Water is coming through your ceiling. The body corporate says it is your problem. You say it is theirs. Neither of you is budging, and in the meantime the damage is spreading. This is one of the most common disputes in sectional title schemes - and it has a clear legal answer, even if no one in your complex seems to know what it is.
The Rule Is Actually Simple
The Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act 8 of 2011 (STSMA) and the Sectional Titles Act 95 of 1986 draw a clear line between what the body corporate is responsible for and what the owner is responsible for. That line runs along the median of the structure.
The body corporate owns and must maintain the common property. Common property includes the roof, the external walls, the foundations, the shared pipes and electrical infrastructure, the driveways, lifts, and every other part of the building that falls outside the boundaries of individual sections. The body corporate must keep this in a good state of repair, and it must insure the building structure.
The owner is responsible for everything inside their section: internal walls, flooring, fixtures, fittings, plumbing within their unit boundaries, and any alterations they have made. The owner must also not do anything inside their section that damages the common property or another owner's section.
Situation
Who Pays?
Legal Basis
Leaking roof (structural)
Body corporate
STSMA s 3(1)(l) - maintain common property
Water damage inside your unit caused by the roof
Body corporate (if common property failure)
Consequential damage from BC's maintenance obligation
Leaking pipe inside your unit walls
Owner
Inside section boundary
Shared drain or riser pipe between units
Body corporate
Common property infrastructure
Ceiling damage from upstairs neighbour's burst geyser
Upstairs owner
Owner's section, owner's liability
Damage from your own geyser to unit below
You
Your section, your responsibility
Waterproofing failure on balcony (structural)
Body corporate
Common property structure
Waterproofing you applied yourself to your balcony
You
Owner alteration, owner liability
Where It Gets Disputed
The fights usually happen in two scenarios. The first is where the source of the damage is genuinely unclear. Water travels. A leak appearing in a downstairs ceiling might originate from a roof defect, from the upstairs owner's plumbing, or from a shared drain. Until the source is properly diagnosed, the liability cannot be determined. Both the body corporate and the owner reaching for their lawyers before getting a qualified plumber or building inspector to identify the source is the single most common and expensive mistake made in these disputes.
The second scenario is where the body corporate acknowledges it is common property, but claims it cannot afford the repair. This is not a defence. The STSMA requires the body corporate to maintain a reserve fund specifically to cover major repairs. If the reserve fund is inadequate, the trustees must levy a special levy. An owner left with spreading water damage because the body corporate refuses to act has recourse: a formal complaint to the Community Schemes Ombud Service (CSOS) for a compliance order compelling the repair.
Do not make the repair yourself and then try to recover the cost from the body corporate later. Unless you have prior written consent from the trustees, unauthorised repairs to common property create their own legal problems and may void your claim entirely.
What To Do
Report the damage in writing to the trustees immediately. Get an independent assessment of the source. If the source is common property and the body corporate fails to act within a reasonable time, file a CSOS complaint. Keep records of everything: photos, correspondence, the inspector's report, and any costs you have incurred.
If you are a trustee being approached by an owner with a leak complaint, take it seriously and act promptly. The body corporate's obligation to maintain common property is not discretionary. Delay that causes damage to spread increases the body corporate's exposure, not the owners.
**Van Deventer Dowlath & Marx Incorporated (VDM) Community Schemes team advises owners, trustees, and bodies corporate on maintenance disputes, CSOS complaints, and scheme governance. Contact us if you are stuck in a dispute that is going nowhere.