Fair Trading says you can use the Common Property Memorandum to “clarify” who’s responsible, although it doesn’t have a direct effect unless it has been adopted as a by-law. That said, NCAT is likely to use the Memorandum as a guideline for it’s decisions.
So, what it says is that common property includes
- fuses and a fuse board in a meter room,
- electrical wiring serving more than one lot
- light fittings serving more than one lot
- power point sockets serving more than one lot
- smoke detectors whether connected to the fire board in the building or not (and other fire safety equipment subject to the regulations made under Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979)
Lot responsibility includes:
- fuses and fuse boards within the lot and serving only that lot
- electrical wiring in non-common property walls within a lot and serving only that lot
- light fittings, light switches and power point sockets within the lot, serving only that lot
So where does that leave Erte? If the wiring is going inside non common property walls, then the owner should pay for that themselves. The same applies to sockets that are outlets on any walls.
But what about the wiring that is currently on the internal surface of the common property walls, and is going to be concealed within those walls?
The owners corp would be within its rights to say that the owner can’t use common property walls without OC permission, so that might be a starting point for negotiations (which you might hope would be less combative thereafter.
So go to Fair Trading for mediation by all means – but remember what that is all about: compromise and reaching a mutually acceptable solution. If you want a definitive ruling, you will have to go to NCAT.