Renovating a Melbourne apartment involves a layer that house renovations do not: you do not own most of the building you are altering. The walls, floors, ceilings, windows and services that define your apartment are, in large part, common property belonging to the owners corporation. What you own is essentially the space within, and the fittings inside it.
Victoria uses the term owners corporation rather than the strata terminology used in New South Wales and Western Australia. The framework is set by the Owners Corporations Act and the rules registered for your particular scheme, and it governs what you can do before any building surveyor gets involved.
Understanding What You Own
The boundary between lot property and common property is defined by the registered plan of subdivision, which is the authoritative document for your building. In most Melbourne apartment plans, the boundary is the inner surface of the structural walls, floors and ceilings.
Typically:
- Lot property — internal non-structural walls, floor coverings, wall linings and paint, kitchen and bathroom fixtures and fittings, internal doors, light fittings, and services that serve only your lot
- Common property — structural walls and slabs, the building envelope, windows and external doors, balconies in most cases, waterproofing membranes, plumbing stacks, main electrical infrastructure, and anything serving more than one lot
The consequence: replacing a kitchen is largely your business, while removing a wall, altering a window, changing a balcony surface, or touching waterproofing is not.
Order a copy of the plan of subdivision and the registered owners corporation rules before you plan anything. They cost very little and they determine the whole project.
What Requires Owners Corporation Approval
Victoria’s framework is less prescriptively tiered than the New South Wales system, and the specific requirements come from your scheme’s registered rules. In practice, three categories emerge.
Work that generally needs no approval
- Internal painting and decorating
- Replacing carpet with carpet
- Replacing internal blinds and curtains
- Minor fixtures — shelving, picture hanging, handrails within the lot
- Replacing light fittings within the lot
You remain responsible for any damage to common property caused by the work.
Work that needs approval under the rules
- Kitchen renovations
- Removing non-structural internal walls
- Installing hard floor coverings in place of carpet
- Recessed light fittings penetrating the ceiling
- Air conditioning, particularly the external condenser
- Anything affecting services shared with other lots
Work requiring a formal resolution and often an agreement
- Any bathroom or laundry renovation, because it disturbs waterproofing that is common property
- Removing or altering structural walls
- Altering windows, external doors or balcony enclosures
- Changing balcony tiling or waterproofing
- Relocating plumbing connecting to common stacks
- Anything altering the building’s external appearance
For works affecting common property, owners corporations commonly require a written agreement recording what you may do and — critically — allocating ongoing responsibility for maintaining and repairing the altered common property to you and to future owners of your lot. Preparing such an agreement costs $1,000 to $3,000 in legal fees.
The Approval Process
- Obtain the plan of subdivision and the registered rules from the owners corporation manager or through a title search
- Speak to the manager early to establish what your scheme requires and how decisions are made — committee, or a general meeting
- Prepare a proper application — scope of works, drawings, contractor details, VBA registration, insurance certificates, a work programme, and arrangements for waste, access and cleaning
- Have an agreement drafted where common property is affected
- Get it before the committee or a general meeting. Timing bites here: if the annual general meeting has just passed, a special general meeting may need to be convened, and the owners corporation may charge you for it.
- Obtain the resolution in writing before any work starts
- Then address the building permit, which is a separate question entirely
Allow two to five months from first enquiry to approval for significant works. Buildings with engaged committees and clear rules move faster; buildings in dispute can take considerably longer.
Building Permits Are Separate
Owners corporation approval is not a building permit, and vice versa. In Victoria you will need a building permit from a registered building surveyor where the work involves:
- Altering or removing a structural wall
- Structural change to the floor
- Altering fire-rated construction or fire safety measures
- Changing the external appearance of the building
- Enclosing a balcony
Fire safety is the item most often overlooked. Apartment buildings have fire-rated separations between lots and to common corridors, and penetrating them — for a rangehood duct, a recessed light, or a relocated service — compromises a system the building’s essential safety measures depend on. See our guide to Melbourne building and planning permits.
Practical Constraints of Apartment Work
Concrete slabs
Most Melbourne apartments sit on post-tensioned or conventionally reinforced concrete slabs. Three consequences:
- Plumbing cannot easily move. Waste pipes are cast into or run beneath the slab. Relocating a toilet, shower or sink may require core drilling, which in a post-tensioned slab is dangerous without a scan to locate tendons and may be prohibited. Where permitted, expect $4,000 to $8,000 and an engineer’s involvement.
- Floor levels are fixed. There is often no set-down for a hobless shower, forcing a raised floor or a step.
- Chasing walls for electrical is limited where walls are concrete rather than framed.
This is a genuine reversal from Melbourne’s house stock, where a generous subfloor makes services unusually flexible. Apartment owners moving from a cottage are frequently surprised by how constrained the plumbing is.
Acoustic requirements for flooring
Replacing carpet with a hard floor is the single most frequent source of conflict in Melbourne apartment buildings, because impact noise transmits through concrete slabs far more readily than owners expect.
Most Melbourne owners corporation rules impose a minimum acoustic performance requirement on hard floor coverings, expressed as a measured impact insulation performance and applying to the finished floor system — the covering plus its underlay — not the underlay alone.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is Acoustic Underlay for Apartment Flooring: What to Check Before Buying.
- Obtain the specific acoustic requirement before selecting any product
- Use an acoustic underlay tested as a system with your chosen covering, and obtain the certificate
- Include perimeter isolation so the floor does not bridge to the walls, which short-circuits the separation
- Retain the certificate and the installer’s declaration for the owners corporation
- Consider a post-installation acoustic test where the rules require one, at $800 to $2,000
Getting this wrong is severe: the owners corporation can require the floor to be removed and replaced at your cost, and neighbours can pursue it through VCAT. This happens regularly across Melbourne.
Access and logistics
- Lift bookings and lift protection, often with a bond of $500 to $2,000
- Restricted work hours, typically weekdays 8am to 4pm or similar
- No access to common areas for material storage
- Waste removal via the lift and out through the building, adding significant labour
- Loading dock restrictions and street parking permits, particularly acute in the CBD, Southbank and Docklands
These constraints commonly add 15 to 25 per cent to the labour component compared with the same work in a house.
Ventilation
Apartment bathrooms and kitchens usually vent into a shared shaft with a mechanical system serving multiple lots. You generally cannot install your own external discharge and must not disturb the shared system. Rangehood selection is often limited to recirculating units.
In Melbourne’s climate this matters: a poorly ventilated apartment bathroom develops mould through winter regardless of how good the waterproofing is. Where the shared system is inadequate, raise it with the owners corporation as a building issue rather than trying to solve it within your lot.
Balconies
Balconies are almost always common property, even where the rules grant exclusive use. The slab, balustrade, waterproofing and drainage belong to the owners corporation.
- Re-tiling a balcony disturbs common property waterproofing and requires a formal resolution and usually an agreement
- Balustrade changes alter external appearance, require approval, and must meet current safety standards
- Pedestal-mounted decking tiles laid over the existing surface are often a practical alternative, being removable and not disturbing the membrane — but check the rules, as some schemes prohibit added load or coverings
- Enclosing or glazing a balcony requires owners corporation approval, a building permit, and frequently affects the building’s fire engineering
- Planters and heavy pots can exceed design loads and trap moisture against the membrane
What an Apartment Renovation Costs in Melbourne
- Cosmetic refresh — paint, floor coverings, light fittings, tapware: $10,000 to $26,000
- Kitchen renovation — $18,000 to $45,000
- Bathroom renovation — $22,000 to $40,000, higher than an equivalent house bathroom because of access, waste handling and slab constraints
- Full two-bedroom apartment renovation — $70,000 to $160,000
- High-end apartment renovation — $180,000 to $500,000
Add the owners corporation costs: agreement preparation at $1,000 to $3,000, potential special general meeting costs, lift and building bonds, and in some buildings a contribution toward the owners corporation’s legal review of your application.
Waterproofing Is the Critical Risk
In a house, a failed membrane damages your own property. In an apartment it damages the lot below, and you will be pursued by the affected owner, the owners corporation, and potentially both insurers.
Because the membrane is common property, altering it without a proper agreement can leave you personally liable for consequential damage without the protection of the owners corporation’s insurance.
The non-negotiables:
- A properly qualified waterproofer and full documentation of the system used
- Comprehensive photographs of the completed membrane before tiling
- A flood test before tiling, without exception
- A written agreement covering the alteration and allocating maintenance responsibility
- Contractor public liability insurance naming the owners corporation, which most rules require
See our detailed guide to waterproofing and wet area compliance in Melbourne.
Making It Go Smoothly
- Read the rules before you buy, if the apartment is a renovation project. Some Melbourne buildings have rules restrictive enough to make meaningful renovation impractical.
- Talk to the committee, not just the manager. The committee decides. A neighbour who understands your plans and timeline is far less likely to object.
- Present a professional application. Drawings, registrations, insurance, a programme and a waste plan. Committees approve applications that look managed and defer ones that look improvised.
- Commit to the constraints in writing — work hours, lift protection, corridor cleaning, completion date.
- Use a builder who works in owners corporation buildings regularly. The logistics are a specialised skill, and a builder unfamiliar with them will underquote and then struggle.
- Notify neighbours directly before work starts. Most apartment renovation complaints are about surprise, not noise.
Melbourne apartment renovation is slower and more procedural than house renovation, but the constraints are knowable in advance. The projects that go badly are almost never stopped by the owners corporation itself — they are stopped by an owner who started demolition before reading the plan of subdivision.
Heating, Cooling and Comfort
Melbourne apartments present a comfort problem that houses do not, and it is worth planning for before renovating.
Many Melbourne apartments — particularly those built between 2005 and 2020 — have large single or basic double glazed areas, minimal thermal mass, limited shading, and heating provided by a single split system that struggles in a cold snap. Some have no provision for external condensers at all.
What you can do within a lot:
- Improve the glazing performance with internal secondary glazing where the owners corporation permits it, or high-performance film. Replacing the windows themselves is common property work requiring approval.
- Heavy curtains with pelmets — the cheapest meaningful improvement on an apartment’s heat loss, and entirely within your control
- Draught seal the entry door and any balcony door, which are frequently the largest air leaks
- Upgrade the split system to a modern high-efficiency unit, subject to approval for the external condenser
- Add ceiling insulation if you are on the top floor and the ceiling space is within your lot
Where the building’s overall performance is the problem, raise it as a building issue with the owners corporation rather than trying to solve it within your lot — some Melbourne buildings have undertaken collective glazing or insulation upgrades funded from the maintenance fund.
Older Walk-Ups Versus Modern Towers
Melbourne’s apartment stock divides into two quite different renovation propositions.
Post-war and 1960s-70s walk-ups — common in St Kilda, Elwood, Prahran, Caulfield and Hawthorn. These are typically solid brick with timber-framed internal walls, generous room proportions, and services that are at or past end of life. They renovate well, plumbing is often more flexible than in a modern tower because there is sometimes a subfloor or a service duct, and the owners corporations tend to be small and pragmatic. The catch is that building-wide issues — concrete spalling, failed common waterproofing, old electrical infrastructure — can generate large special levies.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is Concrete Spalling on Balconies: Inspection and Repair Planning.
Modern towers — CBD, Southbank, Docklands and the inner suburbs. Concrete slabs, fixed services, tight fire separation requirements, professional management, and detailed rules. Renovation is more constrained but more predictable, and building defects are more likely to be an owners corporation matter with a defined remedy.
Before buying either as a renovation project, obtain the owners corporation records: the rules, the maintenance plan, the financial statements, recent minutes, and any building defect reports. A building with a known defect issue and an underfunded maintenance fund is a different investment from one without, regardless of how good your apartment could look.