Question: Can the strata committee spend our fees on maintenance of items outside of our community property area?
Answer: Usually, a strata committee should not spend levies on maintenance outside the area the scheme is legally responsible for.
In most cases, no. A strata committee should not spend levies raised by the owners corporation (OC) on maintenance outside the area the scheme is legally responsible for maintaining. In NSW, the OC’s role is to manage and maintain its own common property, and the committee can only exercise powers within that framework.
The position can, however, become more complicated in a community title setting. If the strata scheme sits within a community, precinct or neighbourhood scheme, there may be association property, shared facilities, easements, or obligations created under the community management statement. In that case, maintenance responsibility may sit with the association rather than the strata scheme, or there may be a lawful arrangement requiring contribution by the subsidiary scheme. That is very different from a strata committee simply deciding to spend strata funds outside its own area of responsibility.
It is also important to separate the source of the problem from the location of the damage. If a defect in common property causes damage inside a lot, the OC may still be responsible for rectifying the common property defect, and a lot owner may also have a claim for reasonably foreseeable loss resulting from a breach of the OC’s duty to maintain and repair common property. That does not make the damaged item common property, but it does mean theOC may still have responsibility because the cause originated in common property.
A similar principle may apply where damage spreads into a neighbouring lot within the same scheme. The key issue is not whether the damaged surface is private property, but whether the underlying cause sits in common property and whether the OC has failed to meet its repair obligations. If so, the OC may need to repair the source of the issue and may also face a claim for resulting loss.
So, the practical question is always: who owns the area, and who has the legal duty to maintain it? If the area is common property, expenditure may be proper. If it is association property or some other external area, the committee should first check the strata plan, community management statement, easements, by-laws, and any shared facilities arrangements before approving expenditure.
Accordingly, the safer view is that a strata committee should not spend owners’ funds on maintenance outside its community property area unless there is a clear legal basis for doing so. However, where the defect originates in common property, the OC cannot avoid responsibility merely because the resulting damage appears within private property.
This post appears in the June 2026 edition of The NSW Strata Magazine.
Abe Ayoubi
W: Senior Strata Manager (NSW)
E: abe.strata@gmail.com
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