Who is responsible for painting in a Newstead or Bowen Hills strata building?

Who Paints What in a Strata Building? The Short Answer

Responsibility splits between the owners corporation and individual lot owners. As a general rule, the owners corporation looks after common property, and you look after everything inside your lot. But in Newstead and Bowen Hills, where strata buildings range from converted warehouses to newer high-rises along Breakfast Creek Road, the line between common and private can get blurry fast.

What the Body Corporate Actually Owns

The owners corporation (often called the body corporate in Queensland) is legally responsible for maintaining common property in good repair. Under the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (BCCM Act), that includes the exterior of the building, common area walls, stairwells, lobbies, car parks, and any shared outdoor spaces.

In practical painting terms, that typically means:

• Exterior facade - every painted or rendered surface visible from the street
• Common corridor walls and ceilings - the hallways on every floor
• Stairwells - painted balustrades, walls, ceilings
• Basement and car park walls - often sealed or painted concrete
• Shared rooftop or podium areas - where applicable

In older Bowen Hills buildings converted from industrial or commercial use, the common property boundaries can be unusual. A converted warehouse might have exposed brick corridors that the scheme considers common property but that have never actually been painted. Worth checking the community management statement (CMS) before you assume.

What You Are Responsible for as a Lot Owner

Inside your lot, painting is your cost and your call. That covers:

• Interior walls and ceilings within your apartment
• Your front door, on the internal face (the external face is typically common property)
• Any balcony or courtyard that forms part of your lot title, not common property

There is a catch with balconies in many Newstead complexes. The balcony floor, ceiling, and external balustrade often sit within common property even though you use the space exclusively. Your body corporate manager can clarify this, but if you repaint your balcony without approval and it turns out to be common property, you may need to restore it at your own expense.

A useful document to read is your scheme's by-laws. Queensland strata by-laws frequently restrict what colours and finishes you can use on interior surfaces that are visible from outside, such as feature walls behind glass balustrades. This matters in newer Newstead developments where architects specified particular exterior aesthetics.

How Painting Decisions Get Made (and Funded)

The owners corporation funds common property maintenance through levies. Painting the exterior or repainting common corridors is typically a sinking fund expense, planned years in advance and approved by committee or general meeting.

If you want the lobby repainted sooner than scheduled, you can raise it at a general meeting or put a motion to the committee. Depending on the cost and your scheme's spending thresholds, the committee may have the authority to approve it without a full meeting vote.

For lot owners, interior painting is straightforward. You hire who you want, spend what you want, and there is no approval needed unless your scheme's by-laws say otherwise, which is uncommon for standard interior work.

Where it gets complicated is improvement versus maintenance. Repainting the lobby the same colour is maintenance. Repainting it a different colour scheme or adding a feature finish could be classed as an improvement, which typically requires a general meeting resolution. If you are a committee member pushing for a refresh in a Newstead building, it is worth getting your strata manager to confirm the approval path before you call a painter.

The Approval Process for Lot Owners Who Want to Change Something

If you are thinking about painting something that might affect the common property or the external appearance of the building, you need written approval from the body corporate before work starts. This is a formal process in Queensland.

You submit an application to the body corporate, describing the work, materials, and colours. The committee then approves or refuses it, typically within 30 days. They can impose conditions, such as requiring specific paint brands or finishes that match the rest of the facade.

In Bowen Hills and Newstead, where many buildings are newer and have body corporates with active committees, this process is usually reasonably fast. In older schemes with passive committees, it can drag. Factor that into your timeline if you are refreshing a lot before a sale or rental.

One trade-off to consider: if you skip the approval step and paint something that turns out to be common property, the body corporate can issue a remediation notice requiring you to return the surface to its previous state. That costs money twice. Getting approval first is the slower path but the sensible one.

Practical Costs and What to Expect for Strata Work in This Area

For a lot owner repainting the interior of a Newstead or Bowen Hills apartment, a typical one to two bedroom job runs somewhere in the $1,500 to $4,000 range, depending on ceiling height, condition of the existing paint, and whether the walls need significant preparation. Newer builds in this precinct tend to have taller ceilings and larger open-plan spaces, so square metreage adds up.

For bodies corporate managing a common corridor or stairwell refresh, the price scales quickly with building size. A multi-storey building with multiple stairwells and long corridor runs can easily reach $8,000 to $12,000 or more for a thorough repaint. The owners corporation should get at least two or three quotes and confirm that painters have experience with occupied strata buildings, since work scheduling around residents is a real constraint.

A practical note for buildings in the Bowen Hills and Newstead area: proximity to the river and prevailing south-east winds can accelerate paint degradation on exposed facades. It is not coastal salt air the way Wynnum or Manly experiences it, but the humidity and UV load in this inner-city pocket means exterior paint warranties should be checked carefully. Acrylic coatings with a 10-year exterior warranty are common, but real-world performance depends on surface preparation and application.

How to Approach This Without Getting Frustrated

The most common source of confusion is not knowing where the common property boundary sits. Before you spend anything, do two things: read your community management statement (available from the body corporate manager or the Queensland titles register), and ask your strata manager directly. Most strata managers in Queensland are used to this question and can answer it in a short email.

If you are a lot owner and the work is clearly inside your apartment, you do not need to overthink it. Choose a painter, agree on a scope and colour, and get it done.

If you are on the committee and need to organise exterior or common area painting, start with the sinking fund balance and the maintenance schedule. If the work is due but underfunded, a special levy may be needed, and residents will want some notice before that lands.

For either situation, working with a painter who has done strata work before is worth the small effort of asking. Someone who understands access restrictions, strata approval paperwork, and scheduling around residents will save a committee a lot of friction.

If you want an introduction to a local painter familiar with Newstead and Bowen Hills buildings, we can help with that. No pressure either way.