Published 7 July 2026
Every strata manager has inherited a defect list that has been partially resolved for three years. Twenty-two items identified, fourteen done, eight rolled forward — and no clear record of which fourteen, or whether the work resolved the underlying issue or just the symptom.
The problem is almost never the work. It’s that defect lists are managed as a document rather than as a process with a defined end state.
Why lists don’t close
Items get done but not recorded against the list. Work is completed, an invoice is paid, and the list is never updated. Six months later nobody can reconstruct what was covered.
Big items crowd out small ones. A major remediation attracts quotes, attention and committee discussion. The eleven minor items sitting alongside it attract none, because no contractor wants to mobilise for them — so they roll.
The list mixes categories that need different handling. Licensed trade work, minor works, cyclical maintenance and genuine building defects all end up in one document, and each has a completely different approval path and timeline.
Approval happens on a lump sum. The committee approves “$14,000 of works”. When something in that scope changes, there’s no clean way to adjust — so the whole thing stalls.
A process that ends
Split the list by who can do the work
Before anything is priced, sort every item into:
- Licensed trade required — electrical, plumbing, gas, waterproofing, structural, fire services. These have their own compliance and certification requirements and can’t be bundled with general works.
- General minor works — the majority of most lists. Fixings, fencing, gates, patching, hardware, surfaces, grounds.
- Cyclical maintenance — gutters, common-area cleaning, grounds. Not defects at all, and better handled as a scheduled budget line than as a defect item.
- Building defect / warranty — potentially recoverable from the builder or developer. Do not fix these before getting advice; rectifying a defect can affect your position.
That fourth category is the one most commonly mishandled. It’s worth confirming the status of anything structural or waterproofing-related before work begins.
Price it line by line
Every item gets its own price. This matters more than it sounds. Line-item pricing lets the committee approve fifteen items, defer four and decline three without triggering a re-quote — which is usually what stalls the whole list for another quarter.
Batch the minor works into one mobilisation
The economics of small works are dominated by travel and set-up, not labour. Twelve minor items done in one visit will typically cost meaningfully less than the same twelve items done across separate call-outs, and it’s the only realistic way that category ever closes.
Require evidence per item, not per job
A single completion invoice proves payment, not outcome. What the committee actually needs is each item photographed before and after, dated, and reported against the original list numbering.
This is the difference between a defect list that closes and one that rolls: not the work, the record.
Report in the original format
If the completion report is structured differently to the original schedule, someone has to reconcile the two — and in practice, nobody does. Ask your contractor to report against your numbering. It costs them nothing and saves you the reconciliation entirely.
What the committee needs to see
At minimum, for each item:
- Original item number and description
- What was done
- Date completed
- Before and after photographs
- Cost
- For items not done: why, and what the recommendation is
That document is also your protection. When an owner asks in eighteen months why a levy was spent a particular way, the answer already exists in a form you can circulate without editing.
A note on what shouldn’t be on the list
Cyclical maintenance keeps appearing on defect schedules because it’s visible at inspection time. Gutters full of leaves, common-area concrete gone green, garden beds overgrown — none of these are defects. They’re deferred maintenance, and treating them as defects means they get the slow approval path rather than sitting in the annual budget where they belong.
Moving them to a scheduled maintenance line does two things: it shortens the defect list to items that actually need decisions, and it stops the same items reappearing every year.
If you have a list that’s been rolling, send it through as-is. We’ll come back with it sorted by category and priced line by line, including flagging anything that should go to a licensed trade rather than to us.