Short answer
As a general rule, the owners corporation repairs and maintains the common property, while each owner maintains their own lot. Which side of that line an item falls on is set by the registered strata plan, so borderline items (windows, balconies, services running between lots) turn on the plan and any by-laws. Under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW), the owners corporation has a strict duty to keep common property in a good state of repair.
How the split works
Responsibility follows the boundary between lot and common property:
- Common property — the shared structure and areas (roof, external walls, foundations, common hallways, shared pipes and services). Maintaining these is generally the owners corporation’s job, funded by the scheme.
- Lot property — usually the interior of your unit. Repairing and maintaining this is generally the owner’s.
The structural and shared parts of a building are usually common property, and the inside of a unit is usually the lot — but the registered strata plan is the final word, and a by-law can shift some responsibilities.
Working out a grey area
When it’s unclear, the key first step is identifying whether the item is common property or lot property. If it sits on the boundary — a window, a balcony surface, a pipe that serves more than one lot — check the strata plan for that scheme, because the answer genuinely varies from building to building. Where the plan doesn’t settle it, an owners corporation can seek advice rather than guess.
Keeping the record straight
A self-managed committee handles these questions itself, and the way to make that manageable is to keep every repair logged and tracked from the first report. A system such as Straita walks the committee through each issue — recording who reported it, whether it’s common property or lot, the quote, the work order and the outcome — so the responsibility call is documented and the same question doesn’t get re-argued later.
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) — repairs and maintenance responsibilities.