I seem to recall the last time we had this discussion the word from on high was that if, for instance, a common property water pipe leaked and damaged the paintwork inside a unit, the Owners Corp would pay for the repainting required after the work done to fix the pipe but the owner would have to pay for the repainting required because of the original leak.
Didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t make sense now. Except for this … I believe strata managers, lawyers and insurers all had considerable input into the Memorandum and they may have helped decide where the lines were drawn. For instance, if insurance companies said, ‘look, we’ll wear the costs of the internal stuff rather than it having to be an Owner’s Corp issue’ (which, collectively, they would have to have paid for anyway), it could have been a way of simplifying the process without the individual owner suffering unduly. It might also be a way of preventing opportunistic owners remodelling their apartment based on a tiny leak in their living room.
That may not be the interpretation under common law but then the Memorandum is not a legal document – it’s a guide. And it’s really no different from your car insurer paying out on minor damages caused by another driver rather than having the additional expense of pursuing them through the courts to prove that they were at fault.