Lighting - External and Internal, Who Owns Which?

Who owns the lights?

External and shared-area lighting is common property. Hallway lights, stairwell lights, carpark lights, garden lights on common ground and the lights illuminating shared paths all belong to the corporation. Lights inside a unit, including a porch light wired through the unit's meter, are the owner's.

The split usually mirrors the electricity supply: if the light runs off the common-property meter, it's the corporation's.

Strata Title: Section 5 of the Strata Titles Act

Under Section 5(6) of the Strata Titles Act 1988 (SA), common property includes wires, cables and electrical infrastructure that don't serve a single unit exclusively. Shared lighting circuits are squarely common property; Section 25 makes the corporation responsible for maintaining them.

Community Title: Sections 28 and 75

Under the Community Titles Act 1996 (SA), the same logic applies. Section 28 defines common property to include service infrastructure (which Section 3 defines to include electrical cabling and equipment that doesn't serve a single lot). Section 75 makes the corporation maintain it.

Why lighting matters

External lighting is one of the cheapest safety investments that a corporation can make. Three things that installing external lighting does:

• Reduces trip-and-fall claims. Steps, kerbs and uneven paths are the most common causes of public liability claims; having well-lit walkways can prevent most of them.

• Deters opportunistic crime. Insurance Council research consistently shows that well-lit common areas reduce theft from vehicles, vandalism and unauthorised entry.

• Helps emergency response. If an ambulance or fire crew is called at night, the lights need to work and the building number needs to be visible.

Three common fitting types

Bulkhead fittings

Bulkheads are the standard "round dome" fitting on hallway and stairwell ceilings. They're robust, cheap and easy to replace. Most modern bulkheads now ship with integrated LED modules, a step up from the old screw-in compact fluorescents that took 30 seconds to reach full brightness.

Bollard and path lights

These are knee-height fittings along paths and around gardens. The weak point for bollard and path lighting is usually water ingress at the base where the cable enters; once the gland fails, the cable corrodes and the light fails. UV also breaks down plastic diffusers over 8–12 years, leaving a yellowed and brittle fitting.

Floodlights

Floodlights are used for carparks, building exteriors and security applications. Modern LED floodlights deliver more light per watt than the old halogen units and run cooler, which is important because halogen floodlights have caused fires in groups where the housing was installed too close to combustible cladding. Replacing halogen with LED is a worthwhile insurance and safety upgrade.

The case for LEDs

If your group still has fluorescent or halogen common-area lighting, replacement with LEDs is one of the highest-return maintenance investments available. Three reasons:

• Power use drops 60–80%. A typical 70W twin-tube fluorescent fitting replaces with a 25W LED panel.

• Lamp life is 5–10× longer. That means fewer call-outs to replace bulbs in stairwells and far fewer ladder visits to floodlights.

• Light quality is better. Modern LEDs hit instant full brightness, there is no warm-up and the colour-render is closer to daylight, which matters in stairwells where step edges need to be visible.

Payback periods on LED retrofit programs are typically 2–4 years on the energy savings alone, before counting the reduced labour cost of fewer replacements.

Sensors and timers

The cheapest energy savings come from not lighting empty spaces. Two control options:

• Photoelectric (daylight) sensors turn lights on at dusk and off at dawn. These are standard for external area lighting; and there is almost no reason not to fit one.

• Movement sensors turn lights on when someone enters and they turn off after a delay (typically 2–5 minutes). These are best for stairwells, corridors and rarely-used carparks. Pair movement sensored lights with a low-level "permanent on" base brightness so the space is never fully dark.

Combining photoelectric sensors with movement sensors typically cuts running cost by another 50% on top of the LED saving.

Vandal-resistant fittings

For groups that have had repeated vandalism (such as broken diffusers and smashed bulbs), vandal-resistant fittings with polycarbonate diffusers and tamper-resistant fixings are widely available. The unit cost is roughly double a standard fitting, but the call-out savings pay back quickly in any group with a real vandalism issue.

Inspection rhythm

• Do a monthly walkover at dusk: this identifies any failed lamps before residents complain. A responsible officer or the property manager can do it in 10 minutes for most groups.

• Complete an annual electrical inspection: call out a licensed electrician to test RCDs (residual current devices, the safety switches in the switchboard), check emergency lighting (where fitted) and inspect external fittings for water ingress.

• Review the lighting plan against current standards every 5 years: LED prices keep falling and sensor technology keeps improving.

Get in touch

If your group is weighing an LED upgrade or rethinking how the common areas are lit, we can help you scope the project and get apples-to-apples quotes from licensed electricians. Acacia Collective manages strata and community title groups across South Australia.

Call us on 1300 792 255 or email hello@acaciacollective.com.au.