Body corporate cleaning is the regular cleaning of an apartment or unit complex's shared spaces: entries, lobbies, lifts, stairwells, corridors, car parks, bin rooms and facilities. It does not include the inside of individual units. The owners pay for it collectively through levies, and the committee or manager hires the contractor. This guide explains what is covered, how to set a schedule, how to write a scope that holds up, and how to tell whether your cleaner is doing the job. It also covers the safety and responsibility questions that come with common property.
A note on terms. "Body corporate" is the everyday phrase in Queensland and the Northern Territory. In the ACT the same group of owners is called the owners corporation, and in NSW and Victoria you will hear "strata" or "owners corporation". The cleaning job is the same. We are based in Canberra, so the local examples lean toward the ACT, and we flag where a rule belongs to another state.
TL;DR
- Body corporate cleaning covers common property only: the shared areas the owners corporation maintains, paid for through levies. Individual units are the owner's job.
- Frequency depends on foot traffic, building height, the number of lifts and shared facilities such as a pool or gym. Busy buildings need touch-point cleaning more often than floor cleaning.
- A written scope with tasks, frequencies and a sign-off method does more for quality than any price comparison.
- Whether workplace health and safety duties apply to the body corporate itself depends on factors such as whether it employs a worker and whether the building is mixed-use.
- Judge a cleaner by inspection records, consistency of staff and how fast they fix a miss, not by the first month.
Table of Contents
- What body corporate cleaning actually covers
- How often shared areas should be cleaned
- Writing a scope that can be checked
- Safety, access and responsibility
- How to tell if your cleaner is doing the job
- Our perspective: consistency beats the lowest quote
- Cleaning your building in Canberra
- FAQ
- Sources
What body corporate cleaning actually covers
The dividing line is between lots (the units people own) and common property (everything else in the plan). In the ACT, the owners corporation maintains common property, and owners fund cleaning and gardening through levies. The ACT planning directorate explains that in a typical multi-storey Class A building, the owners corporation is responsible for the outside of the building and surrounding area to the boundary of the units plan.
So a cleaning contract for an apartment building usually covers shared interiors and shared grounds. It does not cover the inside of a lot, balconies that belong to a lot or anything the units plan treats as private. If you are unsure where a boundary falls, the registered plan decides, not habit or custom. The NSW Government's common property memorandum makes the same point: the strata plan determines the precise boundary.
Common areas you can expect to see in a scope
Government guidance lists typical common property in similar terms. The Northern Territory Government names stairways, passages, driveways, swimming-pool areas, communal gardens and car parks, and notes that body corporate fees can cover cleaning. The NSW memorandum adds common-property floors and walls, letterboxes, swimming pools and equipment, gyms, parking and garages as elements that may fall within an owners corporation's responsibility.
In practice, a cleaning scope for an apartment building tends to break into these groups:
| Area | Typical tasks | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Entry and lobby | Sweep and mop hard floors, vacuum mats, wipe glass doors, intercom panels and handrails, dust letterboxes | First impression and the highest foot traffic |
| Lifts | Wipe buttons and walls, clean tracks, mop or vacuum floors | Constant touch points |
| Stairwells and corridors | Sweep, vacuum or mop, remove cobwebs, wipe rails and light switches | Dirt travels here from the car park and outdoors |
| Bin rooms and chutes | Wash floors, wipe bins, deodorize, check for overflow | Smell and pest complaints start here |
| Car park | Sweep, spot clean oil, remove litter | Slip hazards and visible neglect |
| Shared facilities | Gym wipe-downs, pool deck and amenity room cleaning | Heavy shared use |
| Windows and glass | Entry glazing, common-area windows, high windows via a specialist | Visible from the street |
| Exterior surfaces | Pressure washing of paths, driveways and entries | Periodic, not weekly |
Not every building has every row. A six-unit walk-up has a stairwell and a bin area. A 150-unit complex has a lobby, three lifts, a gym and a pool. Your scope should list what you actually have.
How often shared areas should be cleaned
There is no regulated frequency for apartment common areas. You set it, and the right answer comes from how the building is used. The factors that move it up or down are:
- Number of residents and foot traffic. More people means more dirt and more touch-point contamination.
- Building height and lifts. Lifts, lobbies and stairs in taller buildings get more wear per week.
- Shared facilities. A gym, pool or function room adds tasks that cannot wait for a weekly visit.
- Entry design. An entry that opens straight onto a street collects more grit than a covered, matted one.
- Season. Autumn leaf drop and wet weather mean more sweeping and mopping, and in Canberra, a dry, dusty summer does the same for fine grit.
- Move-ins and deliveries. These scuff floors and mark walls and lifts.
Treat the following as a starting point to adjust, not a rule:
| Building type | Starting point for general cleaning | Add on |
|---|---|---|
| Small block, no lift | Weekly or fortnightly | Quarterly window and cobweb clean |
| Mid-size block with a lift and bin room | Two to three visits a week | Monthly detail clean of lift tracks and stairwells |
| Large complex with pool or gym | Several visits a week, some daily tasks | Weekly facility checks, periodic exterior wash |
| High-rise or mixed-use | Daily presence for lobby, lifts and bins | Planned deep cleans and height window cleaning |
Split tasks into daily, weekly, monthly and annual lists. Daily might be touch points and bins. Weekly might be full floor care and glass. Monthly might be skirting, vents and lift tracks. Annual might be carpet extraction in corridors, pressure washing and facade or height window cleaning. A single flat frequency for everything wastes money on some tasks and starves others.
Writing a scope that can be checked
Most disputes with a cleaner come from a vague scope. "Clean common areas weekly" cannot be audited. A good scope has five parts.
- A task list by area. Name each area and each task, as in the table above.
- A frequency for each task. Daily, weekly, monthly or annual, not just a visit count.
- A standard. Describe the result: no visible dust on rails, no marks on glass at the entry, floors free of grit, bins empty and wiped. Photos taken on a walkthrough make this concrete.
- Access and keys. Who holds keys and fobs, which hours are allowed, and where equipment and chemicals can be stored. Noise and timing matter in a residential building, so agree start times.
- A quality-check method. Who inspects, how often and what happens when something is missed.
Walk the building with the contractor's supervisor before the contract starts. Write the scope from what you see, not from a template. Buildings differ more than contract templates admit.
Extras to price separately
Some work does not belong in the routine fee. Carpet cleaning of corridors, pressure washing, graffiti removal, high-access window and facade work, post-construction cleans and one-off flea or pest-related cleaning are better quoted as separate line items. Ask for a clear price for each so the committee can approve them without reopening the whole contract.
Safety, access and responsibility
Cleaning common areas involves chemicals, wet floors, equipment in corridors and sometimes work at height. The body corporate has to think about it, and the contractor has to as well.
Does workplace health and safety apply to the body corporate?
It depends. SafeWork NSW says a residential-only body corporate generally is not a PCBU for common areas, but that changes if it employs a worker. Mixed residential and commercial common areas can also bring WHS duties into play. That guidance is for NSW. In the ACT, check the position with WorkSafe ACT or your lawyer before you assume the duties do not apply to you. Whatever the answer, a contractor who is a business has its own duties to its workers, and you should expect to see its safe work procedures.
Safety rules owners corporations still need to meet
NSW Government guidance says owners corporations must keep common areas safe and comply with relevant window, pool and spa, fire-safety and pesticide rules. Residents must receive at least five days' notice before pesticide use. The same page states that from 13 February 2026, NSW apartment buildings must generally have essential fire-safety systems inspected, tested and serviced under AS 1851, unless a performance solution applies. Those are NSW rules, so ACT committees should confirm local requirements. The practical lesson travels well: cleaning must never block exits, fire doors, hose reels or extinguishers.
Slips, trips and chemicals
Floors are where most cleaning-related injuries to residents and visitors start. Safe Work Australia recommends cleaning schedules, spill-reporting and clean-up procedures, enough waste bins and housekeeping training. It also advises that leaks be fixed, spills cleaned promptly, walkways kept clear and waste removed promptly.
On chemicals, its guidance calls for substituting safer chemicals where practicable, correct labeling and storage, current safety data sheets, suitable PPE, wet-floor signs and non-slip mats. The hierarchy of controls in that guidance means safer products and physical controls come first, with procedures, training and PPE as backup, not the other way around. In a residential building, that translates into three questions for any contractor:
- Are wet-floor signs used every time, including in lobbies and stairwells?
- Can they produce safety data sheets for the products they bring on site?
- Where are chemicals and equipment stored between visits, and is that space locked?
Insurance and who is liable
Ask for a current certificate of currency for public liability insurance and confirm that the contractor's workers are covered by workers' compensation. Have your manager check the amounts against the building's insurance requirements. The committee's duty is to take reasonable care in selecting and supervising a contractor, and a paper trail of certificates, scopes and inspections is its best protection.
GST and levies
If your owners corporation is registered for GST, the Australian Taxation Office says it can claim GST credits on related purchases such as cleaning. Ask your manager or accountant whether quotes should be compared with or without GST.
How to tell if your cleaner is doing the job
A clean lobby on the day of the contract signing proves little. Reliability shows over months. Look at five signals.
1. Consistency of people. If a different person turns up every week, nobody owns the building. A stable team learns which stairwell collects leaves and which bin room needs extra attention.
2. Inspection records. The cleaner or supervisor should inspect against the scope and record the result. The committee should do its own walkthrough monthly, using the same checklist.
3. Response to complaints. A good contractor acknowledges a report the same day and fixes it at the next visit or sooner. Track how many complaints recur, since repeat issues mean the cause was never fixed.
4. Visible detail. Check the places that are easy to skip: the top of door frames, lift tracks, bin room floor corners, handrail undersides, glass edges.
5. Paperwork. Insurance certificates, safety documents and rosters should be current without you chasing them.
A simple monthly checklist
Walk the building from the street to the bins. Score each area as pass, fair or fail, and note the date and any photos. Share the sheet with the contractor. If the same item fails twice, move it to a formal notice under the contract. Three fails in a quarter is a conversation about whether the scope, the staffing or the contractor is the issue.
Our perspective: consistency beats the lowest quote
We see the same pattern in shared buildings. The lowest price often comes with high turnover of staff, and the building pays for it in complaints and re-cleans. We employ our cleaners directly and train them in our own systems, so the person who cleans your lobby has been shown how we want it done, and we can hold them and ourselves to account. For regular work, the same cleaner returns to the same site, which is why we think a familiar face does more for quality than any inspection form.
Our view is that an owners corporation should ask three questions before signing: who exactly will clean the building, how will we know the work meets the scope, and what happens when it does not. Our quality system is ISO 9001 accredited, which means those answers are documented rather than improvised. We would rather a committee compare us on a written scope than on a headline hourly rate.
— User
Cleaning your building in Canberra
If you manage or sit on the committee of an apartment building in Canberra or Queanbeyan, our strata cleaning service covers common areas, and you can see how we set up and run contracts on our page about how our commercial cleaning contracts work. Our published cleaning prices give a feel for how we charge, and you can see examples on our cleaning work in Canberra page. For glass and exterior needs, we also offer height window and facade cleaning and pressure cleaning and washing, which suit the periodic jobs in your annual list.
If your building has a commercial tenancy on the ground floor, our office cleaning team can handle that space under the same arrangement, and we cover suburbs such as Gungahlin and the Inner South. Ask us for a walkthrough and a written scope before you decide anything.
FAQ
Who pays for body corporate cleaning?
Owners pay through levies to the body corporate or owners corporation. In the ACT, the owners corporation maintains common property, and owners fund cleaning and gardening through those levies. The committee or manager engages the contractor and pays the invoices from the shared fund.
Does body corporate cleaning include inside the units?
No. It covers common property only, such as lobbies, lifts, stairwells, corridors, car parks and shared facilities. An owner or tenant arranges cleaning inside their own lot. Where a boundary is unclear, the registered units plan decides.
How often should apartment common areas be cleaned?
There is no set legal frequency, so it depends on traffic, height, lifts and facilities. A small block might need a weekly visit, while a large complex needs several visits a week and daily attention to bins and touch points. Review the schedule after a few months and adjust it using your inspection results.
What should I ask a cleaning contractor before hiring?
Ask who will clean the building, whether they are employees, how they train staff, and what insurance they hold. Ask how quality is checked and what happens when a task is missed. Request a walkthrough and a written scope with frequencies, so quotes can be compared like for like.
Sources
- Owning a unit, ACT Government
- Unit titles management in the ACT, ACT Planning
- Buying a unit in a body corporate, NT.GOV.AU
- Common property memorandum, NSW Government
- Strata title and body corporate, SafeWork NSW
- Safety rules for strata common property, NSW Government
- Slips and trips at the workplace, Safe Work Australia
- Slips, trips and falls, Safe Work Australia
- Accommodation services: managing risks, Safe Work Australia
- Strata schemes and real estate agent services, Australian Taxation Office