How do we know if what we plan to do at our Body Corporate is maintenance or an improvement? What is the difference?
Maintenance means repairing/replacing something that is broken / damaged
And improvement is adding something that was not there before
So as an example – painting the perimeter wall will be maintenance – the current paint job is “broken/damaged”
But if you want to add an electric fence to the perimeter wall that will be adding something that was not there before – so it will be an improvement
The grey areas that come up are for instance where the lifts must be replaced but due to technology being discontinued, they cannot replace like for like – so it will be an upgrade but the argument can be made that it is maintenance and not an improvement. There is no clear definition of this and several people say it is maintenance but several people also say that it is an improvement.
The Trustees must just always work towards the view of having their arguments ready when they have made a decision – i.e. we have decided that it is maintenance because of X,Y and Z. In that instance when an owner disagrees and takes them to CSOS they have their ducks in a row to defend their decision.