Apartment renovation is the one part of the market where the building tells you what you can do and the neighbours tell you when you can do it. In a house, the constraints are the structure, the budget and the planning scheme. In an apartment you add a strata corporation, a set of by-laws written by people you have never met, a title diagram that determines what you actually own, and a group of owners who will hear every hammer blow.
Hobart’s apartment stock is unusually varied for a city its size, and that variety matters more than anything else in this article. A converted colonial warehouse in Salamanca, a 1970s brick walk-up in Sandy Bay and a modern waterfront building at Sullivans Cove are three completely different renovation propositions, with different slab conditions, different heritage exposure and different strata cultures. The rules are the same; what is physically possible is not.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is Renovating a Colonial Weatherboard Cottage in Hobart: A Practical Guide.
Two warnings before the detail. Tasmania’s strata framework is its own thing — do not import concepts from New South Wales or Victoria. And the specific rules that bind you are in your own by-laws and on your own title diagram. This article explains the framework and the questions to ask; it cannot tell you what your scheme requires, and anyone who claims to without reading your documents is guessing.
The Tasmanian strata framework
Strata title in Tasmania operates under Tasmanian strata titles legislation, and the body that runs the scheme is called a strata corporation. Every lot owner is automatically a member of it.
- The strata corporation is responsible for managing, maintaining and insuring the common property, and for enforcing the by-laws. Decisions are made at general meetings, and larger schemes may also have a committee and a professional strata manager.
- By-laws govern what owners may and may not do — noise, hours of work, alterations, flooring, pets, parking, external appearance. Schemes may operate on model by-laws or on a set adopted or amended over the years.
- Different resolution types exist for different decisions, and the threshold required for an alteration depends on both the legislation and your scheme’s own by-laws. Do not rely on a number you read in an article, including this one. Get the by-laws, read the alterations clause, and if it is ambiguous, ask the strata manager or a Tasmanian property lawyer which resolution your proposal needs.
- Records are obtainable. You are entitled to inspect by-laws, minutes, insurance and financial statements. Do this before you buy.
Lot property versus common property
This distinction decides almost everything. It is set by your strata plan and title diagram, not by intuition.
- Lot property is typically the internal space and the finishes within it — wall linings, floor coverings, internal non-structural walls, joinery, fixtures and fittings.
- Common property typically includes the structure, external walls, the roof, the slab, common services, windows and doors in the external fabric, and balconies — though how a balcony is treated varies between schemes and must be checked on the plan.
- The waterproof membrane in a bathroom is the classic grey area and it is frequently common property or at least a matter of common concern, because it protects the lot below. Treat any work touching it as requiring approval.
- Services that serve more than one lot are common property even where they run through your walls — stacks, risers, common wiring, the water main.
What needs a resolution and what does not
- Generally does not need approval: painting inside your lot, replacing kitchen joinery in the same footprint, changing light fittings and tapware, replacing internal doors, recarpeting like for like.
- Generally does need approval: anything touching the waterproof membrane, anything structural, moving or adding wet areas, replacing or altering windows and external doors, works on a balcony, changes to the building’s external appearance, alterations to common services, air conditioning condensers on external walls, and hard flooring replacing carpet.
- Almost always needs approval regardless of the by-laws: penetrating the slab, penetrating an external wall, altering a fire-rated element, and anything visible from outside.
- Where you are unsure, apply anyway. An unapproved alteration to common property can result in an order to reinstate at your cost, and it becomes a disclosure problem when you sell.
Small schemes behave completely differently from large ones
Much of Hobart’s apartment stock sits in schemes of four, six or eight lots — a converted terrace, a small walk-up, a subdivided villa. These operate nothing like a 90-lot tower.
- A small scheme is usually self-managed. There may be no strata manager, minutes may be informal, and the by-laws may not have been looked at in twenty years.
- Approval is a conversation with three neighbours, which is faster and friendlier — until it is not. In a scheme of four, one determined objector is a substantial share of the vote.
- Small schemes are often under-funded. If your renovation reveals a common property problem there may be no sinking fund to fix it, and a special levy is required.
- Large schemes are slower but more predictable — a documented alterations process, contractor inductions, defined hours, and a manager who has seen this before.
- In either case, get the decision recorded in the minutes. A verbal yes from the neighbour who happened to be in the driveway is not an approval.
What a complete application contains
The single best predictor of a fast approval is the quality of the application. Vague proposals get deferred; complete ones get resolved.
- A clear scope of works, room by room, describing what is being removed, what is being installed, and explicitly identifying anything touching common property.
- Drawings — existing and proposed plans, elevations where external appearance changes, and details of any structural work.
- Engineering advice from a structural engineer where a wall is removed or a slab penetrated.
- Contractor details — licensed builder with licence number, licensed plumber, licensed electrician, and evidence of public liability insurance, typically $20 million.
- The waterproofing specification, naming the product and the applicator, with a commitment to provide a certificate and photographs.
- An acoustic report or specification where hard flooring is proposed, addressing impact isolation.
- A works program with proposed hours, duration, and how the lift, stairs and common areas will be protected.
- An undertaking to make good any damage to common property, and details of the Tasmanian building category your work falls into.
Realistic timeframes
- Preparing a complete application: two to six weeks, mostly waiting on drawings and contractor documents.
- A small self-managed scheme: two to six weeks to a recorded decision, if the neighbours are engaged.
- A managed scheme with a committee: four to ten weeks, depending on meeting cycles. Where a general meeting is required, add the notice period, and more if the next annual general meeting is months away.
- Where heritage is involved: add two to four months for planning approval, and more where a Tasmanian Heritage Register referral is needed.
- Total, for a bathroom and kitchen in a managed heritage building: six to nine months from first idea to first day on site is realistic.
What is physically possible, by building type
Converted colonial and Victorian buildings
Central Hobart, Battery Point and Salamanca have warehouses, terraces and townhouses converted to apartments, some of them from the 1820s to 1840s.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is Do You Need Council Approval to Renovate in Hobart? The 2026 Rules Explained.
- Solid masonry walls with no cavity and no damp-proof course. Rising damp and interstitial condensation are endemic in this stock, and they are usually common property problems, not yours alone.
- Lime mortar, not cement. Any repointing must be lime — cement traps moisture and causes the stone to spall. Expect $120–$280 per square metre of wall face.
- Timber floors between lots in converted terraces, so acoustic performance is poor and hard flooring is often prohibited outright.
- Wet areas are wherever the conversion put them. Moving them is frequently impossible without cutting through common structure.
1960s to 1980s walk-ups
Sandy Bay and West Hobart have a solid supply of three and four-storey brick walk-ups, and they are the most renovation-friendly stock in the city.
- Concrete slabs between floors, which gives you acoustic separation and some capacity to relocate services within limits.
- Mostly non-structural internal partitions, so opening a kitchen to a living room is often straightforward.
- Original bathrooms and kitchens are almost always at end of life, so full replacement rather than partial upgrade is the sensible approach.
- Single-glazed aluminium or steel windows, cold, and often common property. No lift in most walk-ups, which affects the cost of everything carried up and every skip load carried down.
- Asbestos is a live risk in stock of this era — vinyl tiles, backing sheets, eaves. A survey costs $400–$900; licensed removal $2,500–$15,000.
Modern waterfront apartments
Sullivans Cove and points along the Derwent have newer, higher-specification buildings with the fewest structural surprises and the most rules.
- Post-tensioned slabs are common. You cannot core or chase into them without engineering advice and scanning, and cutting a tendon is catastrophic.
- Strong by-laws and a professional manager, with contractor inductions, defined hours and lift booking systems.
- Marine corrosion on balconies — balustrade fixings, wire and hardware should be grade 316 stainless. Balconies and their membranes are usually common property, so replacement is the corporation’s decision, not yours.
Slab depth, drainage and moving wet areas
The most common apartment renovation ambition is to move a bathroom or add a second one, and the most common answer is that it is harder than it looks.
- Waste pipes need falls. A shower waste needs depth beneath it, and you cannot get depth out of a 150mm slab without cutting into it.
- Coring a slab requires structural approval and, in a post-tensioned building, scanning — $1,500–$5,000 before any work.
- Where you cannot get falls, the alternatives are compromises — a raised floor with a step, a macerator pump, or accepting the existing location.
- Stacks are common property. Connecting a new fixture to an existing stack changes loading on a shared service and needs approval and a licensed plumber.
- In timber-floored conversions, joist direction determines everything. Running a waste across joists rather than between them is often not possible without structural work.
- Keeping wet areas where they are saves $15,000–$40,000 on a typical apartment project and removes most of the approval risk. It is very often the right call.
The acoustic question: carpet to hard flooring
This is the single most common source of strata dispute in apartments anywhere, and Hobart’s older converted stock makes it worse.
- Most by-laws restrict hard flooring or require approval and a specified acoustic performance. Read the clause before you buy the timber.
- Impact noise is the problem, not airborne noise. Footsteps, dropped objects and chair legs transmit through the structure to the lot below.
- An acoustic underlay is not automatically sufficient. Performance depends on the whole floor system, and a specification from an acoustic consultant is the reliable path. Budget $800–$2,500 for advice.
- Timber-floored converted buildings are the worst case and can need a floating floor system that adds height and cost. Concrete slab buildings are far more forgiving, and a good underlay will often satisfy a reasonable by-law.
- Installing without approval is the classic mistake. Removal orders are made, and reinstating carpet after ripping out a new timber floor is an expensive lesson.
Hobart-specific complications
Heritage listing over the building
- Two distinct levels apply. A Local Heritage Place or Local Heritage Precinct under the Hobart Local Provisions Schedule requires planning approval for use or development of the site. A listing on the Tasmanian Heritage Register under the Historic Cultural Heritage Act 1995 also triggers referral to the Tasmanian Heritage Council (1300 850 332).
- Battery Point is the best known precinct, but heritage overlays cover parts of central Hobart, North Hobart, South Hobart, West Hobart, New Town and Sandy Bay. Check the Hobart Local Provisions Schedule maps for your address rather than assuming.
- Windows and balconies are the friction point. Replacing single-glazed timber sashes with double-glazed aluminium in a listed building is usually refused. Secondary glazing over the existing sashes, at $450–$1,000 per square metre, is often the acceptable answer.
- Heritage listing does not prevent change. The City of Hobart’s position is that modifications are assessed so heritage characteristics are not lost, which means a well-argued proposal has a genuine path.
Cold apartments, single glazing and condensation
- Hobart is Australia’s coldest capital, and condensation is the defining building problem here. Warm moist internal air meeting cold single glazing and cold uninsulated walls produces water, then mould.
- Responsibility is genuinely contested. Where windows and external walls are common property, the building fabric causing the condensation is the corporation’s; where the occupant is drying washing indoors with no exhaust running, the behaviour is theirs. Both are usually true at once.
- Ventilation is the fix that owners can control. Exhaust fans discharging outside, run-on timers, and where the lot is tightly sealed, a mechanical ventilation or heat recovery unit at $4,000–$12,000.
- Do not seal an apartment tighter without ventilating it. Draught sealing and then wondering where the mould came from is the most common Hobart retrofit mistake.
- Internal insulation on solid masonry walls is dangerous in converted colonial buildings — it moves the dew point into the masonry. Use breathable systems.
Access, and short-stay letting
- Access drives cost. No lift, narrow colonial stairs, a steep street with no parking, and restricted loading times all add to labour. Allow 10–25% above a comparable house renovation for handling alone, and remember lift capacity limits the size of anything you install.
- Short-stay letting rules shape what owners want to do. Tasmania regulates short-stay accommodation and many schemes have by-laws restricting or prohibiting it. If your renovation is premised on short-stay income, confirm both the planning position and the by-laws first.
Costs
- Apartment bathroom: $28,000–$55,000, sitting above the equivalent house figure because of access, protection and approval overheads.
- Apartment kitchen: $28,000–$60,000 for mid-range, more where services must move.
- Full apartment refurbishment, two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, flooring, painting: $120,000–$260,000.
- Secondary glazing over heritage sashes: $450–$1,000 per square metre.
- Acoustic flooring system over timber joists: $120–$280 per square metre above the flooring itself.
- Engineering and slab scanning: $1,500–$5,000. Building surveyor where the work is Category 3: $2,500–$8,000.
- Strata application costs — drawings, specifications, acoustic advice: $2,500–$9,000 before a tool is picked up.
Avoiding the disputes that actually happen
- Read the by-laws and the strata plan before you buy. Almost every serious dispute traces back to an owner who assumed.
- Apply before you commit to a builder’s start date. Booking a trade for March and then discovering the next general meeting is in May is self-inflicted.
- Talk to the neighbours directly before the meeting. Objections are usually about noise, mess and duration, and they mostly evaporate when someone explains the plan in person.
- Stick to the approved hours and keep common areas clean daily. Every dispute that becomes serious started with a Saturday morning jackhammer.
- Document the membrane. Bathroom renovation is Category 2 low-risk work in Tasmania — licensed builder required, but no building approval and no mandatory surveyor inspection. Where a failure floods the lot below, your own photographs and waterproofing certificate are the whole of your defence.
- Remember there is no home warranty insurance in Tasmania. No HBCF, no DBI, no equivalent. If your builder fails mid-job there is no policy behind the contract, and the six-year statutory warranty is only worth what the builder is worth.
- A written contract is mandatory at $20,000 or more, with deposits capped at 10% between $20,000 and $50,000 and 5% above $50,000, and progress payments limited to 50% until half the work is done.
Apartment work sits inside the same Tasmanian framework as everything else, so it is worth reading the 2026 approval rules alongside your by-laws. Where the building is listed or in a precinct, the heritage and character guide covers the referral path in detail, and owners of converted colonial buildings will find the fabric explained in the colonial cottage guide. Because the membrane is unsupervised here, the waterproofing article is essential reading for any apartment bathroom, and the cold-apartment condensation problem is dealt with properly in the energy efficiency guide.
The apartment you can change and the one you cannot
The honest position on Hobart apartments is that the amount of change available to you is largely decided before you buy, and no amount of budget rewrites it. A 1970s walk-up with a concrete slab, non-structural partitions and a permissive set of by-laws will accept almost any reconfiguration you can afford. A converted 1830s warehouse with timber floors between lots, solid masonry walls, a heritage listing and eight neighbours will accept new finishes and very little else.
Neither is worse. The colonial conversion has the character people pay for; the walk-up turns into exactly what you drew. What causes grief is buying the first and planning the second — signing a contract on a Battery Point conversion with a mental image of an open-plan kitchen where the load-bearing masonry currently is.
So do the work in the right order. Get the strata plan and the by-laws, walk the building, look at where the risers and stacks are, find out whether the floor between you and the lot below is concrete or timber, and check the heritage overlay for the address. Half a day of that, before the offer goes in, tells you more about what your renovation can be than any amount of design work afterwards.