Question: Our air conditioner’s pipework passes through a common wall. The air conditioner only services this unit. Water has entered the unit via the air conditioner’s pipework and damaged some of the internal linings. Who is responsible for the repairs? Is it the unit owner or the owners corporation?
Answer: Firstly, this will depend on the insurance cover chosen by the owners corporation.
Who owns the pipe?
Under the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 No 51 [NSW] the following definitions apply:
- common property, in relation to a strata scheme or a proposed strata scheme, means any part of a parcel that is not comprised in a lot (including any common infrastructure that is not part of a lot).
- lot, in relation to a strata scheme, means one or more cubic spaces shown as a lot on a floor plan relating to the scheme but does not include any common infrastructure unless the common infrastructure is described on the plan, in the way prescribed by the regulations, as a part of the lot.
- common infrastructure means
- the cubic space occupied by a vertical structural member of a building, other than a wall, or
- the pipes, wires, cables or ducts that are not for the exclusive benefit of one lot and are—
- in a building in relation to which a plan for registration as a strata plan was lodged with the Registrar-General before 1 March 1986, or
- otherwise—in a building or in a part of a parcel that is not a building, or
- the cubic space enclosed by a structure enclosing pipes, wires, cables or ducts referred to in paragraph (b).
As the pipes are for the air conditioner and the air conditioner is ‘exclusive use’, providing the building does not pre-date 1986, the pipes belong to the lot owner.
Who is responsible for the internal repairs?
Firstly, I assume the lot is not one of two in a two lot scheme and the rights under the Strata Schemes Management Act section 160 (4) have not been implemented.
In this case, the first part of the who is responsible for the repairs will depend on the insurance cover chosen by the owners corporation.
There are insurance policies that, while they will not respond to the cause of the leak, may respond to the resultant damage (in this case, the internal damages). There are also policies that will not respond unless there has been an ‘event’ that caused the leaking.
Therefore, your first port of call might be the insurance policy chosen by the owners corporation. If the cover is granted, the leak ‘via the pipework’ will be subject to point 1, and the resultant damage will be the insurer’s responsibility.
Secondly, if we assume the insurance chosen is one that will not respond, the answer as to who is responsible reverts back to the first point as to who owns and is responsible for the pipe.
Thirdly, if the lot is one of two in a two lot scheme and the rights under the Strata Schemes Management Act section 160 (4) have been implemented, the pipe, and therefore, the responsibility, will always remain with the lot owner.
This post appears in the August 2024 edition of The NSW Strata Magazine.
Scott Driscoll Driscoll Strata Consulting E: scott@driscollstrataconsulting.com.au P: 0409 632 003