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. Since 2004, through strata and commercial painting across the Eastern Suburbs, here's the guide I'd hand every committee before they open a single quote. (Bondi's interwar blocks get their own treatment in the Art Deco apartment guide.)
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. If you would rather hand the whole thing to a strata specialist, our strata painters page explains how we run a common-property repaint from walk-through to handover pack. 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?
External render every 8–10 years in Sydney, or 6–8 on exposed coastal elevations, with external timber and steel trim every 5–8; common-area interiors every 8–12 years.
How many quotes do we need?
By law, at least two: since 11 December 2023 the Strata Schemes Management Act requires every NSW owners corporation — not just large schemes — to get at least two independent quotes for any spend over $30,000, which covers almost every external repaint. 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.