newslie – I agree with you that the Committee does not have the authority under the Act, and under the circumstances that you have described, to enter your property.
There appears to be no maintenance work that is relevant to your Lot, no emergency safety issues, and no Order from the Tribunal.
Is there a By-law forbidding washers and dryers from being installed in the Lots?
If there is no such By-law then there is no reasonable justification for them to enter your property and check for breaches.
Creating some sort of photographic data base for a future hypothetical maintenance problem would not be a reasonable justification for a ‘forced’ entry to your property, in my opinion.
If the OC were determined to obtain access and took this matter to NCAT and you were ordered to allow then access than that would be a different matter. Until that time I would say “no” to the access.
The relevant section of SSMA 2015 that would support your denial of access is here:
(1) An owners corporation for a strata scheme may, by its agents, employees or contractors, enter on any part of the parcel of the scheme for the purpose of carrying out the following work:
(a) work required or authorised to be carried out by the owners corporation in accordance with this Act (including work relating to window safety devices and rectification work carried out under Part 11),
(b) work required to be carried out by the owners corporation by a notice given to it by a public authority,
(c) work required or authorised to be carried out by the owners corporation by an order under this Act.
(2) An owners corporation for a strata scheme may, by its agents, employees or contractors, enter on any part of the parcel for the purpose of determining whether any work is required to be carried out by the owners corporation in accordance with this Act.
(3) In an emergency, the owners corporation may enter any part of the parcel for those purposes at any time.
(4) In a case that is not an emergency, the owners corporation may enter any part of the parcel for those purposes with the consent of any occupier of that part of the parcel or, if the occupier does not consent, in accordance with an order of the Tribunal under this Division.
(5) A person must not obstruct or hinder an owners corporation in the exercise of its functions under this section.
Maximum penalty: 5 penalty units.
(6) An owners corporation is liable for any damage to a lot or any of its contents caused by or arising out of the carrying out of any work, or the exercise of a power of entry, referred to in this section unless the damage arose because the owners corporation was obstructed or hindered.