Question: Our secretary refused to pay the after-hours lift repair call-out fee, leaving residents stuck overnight. Who has the power to make this decision?
The lift in our highrise broke down at 7pm. The lift company quote a $600 call-out fee. Our secretary declined to pay, and the lift company arrived 7 am the next morning. We arrived home late to an out-of-order lift, with no notice from the committee and no signage posted. Like other residents in the building, we have health issues.
We have more than enough funds to pay this fee. Can one person delay a lift breakdown that affets the building and any disabled residents?
Answer: The committee shouldn’t let one person make this call.
A lift breakdown in a high-rise building should be assessed according to the circumstances of the building and the practical consequences of leaving the lift out of service.
If nobody is trapped and there is no immediate threat to life or safety, a lift contractor may take the position that an after-hours breakdown does not warrant an emergency call-out under its service arrangements. In this case, the lift was repaired within 12 hours, so the owners corporation (OC) may not have clearly failed to comply with its general repair and maintenance obligations. However, the impact on the building and its residents needs to be properly considered.
The OC has a duty under section 106 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 to maintain and keep common property in a good and serviceable condition. When addressing a lift breakdown, the committee should consider the practical consequences and operational issues created by leaving the building without lift access.
The OC’s repair and maintenance obligations continue regardless of its immediate financial position. Where necessary works must be undertaken, the OC needs to determine how those works will be funded rather than allowing a lack of funds to prevent it from meeting its obligations.
The strata committee is responsible for day-to-day decisions on behalf of the OC, subject to the legislation, the scheme’s resolutions and any delegations that are in place. The committee should therefore review whether any individual committee member has the delegated authority to approve or decline emergency expenditure.
For buildings where lift access is critical, relying on one person’s judgement can create unnecessary risk and uncertainty. However, an urgent situation may not allow sufficient time to obtain approval from the entire committee.
A more robust but efficient approach may be to establish a predetermined approval process involving at least two authorised committee members or other appropriately delegated representatives. This provides an additional level of oversight while still allowing decisions to be made quickly when an asset fails outside normal business hours, and required emergency attention.
The committee should review this breakdown with the strata manager and lift contractor, including why the call-out was declined, who had authority to make that decision and what the contractor’s after-hours service agreement provides.
Consider adopting a clear lift breakdown and emergency call-out protocol. This could establish when an after-hours call-out is automatically authorised, who may approve the expenditure, what approval thresholds apply, and how accessibility, building functionality and operational requirements should be balanced against the financial impact on the scheme. The committee may also consider removing or limiting any individual committee member’s ability to veto a call-out where predetermined criteria have been met.
Communication should also form part of that protocol. When a lift is unexpectedly unavailable, residents should be notified as quickly as practicable through available channels such as email, SMS, building management systems or notices in common areas, including at the lift doors. Residents should be told what has happened, when technicians are expected and who to contact if the outage creates an urgent accessibility or safety issue.
This post appears in the October 2026 edition of The NSW Strata Magazine.
Leanne Habib Premium Strata E: info@premiumstrata.com.au P: 02 9281 6440
