This article discusses strata external wall painting responsibility and how boundaries determine who pays for exterior painting.
Question: How do we manage the exterior painting of a high rise scheme where the boundaries are the external walls?
I was wondering how, in accordance with the strata legislation, you can correctly manage the exterior painting of a high rise scheme where the boundaries are the external walls.
What happens when we need to paint and the walls of the building are technically not common property? How does our strata company divvy up the cost? Are painting contractors able to separate the quote?
Do other strata companies add some kind of by-law to pass the responsibility of the above to the strata company? Wouldn’t this be deemed invalid as it contravenes the Act/boundaries?
Answer: The strata manager / council of owners need to work out cost distributions and that would be based on areas.
To answer your first question it is difficult as I did have a management a few years back in Northbridge that was as you described, but you need to deal with ownership and maintenance responsibilities as detailed on the strata plan. It’s difficult but as a strata manager and a council of owners you need to work out cost distributions and that would be based on areas. Difficult but achievable.
No you can’t put a by-law in place to transfer responsibility to the strata company as no by-law can override what is in the body of the act.
In a situation like this the boundaries should be under Schedule 2A – section 2(a)(b) of the Strata Titles Act 1985 i.e. each lot should be cubic airspace as ownership, then in this case the external walls would become common property and the maintenance would rest with the strata company.
This can be done. You would need a meeting of all owners to lay out the reasons and benefits then progress from there.
This post appears in the September 2021 edition of The WA Strata Magazine.
Brian Rulyancich
StrataTAC
E: strata@stratatac.com.au
P: 0428 970 067
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