@stax said:What stumps me though is that Sect 65A refers only to “improving or enhancing the common property“. Yet most renovations, power upgrades, installations of external aircons or even adding an external bathroom exhaust outlet are all about improving or enhancing individual lots. The changes to common property in these cases seem to be better described by Model Bylaw 5(1), requiring written consent to damage common property.
Have I got the wrong end of the stick?
Strictly speaking, your strata manager is correct, especially if your version of the by-law is the same as the standard one (below). The question of what is and isn’t lot property is less clear in pre-1974 buildings where the line between lot and common property was in the middle of the wall, so windows, for instance, were considered lot property.
Looking at your list of “minor” works, installing an external aircon and adding an external bathroom exhaust outlet both affect common property as they go through common property walls and may affect the appearance of the building. The installation of additional power points may intrude into common property walls and they, and especially the installation of air conditioning, may affect the load capacity of your electrical board.
Even with the older common property provisions, there is very little that happens in strata that occurs in isolation. Best wait till next July when, under the new laws, all sorts of things will be deemed to be minor works and can be OK’d by the EC .
Here’s the current standard by-law (yours may differ …)
5 Damage to common property
(1) An owner or occupier of a lot must not mark, paint, drive nails or screws or the like into, or otherwise damage or deface, any structure that forms part of the common property without the approval in writing of the owners corporation.
(2) An approval given by the owners corporation under subclause (1) cannot authorise any additions to the common property.
…
(5) Despite section 62, the owner of a lot must maintain and keep in a state of good and serviceable repair any installation or structure referred to in subclause (3) that forms part of the common property and that services the lot.