required majority is high. Know which applies before you order anything.
- Expect conditions — restricted hours, lift booking and protection, common area protection, waste management, a bond, and an obligation to make good.
- Factor in the meeting cycle. Where a general meeting is required, this is commonly the longest single item in the program.
- Get it in writing and keep the minutes recording the resolution.
The acoustic issue
Replacing carpet with tile or timber is the most common source of dispute in Australian apartment living, and Gold Coast towers with concrete slabs transmit impact noise efficiently. Most schemes require an acoustic underlay meeting a specified performance level and many require a report. Owners have been ordered to remove completed floors. Do not proceed on an assumption.
Development and Building Approval
Body corporate approval is not council approval, and you may need both.
- Internal non-structural work generally needs neither development nor building approval
- Structural change, new openings, balcony enclosure and external appearance changes need development approval assessed against the City Plan
- Building approval through a private certifier is required for structural work and, commonly, for wet area rebuilds
- In a Class 2 building — which most Gold Coast apartment towers are — fire safety provisions apply to the work, including fire separation between lots and the integrity of any penetration through a fire-rated element
- Any penetration of a fire-rated slab or wall must be fire-stopped by a competent person and certified
The framework is set out in do you need council approval to renovate on the Gold Coast.
The Practical Constraints
Access and logistics
- Everything moves through a lift. Materials, waste, appliances, stone benchtops, and every bag of demolition rubble. In a beachfront tower with one service lift and a booking system, this is the dominant cost driver.
- Allow 25 to 45 per cent above the equivalent house cost for the same scope. This is the single most under-budgeted item in Gold Coast apartment renovation.
- Waste removal is genuinely difficult. There is usually nowhere for a skip, and bagged waste through a lift and a lobby is slow.
- Stone benchtops in a lift may not fit. Check the lift dimensions before the joiner designs an island, or you will be jointing a benchtop that was meant to be a single slab.
- Restricted hours, often weekdays only with limited Saturday work, which stretches the program.
- Holiday letting. Many Gold Coast buildings have a high proportion of short-stay occupancy, and some schemes prohibit renovation work entirely during peak periods. Check the calendar before you plan the program.
Services
- Plumbing stacks are fixed. Moving a wet area away from the existing stack is usually impossible — you cannot penetrate the common slab freely and you cannot achieve the fall.
- Post-tensioned slabs are common in Gold Coast high-rise. Cutting or coring one without a scan and engineering approval can sever a tendon, which is a catastrophic and extremely expensive outcome. Any coring requires scanning and written approval.
- Electrical capacity is set by the building’s mains and your lot’s allocation. Adding induction cooking, additional air conditioning and a heat pump may exceed it.
- Exhaust ducting has to discharge somewhere, and in a tower that usually means a common riser with limited capacity.
- Air conditioning condensers need an approved location, and in many schemes there simply is not one available.
Older Gold Coast Towers: A Specific Case
A large share of the beachfront stock dates from the 1970s and 1980s, and these buildings share a distinct profile.
- Concrete cancer. Insufficient cover to reinforcement in a C5 marine environment produces spalling concrete on balconies, soffits and columns. Remediation is a building-wide project funded by special levy, and it can run into millions across a tower. Read the sinking fund forecast and the last three years of minutes before you buy.
- Balcony membrane failure, which is often the whole building at once.
- Window and door systems at end of life, corroded and leaking, and replacement is common property — meaning a levy, not a personal decision.
- Asbestos in wet area linings, service ducts and soffits, near-universal in this vintage.
- Original electrical mains sized for a very different load profile.
- No insulation and single glazing, making these apartments hot and expensive to cool. What you can do about it is limited because the windows are common property.
- Small bathrooms with fixed stacks, so layout change is essentially unavailable.
The upside is real: these buildings occupy irreplaceable positions, often with larger floor plates than modern equivalents, and a competent internal renovation within the existing layout produces an excellent result. The risk is entirely in the building’s own condition rather than in your apartment.
What It Costs
- Cosmetic refresh — paint, flooring, lighting, tapware: $22,000 to $50,000
- Kitchen replacement in the existing layout: $32,000 to $70,000
- Bathroom rebuild: $30,000 to $52,000
- Full internal renovation, two-bedroom apartment: $130,000 to $300,000
- High-specification full renovation in a premium tower: $300,000 to $700,000
Add to these: body corporate application fees and bonds, acoustic reports, engineering and slab scanning where coring is involved, certifier fees, and the cost of an extended program.
Where the Value Is
Reliable
- Kitchen and bathroom — the two rooms that sell a Gold Coast apartment
- Opening the living area to the balcony where the wall is non-structural and the scheme permits, which is transformative in a beachfront apartment
- Making the balcony genuinely usable — decking tiles over the existing surface, screening, lighting, planting, and where permitted an external blind for wind and sun
- Storage, which apartments lack and buyers notice
- Consistent flooring throughout with compliant acoustic underlay
- Air conditioning where an approved condenser location exists
Poor returns
- Anything specified above the building’s general standard — the tower sets the ceiling
- Structural change requiring general meeting approval and engineering, which costs more in time and fees than it returns
- Enclosing a balcony, usually refused and generally reducing appeal
- Highly personal design in a conservative buyer market
Due Diligence Before Buying to Renovate
- Read the by-laws in full. Some Gold Coast schemes effectively prohibit meaningful renovation.
- Read the last three years of minutes — disputes, defects, planned works and how the committee treats owners who want to renovate.
- Read the sinking fund forecast. A tower facing concrete remediation or a full window replacement will levy you regardless of what you spend inside.
- Get a building report on the common property, not just the lot. Concrete spalling, membrane failure and corroded window systems are the risks that matter.
- Get the survey plan and confirm your lot boundaries and whether the windows are yours.
- Check the slab type — post-tensioned slabs constrain any coring.
- Check the electrical allocation if you plan an all-electric kitchen.
- Ask what renovations have been approved before, and on what conditions.
- Check the letting arrangements and whether an on-site manager holds rights that affect what you can do.
Running the Project
- Get written body corporate approval before ordering anything or engaging a trade
- Notify the neighbours in person before the committee hears about it
- Use trades who work in high-rise regularly — the logistics defeat those who do not
- Book the lift, protect the common areas, and leave them cleaner than you found them
- Photograph the common areas before you start
- Provide contractors’ QBCC licence details and insurance certificates to the body corporate in advance
- Keep strictly to the approved hours
- Photograph the waterproofing before tiling — in an apartment a leak becomes someone else’s ceiling and your liability
- Have all fire-stopping of penetrations certified in writing
Apartment renovation on the Gold Coast is more constrained than house renovation and more predictable once the constraints are understood. The projects that fail are the ones that started before the body corporate said yes, or that bought into a tower without reading its sinking fund forecast.
For the underlying cost detail, see kitchen renovation costs and bathroom renovation costs on the Gold Coast.
Working With Neighbours in a Holiday Building
Gold Coast apartment buildings are unlike apartment buildings anywhere else in Australia, because a large share of the occupancy is short-stay. Your neighbours may be permanent residents, absentee investors, an on-site letting manager and a rotating population of holidaymakers, all with different interests in whether your renovation happens.
Who to talk to before you lodge anything
- The immediate neighbours — above, below and either side. In person, before the committee hears about it.
- The on-site manager, if there is one. They control the lift bookings, the loading dock, the letting calendar and a great deal of practical goodwill. They may also hold rights under a management agreement that affect what you can do and when.
- The building manager or caretaker, who knows the services, the risers, the slab type and where every previous renovation ran into trouble.
- The committee, with a complete proposal rather than an enquiry.
The holiday calendar
Many Gold Coast schemes prohibit renovation work entirely during peak periods — Christmas, Easter, school holidays and major event weekends. In a heavily let building this can remove eight to twelve weeks a year from your available program, and it is not negotiable. Get the calendar and the by-law before you set any dates or order anything with a delivery window.
Making the committee’s decision easy
- Submit drawings, scope, materials, program, contractors with QBCC licence numbers and insurance certificates, and the acoustic performance of any new flooring
- Address the by-laws point by point rather than leaving the committee to work it out
- Offer the bond and the make-good undertaking before being asked
- Nominate a single point of contact for the duration
- Reference any comparable renovation the scheme has approved before
- Confirm in writing how waste will leave the building and how the common areas will be protected
What You Can and Cannot Change in a Tower
The physical limits in a Gold Coast high-rise are firmer than most owners expect, and knowing them before you engage a designer saves both fees and disappointment.
For more detail on this part of the project, see Home Extensions on the Gold Coast: Costs, Approvals and What Works.
Effectively fixed
- Wet area positions. The stacks are common property and in fixed risers. A bathroom or kitchen more than a metre or so from the existing connection is generally not achievable.
- Windows and sliding doors, which are common property in most schemes. You cannot replace them unilaterally, however poor their condition, and building-wide replacement is a levy decision.
- The balcony slab, balustrade and membrane.
- Structural walls and columns, and in many towers more of the internal walls are structural than in a low-rise building.
- The building’s electrical capacity and your lot’s allocation.
- Air conditioning condenser locations, where the building has no approved position available.
- External appearance, including anything visible on the balcony from outside.
Usually achievable
- Full internal reconfiguration of non-structural partitions, with approval
- Kitchen and bathroom replacement in position, to any specification
- New flooring with compliant acoustic underlay
- Opening a non-structural wall between kitchen and living, which is transformative in a 1970s or 1980s plan
- Joinery, storage and internal glazing
- Balcony surface treatment over the existing structure — decking tiles, screening, planting — where the scheme permits
- Lighting, switches and internal electrical within the lot’s allocation
The coring question
Post-tensioned slabs are common in Gold Coast high-rise. Any coring — for a new waste, a duct, a fixing — requires scanning and written engineering approval. Cutting a tendon is a catastrophic, extremely expensive and potentially dangerous outcome, and it is the reason committees are cautious about approving anything that penetrates the slab. Budget $1,500 to $4,000 for scanning and engineering sign-off on any project that needs it, and accept a refusal gracefully if the scan comes back badly.