Short answer
Lighting in the common areas is generally the owners corporation’s responsibility to install, maintain and pay for, as part of its duty to keep the common property in good repair. Under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW), the owners corporation must properly maintain common property, which includes shared lighting. Lighting inside your own lot is your own responsibility.
What counts as common-area lighting
Hallway, stairwell, lobby, lift, car park, driveway and garden lighting is normally part of the common property, so keeping it working — replacing failed globes and fittings, repairing wiring, and covering the electricity for shared areas — is the owners corporation’s job, funded by the scheme. If a common-area light fails, report it to the committee or strata manager so it can be actioned. The registered strata plan sets the exact boundary of common property, so an occasional light on the edge of a lot can be a grey area worth checking.
Lighting inside a lot, and security lights
Lighting within your own lot — your ceiling lights, your balcony fitting where the balcony is lot property — is generally yours to maintain. Security or sensor lighting that an owner wants added to a common wall is a different matter: because it attaches a fixture to common property, it usually needs the owners corporation’s approval before it goes up, rather than being installed unilaterally. Confirm the approval pathway with your committee before mounting anything on shared structure.
Keeping the lights on as a self-managed committee
A self-managed committee handles common-area lighting itself — fielding reports of failed lights, arranging an electrician, and keeping the shared lighting safe and working. Straita helps a committee stay on top of that: logging a reported outage, tracking it through to the repair, and holding the record of what was fixed and when, so a dark stairwell doesn’t sit unreported and the maintenance history is there when owners ask.
Primary sources
- Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) — s 106, the owners corporation’s duty to maintain and repair common property.
- NSW Government — Strata schemes (Fair Trading) — common property repairs and maintenance.