Tilers in Sydney

Not necessarily, because the categories overlap at exactly that point. Schedule 4 of the Home Building Regulation 2014 describes wall and floor tiling as including waterproofing of wet areas in preparation for the laying of tiles, so membrane work done as part of the tiling sits inside that category. Waterproofing is also its own trade category, described as protective treatment designed to stop water penetrating a dwelling or escaping from its wet areas — which is where standalone membrane work belongs. On the register the labels read Wall & Floor Tiler and Waterproofing Technician, and each listing shows the categories on record, so the check is whether the recorded category covers the scope your quote actually describes.

Because the Act reverses its own exclusion for them. Schedule 1 of the Home Building Act 1989 excludes work installing a material that forms an upper layer or wearing surface of a floor where no structural change to the floor is involved — that is where carpet and unfixed floating floors sit — and then adds "but not including work involved in the installation of floor tiles unless the regulations otherwise provide". Floor tiling therefore stays inside residential building work, and the $5,000 labour-and-materials threshold in the Regulation applies to it in the ordinary way.

Potentially 6 years rather than 2. Section 18E of the Home Building Act 1989 sets a 6-year warranty period for a breach resulting in a major defect and 2 years otherwise, running from completion of the work. A major defect needs a defect in a major element, and s 18E(4) names waterproofing as a major element — but the same subsection also requires a consequence: an inability to inhabit or use the building for its intended purpose, its destruction, or a threat of collapse. Where a breach becomes apparent in the last 6 months of the period, proceedings may be commenced within a further 6 months after it ends, and s 18G says the warranties cannot be excluded by contract.

A bathroom retile that touches waterproofing cannot be treated as cosmetic work: s 109(5)(e) of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 excludes work involving waterproofing or a building's plumbing or exhaust system. Section 110(7)(d) excludes waterproofing from minor renovations as well, so the ordinary general-meeting route does not cover it either, and work affecting common property outside those two categories needs a special resolution under s 108. Replacing a hard floor is treated differently — s 110(3) lists installing or replacing wood or other hard floors as a minor renovation, which an ordinary resolution can authorise and which cannot be unreasonably refused.

Under the statutory Common Property Memorandum the split is by timing rather than by location. Original floor tiles and their associated waterproofing affixed to common property floors at the time of registration of the strata plan are on the owners corporation's list, as are original tiles and waterproofing on common property walls; tiles and waterproofing an owner affixed after registration are on the owner's. Section 106 separately obliges the owners corporation to keep common property in a state of good and serviceable repair, and an owner can recover reasonably foreseeable loss from a contravention as damages, within 6 years of first becoming aware of it. The Memorandum binds only where the scheme's by-laws have adopted it.