QUESTION: Our landlords are nice enough people but they live in the apartment above ours and they are always “popping down” for a chat or, even worse, peering over the balcony when we have friends round. We like our apartment otherwise but this is becoming intrusive. Is there any way we can stop them doing [...]
A lot of strata owners just get on with living and trying to be good neighbours, regardless of what the by-laws say. But then somebody wants to sell and the buyers, quite rightly, want everything to be street legal and hunky dory. QUESTIONS: An owner intending to sell has put a wooden deck floor on [...]
There was a TV sitcom in the 70s, starring the comic genius Leonard Rossiter and Richard Beckinsale (actress Kate’s dad), called Rising Damp - and that’s the only time you can use those words and smile. Otherwise, rising damp is a pain in the backside for everyone concerned, except, perhaps the builders brought in to [...]
I’ve recently started part-time study and that means part-time work. A friend wants to rent my spare room – which will be a big help – but only on the condition that I put her name on the lease. Is this possible and is it even a good idea? – SWF, Artarmon. You can have [...]
With pavement cafes the next no-go areas for smokers, according to reports earlier this month, where do smokers go when they are driven off the streets? One contributor to the Flat Chat website has the answer … somewhere close to you. “It seems to me that the problem will only get worse,” writes Woman. “The [...]
A word of warning to any prospective tenants hoping to stand out from the very competitive crowd by offering six months’ rent or more in advance: you might have trouble getting it back if it all goes horribly wrong. Emma, a solicitor, points out that there is currently no legal mechanism in the Residential Tenancies [...]
When you break down the word “caretaker” it sounds like a good thing. But is strata it can often mean somoene who’s supposed to take care of you and your building but whose main priority is paying off a debt and looking after number one. QUESTION: Our on-site caretakers are selling their business after two [...]
QUESTION: I’d like to own my own unit but the figures just don’t add up. Anywhere I might be able to afford isn’t as good as the place I’m renting (I work from home and need the extra room). Meanwhile property prices keep going up and I have less and less chance of joining the [...]
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how half the strata plans in NSW are self-managed – that is, they have no strata manager although these tend to be older and/or smaller blocks. Now a regular reader has written to the Flat Chat website saying that may be fine but we don’t know how [...]