Here’s my take on this, for what it’s worth.
Owners can be allowed to maintain common property but they can’t be compelled to do it. If they decline, the owners corp still has the responsibility.
The only way this would change would be if the OC passed a series of special resolutions passing responsibility for the common property to the individual owners.
No owner in their right mind would accept that if they didn’t want to maintain the common property themselves – and if they didn’t accept it, the special resolution would not stand.
Given that the older owners don’t want to hire tradies, the best compromise would be for the EC to agree that the painting should be done by volunteers and then call for volunteers to do all the painting, whether or not the individual owners of the lots participated or not.
Wouldn’t that work?