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Marrickville NSW 2204

One Marrickville owner offering to pay for more than the scheme funds

An owner is frustrated with the state of a shared area and offers to pay for extra attention out of their own pocket. It sounds generous and simple. It is neither, because the area belongs to the scheme and the arrangement will outlive the goodwill behind it.

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In short

Where a Marrickville owner wants to fund cleaning of common property beyond the level the owners corporation has agreed, the work still takes place on property belonging to the scheme. That normally makes it something the committee should consider and record rather than an arrangement made privately with a contractor.

Clean Best quotes such work separately and to the owner rather than the scheme, and asks that the committee be aware of it. Keeping it documented prevents the arrangement being mistaken later for something the owners corporation agreed to fund. It also gives the arrangement a defined end rather than allowing it to drift into an expectation.

Generosity that creates an obligation nobody voted for

The problem with an informal private arrangement is what happens when it ends. Owners become accustomed to a standard, the funding owner sells or changes their mind, and the area reverts to the level the scheme actually pays for. That reads to everyone else as a decline in service, and the committee finds itself explaining a reduction it never made and cannot afford to reverse. The generosity has quietly created an expectation that now costs the scheme money.

Documenting the arrangement from the start avoids all of it. A short note recording that a particular owner is funding additional work on a specified area, for a stated period, means everybody understands the position. When it ends, it ends visibly and nobody is confused about what happened or why the area now looks different from how it did last year. A single line in the minutes is enough to keep everybody clear about what is happening.

Whose property, whose decision

Common property belongs to the scheme regardless of who is paying for work on it. An owner arranging cleaning of a shared area without the owners corporation's knowledge is directing activity on property they do not control alone, and that can raise questions about access, method and liability that nobody has considered. It is worth the committee simply being aware, even where nobody objects. None of that is difficult to resolve; it simply needs raising before rather than after.

Most committees are entirely comfortable with the arrangement once they know about it. The objection, when it comes, is usually not to the work but to having found out about it afterwards. A brief request in advance costs nothing, gets recorded in the minutes, and removes any suggestion that an owner acted unilaterally on shared property. Committees are far more accommodating when they are asked rather than informed.

When the better answer is to fund it properly

An owner willing to pay for additional work has already demonstrated that the current level is inadequate for at least one part of the building. That is useful information for a committee. Frequently the honest response is that the scheme should be funding it, and the owner's offer is a symptom of a scope that was set too low or has not been revisited since occupancy changed.

Putting a costed proposal to the committee at the same time as the private arrangement lets both options be considered together. Sometimes the scheme takes it on, sometimes it does not and the private arrangement proceeds. Either outcome is better than an unexamined situation where one owner subsidises the building and the committee never learns that its scope no longer matches what the property needs.

Single-owner funding points for a Marrickville scheme

  • The arrangement raised with the committee before it starts
  • A written note of the area, the work and the period
  • The owner invoiced directly rather than the scheme
  • A clear end date so the arrangement does not drift
  • A costed option for the scheme to take it on instead
  • Minuted so a future committee understands the history
Clean Best supervisor reviewing office and strata cleaning quality in Parramatta NSW

Working in Marrickville and the Inner West

Marrickville in the Inner West carries creative businesses, food production, retail and light industry, with strata buildings whose lots are occupied by businesses of very different scale and very different sensitivity to presentation. A design studio and a storage operation in the same scheme will hold quite different views about what the shared entrance should look like, and the one who cares most often has the least influence over the budget. Offers to fund work privately are common in that setting. Clean Best services Marrickville from Seven Hills and documents such arrangements rather than treating them informally.

Questions about Marrickville

Can I pay for extra cleaning of a shared area myself?

Often yes, but it should go through the committee first because the area is common property belonging to the scheme rather than to you. Most committees are comfortable with the arrangement once they know about it. The objection, when it arises, is usually about having found out afterwards rather than about the work itself. A single line in the minutes settles it permanently.

Why does the arrangement need an end date?

Because without one it drifts, and when it eventually stops the area reverts to the level the scheme actually funds. Owners read that as a decline in service and the committee has to explain a reduction it never made. A stated period means the arrangement ends visibly and nobody is confused about what changed. Nobody has to explain a decline that nobody actually decided on.

Should the scheme just fund it instead?

Sometimes, and it is worth putting both options to the committee together. An owner willing to pay privately has demonstrated that the current level is inadequate somewhere. That is information the committee should have, because it often means the scope was set too low or has not been revisited since the building's occupancy changed. That information is worth having regardless of what the committee then chooses to do.

Who is invoiced for privately funded work?

The owner who arranged it, not the scheme. Clean Best keeps it on a separate invoice and a separate line so nothing appears in the owners corporation's records as though it were a scheme cost. That distinction matters at budget time and matters again whenever the arrangement is reviewed or comes to an end. Mixed records are difficult to unpick years later.

What if another owner objects?

That is a matter for the owners corporation under its own by-laws and records rather than for the contractor. Raising the arrangement with the committee in advance is what allows any objection to be dealt with before work starts. An arrangement discovered afterwards is far more likely to generate a dispute than one that was properly minuted.

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