Podcast: What a great year … for pets and renters
This week’s podcast may be the first of 2021 but 2020 doesn’t get away that easily. Last year will be remembered in global politics as the year of Brexit, Trump,…
defects
Building pressure as more developers cut and run
A story in the Sydney Morning Herald last week should have sent an unseasonal chill through the corridors of NSW Fair Trading and the whole of the state Government. In…
Online guide blazes trail through defects jungle
A new interactive, user-friendly online guide will help current and future apartment owners discover and deal with building defects, say its authors. Launched this week, the step-by-step guide, devised by…
Commissioner’s lifeline on new-build defects
Owners corporations in relatively new buildings deciding whether to fix building defects themselves or take recalcitrant developers to court – at huge expense and with no guarantee of success –…
Podcast 91: Crackdown on dud developers hits home
We have one of our longest ever Flat Chat Wrap podcasts this week, but it’s all good so brace yourselves, pace yourselves and buckle up for some interesting material from…
Building regs come back to bite gov in new Opal claim
The government’s new regulations on building defects may have come back to bite them on the bum, with owners of apartments in the infamous Opal Tower in Sydney suing the…
Podcast 79 – bad pads, fams and James Valentine
It’s a bumper edition of the Flat Chat Wrap this week, boosted by an extract from JimmyT’s guest spot on James Valentine’s Afternoons on ABC radio. But first Jimmy and…
‘Abominable’ tower was last straw on defects
An apartment block described by its developers as one of its “architectural landmarks of the finest standard” has been outed by NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler as the “straw that…
Upper House report slams Government on cladding, defects and reforms
A NSW Upper House committee has slammed the NSW State government over alleged failures in three key areas all of which are directly related to apartment living. The government is…
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…
Same old story as phoenix frauds ‘exposed’ yet again
There’s much less fun than there ought to be in saying “we told you so” – possibly because it implies that the bad thing we told you was going to…
The claim game – detecting defects is just the beginning
You’ve just bought into a new apartment block and cracks have started to appear, or the roof leaks when it rains, or the fire safety measures wouldn’t stop a tea…
Opal chair reveals his year of dealing with disaster
It’s the kind of bad dream that has strata chairs waking up in a cold sweat; being thrust into the heart of a very public building disaster, with residents thrown…
From the Forum: fire regs, air cons and limits on tenant numbers
Particularly at this time when half the country seems to be going uip in flames, fire safety seems to be more relevant than ever. So imagine you are in a…
Flat Chat Wrap 48 – Flats grow, Government ducks, Airbnb strife
We cover a lot of ground in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap, starting with the surprising news that new apartments are getting bigger while houses are getting smaller. Is it…
PODCAST – Flats get bigger, Government ducks, Airbnb in strife
We cover a lot of ground in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap, starting with the surprising news that new apartments are getting bigger while houses are getting smaller. Is it…
Flat Chat Wrap #46 – cracking down on by-law breachers and bad builders
JimmyT thinks of changing the name of this week’s episode to Hard Chat (but won’t because he’s scared of Tom Gleason) as he’s going in hard on two very different…
Building expert: defects plan is deeply flawed
The NSW government’s plans to construct our apartment buildings better in the future, released last week, were met with a universal outpouring of … well … whatever the opposite of…