If you sit on a strata committee in Bondi, Randwick, Maroubra or anywhere along the coast, a repaint is one of the biggest cheques your building will ever write — and one of the easiest to get wrong, because painting quotes are famously hard to compare. After 20+ years of strata and commercial painting across the Eastern Suburbs, here's the guide I'd hand every committee before they open a single quote.
Who's responsible for what
The first question at every AGM. The broad-strokes answer under NSW strata law:
- Owners corporation (common property): external walls and render, balcony ceilings and external balustrades, common hallways, stairwells, foyers, garage areas, boundary fences — and usually the outside face of your entrance door. Paid from the capital works fund.
- Lot owners: everything inside the lot — internal walls, ceilings, doors, built-in joinery.
The painting cycle (and why waiting costs more)
Coastal Sydney is brutal on coatings — salt, UV and wind-driven rain age a Bondi facade faster than the same building would age in Parramatta. Realistic cycles:
| Element | Typical repaint cycle | Coastal / exposed |
|---|---|---|
| External render & masonry | 8 – 10 years | 6 – 8 years |
| External timber & steel trim | 5 – 8 years | 4 – 6 years |
| Common area interiors | 8 – 12 years | — |
| Car park / back-of-house | 10 – 15 years | — |
The trap is deferral. Paint is the building's sacrificial layer: once it fails, water gets at the render, spalling and concrete cancer start, and a five-figure repaint becomes a six-figure remediation. If your 10-year capital works plan has the repaint pencilled in, treat the date seriously — and if the building's coastal, read our guide to coastal-grade paint systems, because they're what your spec should be built on.
Getting quotes a committee can actually compare
Three quotes that each price a different job are worse than useless — they start arguments. The fix is a common scope. Ask every painter to price the same list:
- Surfaces included — elevation by elevation, area by area. "External walls" is not a scope.
- Prep standard — pressure wash, crack repair method, peeling-paint treatment, rust conversion, mould treatment. This is where cheap quotes hide.
- Systems specified — brand, product line and number of coats for each surface type, in writing.
- Access — scaffold, boom, or ropes, and who carries that cost.
- Compliance pack — licence, insurances, SWMS (see below).
- Program — duration, sequencing, resident notifications, wet-weather plan.
- Warranty — workmanship years, in writing, from a business likely to still exist to honour it.
Put that list in your request email and the quotes come back comparable. The committee-meeting conversation changes from "why is this one $30k cheaper?" to "same scope — now we're choosing on evidence, references and confidence."
The compliance paperwork (non-negotiable)
Strata work is commercial work. Before anyone opens a tin, your painter should hand your strata manager:
- NSW painting licence — ours is 254277C, checkable in seconds on the Service NSW licence register.
- Public liability insurance — certificates of currency, typically $10–20M for strata buildings.
- Workers compensation for every person on site.
- Site-specific SWMS — working at heights is high-risk construction work, and the safe work method statement must be written for your building, not photocopied.
- Product data sheets for the specified systems, so the spec survives even if people change.
Living buildings: scheduling around residents
A strata repaint happens around people's lives — that's the real skill of it. What good looks like: written notice to all residents before work starts, clear day-by-day sequencing so people know when their balcony or hallway is affected, balconies cleared on a schedule rather than all at once, low-odour systems specified for internal common areas, safe access maintained to every entry at all times, and a site left clean every single afternoon — not just at handover. Ask referees specifically about this; it separates strata specialists from house painters taking a big job.
What strata painting costs
Ranges are honest here only in broad strokes, because buildings vary enormously: small walk-up blocks (6–12 units) typically land in the $25,000–$80,000 range for a full external repaint depending on access and condition; common-area interior refreshes often run $8,000–$30,000. Access is the big swing — scaffold can be a third of a job's cost. The only real number is a walked, itemised quote against a common scope; ours are free and committee-ready, with the compliance pack attached from day one. You can see our commercial standard on projects like Northmead Warehouse and Fantastic Furniture Burwood.
Frequently asked questions
Who pays — the owner or the owners corporation?
Owners corporation for common property (external walls, hallways, stairwells, usually the outside of entrance doors) from the capital works fund; lot owners for inside their own lot. The strata plan and by-laws are the final word.
How often should a strata building be repainted?
Externally every 7–10 years in Sydney, sooner on exposed coastal elevations; common-area interiors every 8–12 years.
How many quotes do we need?
At least two for significant work — most committees get three. Make them price the same written scope or the comparison means nothing.
What paperwork should the painter provide?
Licence, public liability and workers comp certificates, a site-specific SWMS, product data sheets — and a written workmanship warranty. Ours is 5 years.