“For instance, I know of a low-rise apartment block with multiple lifts where a few apartments don’t have or need lift access. In this block, only the apartments with lift access contribute to the lift maintenance fund.”
I believe this type of approach can only be arranged with a “common property rights by-law” under Section 142 of the Strata Schemes Management Act, which requires the written consent of ALL the owners affected by the by-law. This can happen with new buildings, where the developer is initially the owner of all the lots, and they write a by-law to separate out some of the facilities to be paid for by a sub-set of owners – like only the upper-floor lots pay for the lift maintenance. But once the building is operating normally, this type of arrangement is hard to arrange. Since it will just take one owner to refuse to sign a consent to the by-law to prevent it being made. In this example, any of the upper-floor lot owners will realise that having all the owners pay to maintain the lift (which is the default), will be in their best interests.
But in the absence of a common property rights by-law the cost of maintaining, repairing and replacing common property is shared among all owners, according to unit entitlements.