Strata and Apartment Access Control Systems Sydney

Almost always, yes — the doors involved are common property. The type of approval depends on whether the work is treated as maintenance and repair of existing common property, or as an addition or alteration to it. Under the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015, maintenance duties sit under s.106, while adding to or altering common property is generally dealt with under s.108, which requires a special resolution at a general meeting — one that fails if more than 25% of the value of votes cast is against it. In practice that means a resolution at a general meeting. Your strata manager should confirm which applies before you go too far, because it changes the timeline significantly. We provide a door-by-door scope and a fixed price written so it can be attached to the motion, and we can attend the meeting to answer owners' questions.

Yes, in under a minute, from the workstation the strata manager or building manager already uses. The lost fob stops working and nothing else in the building is affected. That is the single biggest practical difference from a mechanical master key system, where a lost key that could open common areas can only really be dealt with by rekeying — an expense the scheme has to fund at short notice. Most schemes adopt a by-law setting a replacement charge for lost fobs, which also discourages them going missing.

Yes, and that is the normal design. One credential per resident opens everything they are entitled to open, and one report shows all of it. What differs between doors is the rule set, not the system: the foyer might be unlocked on a schedule at certain hours, the gym restricted to the hours in the by-laws, the bin room open to all residents, and the plant room restricted to a named contractor in a named window.

Yes. Floor-call restriction means a credential only calls the lift to that resident's own floor, the car park level where their space is, and the common amenity levels. It runs through the lift controller, so it involves your lift contractor and has to be scoped and quoted with them rather than assumed. It works best paired with a credentialed foyer door, and you need to decide how visitors will be handled before you commit to it.

Yes — that behaviour is called tailgating, and the controller rule that limits it stops a credential being used repeatedly in the same direction without being used in the other. It is a programming setting, but it needs the entry read on both sides, so it has to be decided at design rather than added afterwards. We explain how it works on our warehouse and industrial access control page. On a residential car park it needs to be applied with some judgement — a rule that is too strict generates complaints from residents who followed a car in.

There are three options and most buildings use a mix. Cabled and networked doors report to one controller and can be administered and reported on centrally — that is what you want on the front door, the car park and the lift. Wireless, battery-powered locks avoid a cable run entirely and suit bin rooms, storage, gym and plant doors in buildings with no usable pathway, though they carry a battery cycle and, depending on configuration, may update on credential presentation rather than in real time. Fully standalone doors are cheapest but cannot be centrally administered, which means a lost fob has to be cancelled door by door. We map which doors genuinely need cable at the site assessment, and that decision usually moves the price more than the door count.

Usually, yes. An existing intercom and a new access control system can generally run alongside each other, with the intercom releasing the doors it already releases and the new system handling credentials. Whether that is worth doing depends on the age and condition of the intercom — if it is already failing, doing both at once saves a second round of cabling and a second round of resident disruption. We assess the existing intercom at the site walk and tell you honestly which way is better value. Intercom replacement and upgrades are covered on our intercom systems page.

Operator access is issued to the scheme — normally the strata manager, the building manager, and one or two committee members — and they are trained on the live system at handover. From then on your people enrol residents, issue and cancel fobs, set contractor windows and pull reports without calling us. The database and its records belong to the owners corporation, which supports the record of issued security devices the scheme keeps under its own by-law, and it stays with the scheme if the managing agent changes. We stay available for hardware faults and support, but not for day-to-day administration.