A very important concept is to realise that the BCCM legislation complicates whether the body corporate or lot owner should be attributed the ownership, maintenance or insurance responsibility for specific infrastructure. Let’s go through a couple of examples that are relevant for schemes surveyed as building format plan.
Take airconditioning. In the case of an air-conditioning system dedicated to one lot – the external condenser unit and cabling will usually be common property and owned by the body corporate whilst the internal unit is owned by the lot owner. The maintenance of both the internal and external units are a lot owner responsibility. The insurance on the whole system is usually a lot owner contents responsibility (check the specific policy terms of the body corporate building policy to be sure).
Take guttering and drainpipes. The guttering and drainpipes will be common property and owned by the body corporate. Maintenance will be a body corporate responsibility unless the guttering and drainpipes only service one lot. In a dedicated lot situation, the lot owner would be responsible up to the point where the drainpipe converges on a common drain point. The insurance responsibility is solely the body corporate although an excess might be payable by the lot owner if the insurance event is purely related to the lot.
It can be complicated. Tracsafe can help.