Handling a Common Property Repair: From Report to Resolution

A repair in a strata scheme almost never arrives as a decision — it arrives as a message. An owner emails to say the basement is flooding. A tenant mentions the stairwell light has been out for a week. Someone notices a crack in the driveway that wasn't there last month. From that first report, someone has to decide how urgent it is, whether it's even the scheme's responsibility, who to call, how much to spend, whether the committee can approve it or the owners have to vote, and how to pay for it — all while keeping enough of a record that no one can later say the money was spent carelessly. With a strata manager, that whole chain happened quietly in the background. Self-managed, it's yours. This guide sets out a repeatable process so that every repair, from a $90 tap washer to a $40,000 roof, runs the same way: report, triage, confirm, quote, approve, do, record.

The lifecycle of a repair

Every common property repair, however big or small, moves through the same seven stages. The value of naming them is that you never skip one by accident — the skipped step is almost always where a repair goes wrong.

1. Report — someone tells the committee something is broken.
2. Triage — how urgent is it? Emergency, or can it wait?
3. Confirm responsibility — is it common property (the scheme pays) or lot property (the owner pays)?
4. Quote — get the right number of quotes for the size of the job.
5. Approve — who has the authority to say yes: the committee, or a general meeting?
6. Do — engage the contractor and get the work done.
7. Record — close the loop: invoice, payment, and a note of what happened and who decided.

The middle three — confirm, quote, approve — are where committees get into trouble, so most of this guide lives there.

Why a process matters

• It protects the committee. Office-bearers can be personally criticised, or worse, for spending the scheme's money without authority or a record. A consistent process is your evidence that you acted reasonably.
• It stops repairs falling through the cracks. A report made verbally at a barbecue and never written down is a report that never happened. A process forces every report into the same funnel.
• It survives a change of committee. The treasurer who "was going to sort the gutter out" resigns, and the job vanishes with them unless it's logged somewhere the scheme can see.

Stage 1–2: Report and triage

The first job is to get the report written down. A verbal complaint is not a maintenance record. Capture the basics the moment it comes in: what's broken, where, who reported it, when, and — if you can — a photo. That single habit prevents the most common failure mode in self-management, which is a repair everyone remembers discussing and no one remembers actioning.

Then triage it into one of three buckets:

• Emergency. There's a risk to safety, or damage is actively getting worse — a burst pipe, a live electrical fault, a blocked fire exit, a security door that won't lock. These can't wait for a committee vote. Most strata legislation lets the committee (or even a single office-bearer) arrange an emergency repair immediately to prevent further damage or danger, and sort out the paperwork after. Act, then document.
• Urgent but not an emergency. It needs attention within days — a leak that's contained but ongoing, a lift out of service, a lighting failure in a common stairwell. Get a contractor moving quickly, within your normal approval process.
• Routine. It can be planned — repainting a wall, resurfacing a path, replacing tired fencing. These go through the full quote-and-approve process, and larger ones may belong in your capital works forecast rather than as one-off spends.

Getting the triage right matters because it decides how much process you run before acting. Treating an emergency like a routine job (waiting three weeks for two quotes while water pours through a ceiling) is negligent; treating a routine job like an emergency (spending $15,000 on a single verbal quote because it "needed doing") is exactly the kind of unauthorised spend that gets a committee in trouble.

Stage 3: Confirm it's actually the scheme's to fix

Before you spend a cent of the scheme's money, answer one question: is this common property, or is it the lot owner's problem? The general rule across Australia is that the owners corporation maintains and repairs the common property, and each owner maintains their own lot. Spend the scheme's funds fixing something that was the owner's responsibility and you've effectively made every other owner pay for one owner's repair — which they can object to, and rightly.

This is the single most-argued line in strata, and it deserves its own read: see Common Property vs Lot Property: Who's Responsible for What? for how to find the boundary on your own plan and how the classic grey areas (windows, balconies, pipes, waterproofing) usually resolve. For the purposes of running a repair, the shortcut is:

• Clearly common property (roof, external walls, common stairwells, shared pipes, driveways, the grounds) → the scheme pays and the committee runs the repair.
• Clearly lot property (interior fit-out, an owner's own fixtures, non-structural things inside the lot) → tell the owner it's theirs, in writing, and stop there.
• A grey area or a by-law shifts it → check the plan, the regulation, and your by-laws before committing. If it's genuinely unclear, get advice before you spend.

If the damage was caused by a leak or a defect that might be an insurance matter — water damage from a burst common-property pipe, storm damage, a fire — check whether it's a claim before you pay for it out of the fund. See Strata Insurance Explained. Paying cash for something the policy would have covered is money the scheme didn't need to spend.

Stage 4: Get the right number of quotes

Once you know it's the scheme's repair, get quotes. How many depends on the size of the job and, in some states, on a legal threshold:

• Small / emergency jobs — one competent contractor is fine. Don't hold up a $200 repair chasing three quotes.
• Mid-sized jobs — two quotes is good practice even where it isn't legally required. It gives you a sanity check on price and something to show owners.
• Large jobs — several states require at least two quotes once the spend crosses a prescribed amount, and it's simply good governance regardless. For anything approaching a major-works figure, get two or three, in writing, on a like-for-like scope.

Whatever the size, make the quotes comparable: give each contractor the same written scope so you're not choosing between "replace the whole roof" and "patch the flashing". Check the contractor is licensed and insured for the work — for a self-managed scheme, engaging an unlicensed contractor for licensable work can void your insurance and leave the committee exposed. Keep every quote on file, even the ones you don't accept; they're part of the record that shows you tested the price.

Stage 5: Approve the spend — and know who can

This is where authority matters. A committee's power to spend the scheme's money is not unlimited. Broadly, there are three tiers:

1. Within the committee's spending limit — the committee can approve day-to-day repairs and maintenance up to a limit. That limit is set either by the legislation, by a cap the owners have resolved at a general meeting, or by both. Keep a record of the decision (a committee resolution or a minuted email vote).
2. Above the committee's limit — the spend has to go to a general meeting for the owners to approve by resolution. You can't split one big job into several small ones to dodge the limit; that's exactly the manoeuvre the limit exists to prevent.
3. Major works / special levy territory — if the job is large enough that the funds don't cover it, you may need a special levy, which is itself a general-meeting decision. Plan these; don't spring them.

Two things every committee should confirm before approving:

• Which fund pays. Routine repairs and maintenance come from the administration fund; large, capital, or non-recurring works come from the capital works fund (called the sinking fund, maintenance fund, or reserve fund in some states). Drawing from the wrong fund distorts your budgeting and can breach the rules on what each fund is for. See Admin fund vs capital works fund: what can you legally spend from each?.
• Whether there's money in it. Approving a $30,000 roof when the capital works fund holds $8,000 isn't an approval — it's the start of a special-levy conversation. Check the balance before you commit.

The thresholds, the quote requirements, and the emergency-repair powers all differ by state. The callouts below cover the four largest jurisdictions; always confirm the current figure against your own legislation, because these numbers are updated from time to time.

Stage 6–7: Do the work, then close the loop

With approval in place, engage the contractor — in writing, with the agreed scope and price, not a handshake. When the work's done, don't treat the paid invoice as the end. Close the loop properly:

• Inspect that the work was actually done to the scope before you pay. "Invoice received" is not "job complete".
• Pay from the correct fund, and record the payment against the repair, not as a loose line item nobody can trace back.
• File the record: the original report, the quotes, the approval decision (which body approved it and when), the contractor's invoice, and photos before and after. This bundle is what protects the committee if an owner later questions the spend — or if the same fault recurs and you need the history.
• Tell the person who reported it that it's resolved. It's a small courtesy that heads off the "nobody ever did anything" complaint, and it closes the report cleanly.

The paper trail is not bureaucracy for its own sake. In a self-managed scheme the committee is the record-keeper, and "we fixed it but there's no record of what we did or who approved it" is the exact gap that turns a routine repair into a governance problem at the next AGM.

Common mistakes

1. Spending the scheme's money on a lot repair

The most expensive mistake, because every other owner is effectively paying for one owner's problem. Confirm the common-vs-lot boundary before you engage anyone.

2. Exceeding the committee's spending authority

Approving a spend above your limit — or splitting a big job into small ones to stay under it — is unauthorised expenditure, and it's the committee's personal problem when it's challenged. Know your limit; take the big ones to a general meeting.

3. No written record of the report or the approval

A repair that lived entirely in a group chat or a corridor conversation has no audit trail. Log the report when it arrives and minute the approval when it's given.

4. Treating a routine job as an emergency

The emergency power exists for genuine safety and further-damage situations. Using it to skip the quote-and-approve process on ordinary works is a shortcut that erodes the very protection the process gives you.

5. Paying out of pocket for something insurance would have covered

Check whether damage from a leak, storm, or defect is a claim before you spend the fund on it. Money paid for a covered event is money the scheme didn't need to raise.

Frequently asked questions

An owner reported a leak — do we have to fix it immediately?

Triage it first. If it's an emergency (active flooding, safety risk, damage getting worse), yes — arrange an emergency repair now and document it after. If it's contained and ongoing, treat it as urgent and move quickly through your normal process. And confirm it's common property before the scheme pays: a leak originating inside a lot may be the owner's to fix.

How many quotes do we legally need?

It depends on your state and the size of the spend. Small and emergency jobs generally need only one competent contractor; larger jobs cross a threshold where two quotes are required (or strongly expected). Check the callout for your jurisdiction, and treat two quotes as good practice for anything mid-sized even where it isn't mandatory.

Can the committee approve any repair, or do owners have to vote?

The committee can approve repairs up to its spending limit. Above that limit, the spend must go to a general meeting for the owners to approve. If the funds can't cover it, you're likely looking at a special levy, which is also a general-meeting decision.

Which fund does a repair come out of?

Routine, recurring maintenance comes from the administration fund; large, capital, or one-off works come from the capital works fund (also called the sinking, maintenance, or reserve fund). Match the spend to the right fund, and check the balance before committing.

The repair is in a grey area between common and lot property — what do we do?

Don't guess with the scheme's money. Check the registered plan, the state regulation, and your by-laws (which can shift maintenance responsibility for specific items). If it's still unclear, get advice before you commit the funds — the cost of advice is almost always less than the cost of paying for a repair that wasn't the scheme's.

Quick checklist

• [ ] The report is written down — what, where, who, when, and a photo
• [ ] The repair is triaged: emergency / urgent / routine
• [ ] Responsibility is confirmed: common property, not the owner's lot
• [ ] Checked whether it's an insurance claim before paying out of the fund
• [ ] The right number of quotes obtained, on a like-for-like scope, from licensed and insured contractors
• [ ] The spend is within the committee's authority, or taken to a general meeting
• [ ] Paid from the correct fund, with the balance checked first
• [ ] Work inspected before payment
• [ ] The full record is filed: report, quotes, approval, invoice, before/after photos
• [ ] The person who reported it has been told it's resolved

Related resources

• Common Property vs Lot Property: Who's Responsible for What?
• Admin Fund vs Capital Works Fund: What Can You Legally Spend from Each?
• Strata Insurance Explained: What Your Scheme Must Cover, and What It Doesn't

This guide is general information for self-managed strata schemes in Australia. It is not legal advice. Spending limits, quote requirements, emergency-repair powers, and the boundary between common and lot property differ between states and change over time — always check the strata legislation and regulations that apply to your scheme, and seek professional advice where required.