Strata Painting Guide for Owners Corporation Committees

Painting is one of the largest single expenses an owners corporation or body corporate will ever approve — and one of the easiest to get wrong. This guide is written for committees and building managers overseeing large strata buildings (30+ units, three storeys and up), where there's usually a professional building manager involved and a sinking fund or capital works fund to plan against.

Step 1: Understand What You're Actually Budgeting For

Strata painting isn't one job — it typically covers several distinct scopes:

• Apartment block exterior painting — the building envelope, render and cladding
• Facade painting and facade maintenance — ongoing care of the building's face and finishes
• Balcony painting & restoration — a common source of water ingress if neglected
• Building facade repairs — concrete, render and substrate issues that need addressing before any coating goes on

A proper building condition report should identify which of these scopes actually applies to your building before any pricing conversation happens — not after.

Step 2: Know Your Funding Mechanism

This is where NSW differs from VIC and QLD, and it's worth getting right before you go to committee:

• NSW (Sydney): funded through your capital works fund painting program, reviewed as part of the 10-year capital works plan required under strata legislation.
• VIC/QLD (Melbourne, Geelong, Brisbane and regional centres): funded through your sinking fund maintenance painting allocation, typically reviewed at the AGM.

Either way, larger committees increasingly work to a 30 June financial year, with funds often needing to be committed before EOFY and new allocations released from July. Getting your strata maintenance planning in front of the committee well ahead of that window means a considered decision rather than a rushed one.

Step 3: Choose Reactive or Proactive

Most committees default to a strata repainting cycle every 7–10 years, paying for a full repaint each time from scratch. The alternative — a properly structured, ongoing painting maintenance program — spreads the work differently:

• One full repaint, then annual washing, touch-ups and inspections under a long-term painting maintenance contract
• Small issues caught and fixed before they become expensive remediation
• A written building condition report each year, giving the committee independent evidence of the building's condition — useful for AGMs, incoming committee members and property valuations

Committees that plan a proper strata maintenance plan upfront typically spend materially less over 10–15 years than those repeating full reactive repaints, because deterioration is caught early rather than left to compound.

Step 4: Get the Access Method Right

For any building over three storeys, access is a major cost driver. Traditional scaffolding suits large first-time repaints and heavy building remedial works; rope access painting (abseiling) is faster and less disruptive for annual maintenance, touch-ups and rope access facade inspection work once the building is in good order. (See our companion guide, Rope Access vs Scaffolding, for a full comparison.)

Step 5: Questions to Put to Any Contractor at Committee Meeting

Before signing off on any proposal, ask:

1. Have they inspected the site in person, or priced from an online map?
2. Is their pricing a genuine like-for-like comparison against a proactive building maintenance plan, or a flat "even spread" figure with borrowing costs and indexation built in and undisclosed?
3. What warranty do they offer, and for how long — on both workmanship and paint system?
4. Do they include drone building inspection and written reporting as part of ongoing care, or as a costly extra?
5. Have they partnered with a recognised paint supplier (Dulux, Wattyl) and can they provide a proper paint specification?
6. Can they clearly separate what's covered under body corporate maintenance services versus what would be billed separately?

The Takeaway

A well-run owners corporation painting program isn't a series of one-off repaints — it's an ongoing plan, budgeted properly against the right fund, with the right access method and independent reporting that gives the committee confidence at every AGM.

Avello Group works with owners corporations and bodies corporate across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to build a tailored strata maintenance plan — starting with a proper building condition report, not a guess from a map.

Book a building condition report for your building, or talk to us about setting up a structured maintenance program ahead of your next AGM.

P 1300 283 556
‍E info@avello.com.au

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