Key Facts:
- Must Have Maintenance, a Melbourne-based garden and lawn maintenance company, reports that body corporates and owners corporations are among its fastest-growing client segments.
- Under Victoria’s Owners Corporations Act 2006, owners corporations have a statutory duty to maintain common property gardens in good order, with failure to do so creating legal liability.
- The most common issue the company encounters with new strata clients is a mowing-only maintenance arrangement that has not been reviewed since the property was developed, leaving it inadequate for a maturing garden.
- Strata managers tend to review garden maintenance contracts less frequently than other services, meaning maintenance scopes often fall out of step with a property’s evolving needs, resulting in costly backlogs.
- Must Have Maintenance services residential and commercial strata properties across Melbourne’s eastern and south-eastern suburbs, holding WorkSafe, TAC, and NDIS accreditations alongside public liability insurance.
MELBOURNE, Australia – 23 October 2026 – Must Have Maintenance, a Melbourne garden and lawn maintenance company completing more than 15,000 jobs per year, says body corporates and owners corporations are among its fastest-growing client segments, and that the most consistent issue it encounters when taking on a new strata property is a maintenance arrangement that has not kept pace with the property’s garden as it has matured.
Under Victoria’s Owners Corporations Act 2006, owners corporations have a statutory duty to repair and maintain common property in good order. Garden and landscaped areas on common property fall within this obligation. The duty is not discretionary: an owners corporation that allows common area gardens to deteriorate to the point where paths become slippery, overhanging branches create a hazard, or garden beds obstruct access routes, carries the liability exposure that follows from failing to meet a statutory maintenance standard. Most strata properties require fortnightly maintenance across the growing season from September through April and monthly visits through winter, with the frequency adjusted for the scale and complexity of the garden.
The pattern Must Have Maintenance encounters most frequently in new strata clients is a mowing-only arrangement that has not been reviewed since the property was first developed. As the garden matures, trees grow, garden beds expand, and irrigation requirements change. A contractor scope written for a new development does not cover what the same garden requires five or ten years later. The gap typically surfaces when a strata manager receives a complaint about a specific issue: an overgrown path, a blocked drain, a dead tree that has not been removed. By that point, the maintenance backlog is more expensive to address than a regular, reviewed scope would have been.
“Strata managers are managing a lot of properties and a lot of contractors. Garden maintenance is often the line item that gets reviewed least frequently because there is no single dramatic event that prompts it, unlike a plumbing or electrical issue. What we see when we take over a strata garden is usually a scope that was written for the property at handover and has not been updated since. The garden has changed substantially, the maintenance has not kept pace, and the owners corporation is carrying liability for a common area that is not being maintained to the standard the Act requires,” said Lukas James, founder of Must Have Maintenance.
Must Have Maintenance provides garden and lawn maintenance to residential and commercial strata properties across Melbourne’s eastern and south-eastern suburbs. The company holds WorkSafe and TAC Services Provider approvals alongside NDIS Home Help Services Provider accreditation, carries public liability insurance, and provides detailed scope of works documentation to strata managers. The company operates seven days a week.
About us:
About Must Have Maintenance
Founded in 2018, Must Have Maintenance provides garden and lawn maintenance services to homes and businesses across Melbourne. The company completes more than 15,000 jobs per year, holds a 4.8-star Google rating from 109 reviews, and services clients across residential, commercial, NDIS, and government portfolios.
