From the Forum – timber floor trials and tribulations
We’ve always been staunch advocates of taking rogue flooring installers all the way to the Tribunal when they flout by-laws and common decency just so they can lay down their…
PODCAST 60 – Retirees rule, Airbnb lose and flooring fights
This week on the Flat Chat Wrap we ask whether retired business people are the best or the worst committee members you can have. Based on this column, Jimmy and…
Why former business bosses aren’t always the best office-bearers
You’d be forgiven for assuming former business people were the perfect strata committee office-bearers – especially if they have taken early retirement and still have a lot of energy to…
Airbnb an answer to bushfire home losses, says expert
One of Australia’s highest-profile property investment experts says that Airbnb hosts might hold the answer to the loss of houses in the recent bushfires … by returning holiday homes to…
Burning issue – OCN seminar on new fire regs
There are few phrases that send more of a chill thorough the hearts of strata owners than the words “fire safety”. Whether you’re in an old building badly in need…
Steamed up about new hot water meters
Are your hot water bills individual or collective? Do you pay depending on how often you shower or your unit’s size and number of rooms? Could you, for instance, be…
Flat Chat Wrap 59 – Fire and rain, gym hijackers and paying for repairs
In this week’s podcast, with the East Coast states of Australia only just having survived the bushfires, we are now dealing with torrential rain and floods. Sue has contacted the…
Loan or levies – why can’t we use both when finances are forced?
While 2020 is likely to snare yet more strata owners in the must-pay trap of defects rectifications, there is a giant hole in most states’ strata laws that make it…
From the Forum: Are gym trainers profiting from your assets
Apartment block gyms are great assets for residents – especially if they are well equipped and maintained. But they are common property – there for everyone’s use. So what do…
PODCAST 58 – Dogs in pools and nullifying nutty neighbours
This week’s podcast topics have come straight off our front page and our Forum. For instance, how would you feel if an owner started allowing – maybe even encouraging –…
‘Forced sale’ laws breathe new life into old blocks
Last year’s slump in apartment sales may have saved some of Sydney’s older apartment blocks from demolition and replacement by something shiny and new … and apartment owners are looking…
The strange case of the dog in the pool
The war between pet lovers and pet haters in Australia’s strata schemes has a new battleground – the communal swimming pool. Actually, as a Flatchatter has written to tell us,…
Sustainable unit block sold for Airbnb hotel
An award-winning sustainable apartment block has just been sold in its entirety to an investor … who plans to use it for Airbnb holiday lets. According to a story on…
ROUNDUP: What’s the rule on catch-all by-laws?
There’s an interesting twist on the question of by-laws and rules that came in the other day – can the owners corp create enabling by-laws that allow them to create…
Strata vote shambles leads to shipstorm of strife
Here’s an all-too typical tale of strata power struggles, law-bending, alleged vote-rigging and a Trumpian inability by key players to accept that they might have got it wrong. I’m not…
PODCAST 57 – Will banks deny loans based on dodgy developer data?
Sue Williams is back in the Flat Chat Wrap co-chair this week as we discuss the proposed Dodgy Developer Database announced by the NSW government last week. Sue reckons it…
Register and log-in … we’re back on track
Editing a website is a bit like driving a train – everything seems to be working fine until you look behind you and realise you don’t have any passengers. And…
‘Fun police’ jibe as $1100 fines threatened over noisy kids
A story about a strata management company threatening residents in an apartment building with $1100 fines if playing children make too much noise is bouncing around the internet. The story made…