Who is liable for repairs in a Johannesburg sectional title scheme?
Most sectional title disputes are not about big capital projects. They start with something small: a stain on a ceiling, a damp patch on a wall, a leaking pipe behind a shower — and an argument about who has to pay for it.
In Johannesburg sectional title schemes, that argument usually comes down to one question: does the damage fall on the owner’s side of the boundary, or on the body corporate’s? The answer is set out in legislation, but it has to be applied to a physical building, section by section, wall by wall — and the legislation does not always match what an owner assumes.
Where does a section end and common property begin?
The Sectional Titles Act No. 95 of 1986 (STA) and the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act No. 8 of 2011 (STSMA) work together to define the physical boundary of a section. As a general rule, a section reaches to the middle of the floor, the middle of the walls, and the middle of the ceiling board that separates the ceiling cavity from the room below.
That median-line rule also extends to doors and windows that are not perfectly centred in a wall. Where a door, window or similar structure divides a section from another section or from common property, the boundary is deemed to run through the centre of that structure — not through wherever it happens to be built.
Common property is everything else: the land the scheme is built on, the outer shell of the building, the roof, the foundations, and any part of the building not included in a section. For a freestanding unit in a sectional title scheme, that typically means the outer half of each wall and the roof are common property, while the inner half of the walls and the section side of the ceiling board belong to the owner.
The basic maintenance split
Once the boundary is fixed, the STSMA allocates responsibility on either side of it:
- The body corporate must maintain the common property and keep it in a good and serviceable state of repair.
- The owner must repair and maintain their own section in a good state of repair.
In practice, this means a leaking roof is the body corporate’s responsibility, while a leaking shower inside a section is the owner’s responsibility — even where both problems show up as the same damp patch on a ceiling below.
Who pays when common property damage flows into a section?
The harder question is what happens when a defect in the common property causes damage inside a section — for example, a leaking roof that stains a ceiling, or a defective common wall that causes rising damp in an adjoining section.
The STSMA is clear that the body corporate must repair the common property defect itself. It is far less clear on who pays for the consequential, or ensuing, damage that defect has already caused inside the section. There is no automatic rule that makes the body corporate liable for that consequential damage.
Where the STSMA is silent, an owner has to fall back on the ordinary common law requirements for recovering damages, including pure economic loss. That is a materially higher bar than simply pointing to a common property defect and expecting automatic reimbursement.
What can an owner do if the body corporate will not pay?
If a body corporate accepts that a common property defect exists but refuses to repair it, or will not compensate an owner for the resulting damage, the owner is not limited to a civil claim for damages. The Community Schemes Ombud Service Act No. 9 of 2011 (CSOS) gives owners a dedicated, faster dispute route.
An owner who is a party to, or materially affected by, a dispute over the administration of a scheme may apply to CSOS. Where the dispute concerns repairs and maintenance to private or common areas, CSOS can order the association to have the necessary repairs and maintenance carried out.
For owners, this means an unresponsive body corporate is not the end of the road. A well-documented CSOS application is often quicker and cheaper than a High Court claim for damages.
Practical steps for owners
- establish where the boundary actually falls before assuming a defect is common property;
- report defects to the managing agent or trustees in writing, with photographs and dates;
- keep records of any resulting damage to the section, including repair quotes; and
- escalate to CSOS if the body corporate delays or refuses to act on a genuine common property defect.
Practical steps for trustees and managing agents
- respond to reported common property defects promptly, not only once a complaint escalates;
- keep a clear maintenance log distinguishing common property work from section-level repairs;
- take independent advice before refusing to compensate an owner for consequential damage; and
- document the reasoning behind every repair decision, since CSOS and the courts will expect to see it.
Final takeaway
Sectional title repair disputes are rarely about the law itself — the STSMA and STA are reasonably clear about who maintains what. They are about applying that boundary correctly to a real building, and about what happens next once a common property defect has already caused damage. Owners and trustees who document the boundary, the defect and the response early are in a far stronger position than those who wait for the dispute to reach CSOS or the courts.
Mosaic Home Services — expert managing agents of body corporates, Homeowners’ Associations and share block companies. Learn more about Mosaic Community Services.