Lannock offer to cladding blocks as lender backs off
The announcement that one of the country’s biggest non-bank mortgage lenders will refuse to finance the purchase of apartments known or suspected of having flammable cladding on or in their…
Strata email stoush leads to $120k damages
There’s a lesson for anyone who’s ever tempted to fire off an angry, sarcastic or frustrated email to their strata committee – a defamation case over emails has cost one…
From the Forum: Biometric blue as kids banned from pool
Oh my goodness! Every so often I think, sooner or later, most of the problems in StrataLand will have been resolved, everybody will know what they’re doing, all the questions…
PODCAST: Working out how to make the most of your unit block gym
Our article this week about the fabulous Parker rental apartment complex in Alexandria, Washington DC, got me thinking about the facilities that are intended to entice us to buy and…
Dog parks, virtual golf and club rooms – the future of apartment living
There is a growing division in the world of apartment living and it’s not, for a change, between owners and renters. It’s between the haves and the have-nots. There are…
From the Forum: Treasurer pumping cash for dubious rent of space
There are times when strata committee office-bearers get themselves into trouble for no good reason, like simply failing to keep their paperwork up to date. And there are others when…
PODCAST: Silly by-laws to sex orgies – a strata manager reveals all
When Flat Chat started about 15 years ago, strata managers were (we thought) public enemy number one. And it’s more than likely the feeling was mutual. We won’t go into…
Owners in nine blocks told to check slabs over suspect engineering
Owners in nine different apartment blocks have been ordered to have their building structures checked because of concerns about the way they were constructed. The blocks, in Darwin and nearby…
What to do when your door lock is spying on you
A couple of weeks ago, in the Flat Chat Wrap podcast, we talked about a woman in a Sydney apartment block who was locked out of her building when she…
Profits of doom – can we afford not to build affordable housing?
In the heat of an election campaign when the threat to property investors’ tax breaks if Labor wins power is seen as a fundamental challenge to both house prices and…
From the Forum – Flap over funny finances
Most of the arguments in strata come down to money. Even disputes over visitor parking end up with “I own a share of this and visitors haven’t paid a cent…
Playing the age card to woo younger residents
The property developers lobby group the Urban Taskforce has taken a radical step towards setting the agenda over apartment building recently, with a web and Facebook campaign aimed at getting …
Podcast: Angst as Airbnb code of conduct flagged
A strange thing happened on the Flat Chat Statcounter a few weeks ago. Statcounter is the software that tells us how many people are reading the website … (more than…
Forget fast electric car chargers, the trickle-up effect is the answer
The highly charged debate about the Labor party’s post-election electric car ambitions – which turned out to be very similar to the Coalition’s pre-election electric car proposals – seems to…
From the Forum: Wired up for a power struggle
We tend to think of apartments as being shiny and new … but there are still a lot of old blocks out there that have been patched up and held…
Podcast: Why strata law changes are such a painfully long time coming
When it comes to strata law reform, it can be a long time between drinks. Victoria is just at the end of the public consultation stage of their very substantial…
Seven years on from fatal blaze, new mid-rises finally get sprinklers
It has taken almost seven years since the fatal fire in the unit block in Bankstown but as of this week, builders in NSW will be required to install automatic…
Vic strata laws set for massive shake-up
This column has often said how wonderful it would be if all the states had similar strata laws – not just to make it easier for people moving interstate, but…