Roundup: 20,000 reasons anonymity is the best policy

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While we have all been off worrying about short-term letting and inflammable cladding, something quite remarkable has happened – the Flat Chat Forum has just quickly ticked over its 20,000th post.

Now bearing in mind that our posters have to be real people, rather than Russian ‘bots’ artificially increasing the click rate by the millions, ranters, flamers or trolls – not to mention cyber sirens trying to lure the unwary on to digital rocks – we think we’ve done OK.

Add to that the fact that we have deliberately made it quite tricky to register – it’s an intelligence test just getting online – and we can safely say it’s not just quantity but quality.  Just this last week a post from a Flatchatter led to a story on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Another that has literally just come in offers new hope to strata committees swamped by illegal holiday lets whose local councils just don’t want to know.

Over the past few years this website has made a difference. We have prompted government to stop developers demanding proxy votes in sales contracts, helped exposed the scandals of “sunset clawbacks”, had a fair old say in the new strata laws and guided a few people through the maze of by-laws and BS that confronts first time flat-dwellers, especially.

All of this has been helped by Flat Chat’s rigorous adherence to the anonymity of posters.  We don’t want to know who you are, where you live and what you do – that way you can tell us exactly what happened and we don’t spend all our time in defamation courts.

But that’s enough self-congratulation for one decade.  Our work is far from done, as the latest posts to the Forum testify:

  • Who do you turn to when your council refuses to do anything about short-term holiday rentals that breach its own zoning? The answer’s right at the end HERE.
  • A Flatchatter asks about the pros and cons of car stackers. They may save space but they don’t save time, as a video shows HERE.
  • An owner who put down floorboards 12 years ago, recently got a complaint from downstairs so he’s now putting down carpet. What a hero! So why won’t the committee chair let it go?  That’s HERE.
  • Your committee is generally OK but it’s dominated by one members who’s a bully, self-interested, incompetent and possibly corrupt. We’ve found a way you can get rid of the bad apples without having to dump the whole fruit basket. That’s HERE.
  • Do I have to resign from the strata committee before I take the owners corp to NCAT over lift repairs they refuse to undertake? That’s HERE.
  • Did you know your committee members can’t vote when they are behind with their levies? Or that they can’t vote when the person who nominated them for election is similarly unfinancial? All the details are HERE.

As ever, by the time you read this there will probably be even more issues testing the wit and wisdom of our Flat Chat Forum regulars so don’t leave it too late before you come by again.

One Reply to “Roundup: 20,000 reasons anonymity is the best policy”

  1. Dilectophobia says:

    From this article:
    “Did you know your committee members can’t vote when they are behind with their levies? Or that they can’t vote when the person who nominated them for election is similarly unfinancial? All the details are HERE.”

    I did not know that and I find it hard to believe that once elected a committee member’s vote can be blocked if the person who nominated subsequently becomes unfinancial. I may have misunderstood the quote above but that’s how it reads to me. I followed the link: “All the details are HERE” in the hope of finding a reference to the rule but frustratingly reached the “Page not found?” page.
    Could someone please provide the authority for this?

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