PODCAST 52 – Our strata year of living dangerously
It’s getting to the end of the year so we thought we’d look back at the last 12 months of apartment living in Australia. Unfortunately, there seem to be a…
Opal
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…
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…
Why Opal owners are really suing the state government
News that residents of the Opal Towers are planning to sue the State Government over its alleged failure to guarantee the building standards of their crumbling apartment block may be…
Time we had a Tripadvisor for unit block builders?
With defects on the minds of everyone in the apartment world, there’s a whole lot of finger pointing going on. Developers are saying engineers should be certified, strata owners say…
Forensic research – your best hope for not buying a high-rise lemon
With state planning ministers meeting this month, informed in part by a behind-closed-doors meeting of development “stakeholders” in NSW last week, you can be sure that building defects in their…
Boycott: Is it time we had an off-the-plan ban?
The advice from Owners Corporation Network spokesman Stephen Goddard could not have been more blunt: Don’t buy apartments off the plan. His actual words in an opinion piece in the…
Opal Tower owners don’t know how lucky they are
The owners of apartments in the now notorious Opal Tower probably don’t realise it, but they are lucky. Obviously, it was bad luck that supporting walls in their building in…
Flat Chat Wrap #12 – The ups and downs of apartment living with Sydney MP Alex Greenwich
Talking apartments, Airbnb, pets, the Opal, defects, cladding and all things apartment related with Sydney MP Alex Greenwich
Opportunists swoop and buyers walk as apartment prices plummet
Apartment owners trying to sell out of the now notorious Opal Tower block are being offered knock-down prices for their apartments, according to newspaper and online news reports. And neighbouring…
Opal report targets beams as well as panels
Significant rectification works will be needed in the beleaguered Opal Tower in Sydney’s Olympic Park.to repair and strengthen damaged hob beams and in some cases the panels that rest on…
Roundup: An answer for both the Opal and Airbnb
Hold your applause, folks, but I think I’ve come up with a solution to both the Opal Tower crisis and the blight of Airbnb on our apartment blocks. See, maybe…
Flat Chat Wrap #8 – The crumbling Opal Tower and the whole defects disaster
JimmyT and Sue Williams ask the questions everyone else is avoiding, and provide the answers people need to hear, about the Opal Tower in Sydney and the whole defects disaster…
It’s the system, not the certifiers, say engineers
By Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson Someone will have to die before the NSW Government properly fixes the system for making sure high-rise buildings are constructed safely, a leading Australian…
Unit owners face defect bills of $100k-plus EACH
The residents of the Opal building don’t know how lucky they are. The fact that they have both high-profile and respected developers and builders involved – plus the public attention…
Roundup: Opal mining and balcony madness
Happy New Year! A great deal of attention for the last week has been focussed on the Opal Tower crisis, for good reason. But it’s not just the cracks in…
On TV talking cracks in the Opal
Despite having a great head for radio, I was enticed on to TV last Saturday (Dec 29) to talk building cracks with Professor Mark Hoffman (one of the engineers called…
Cracks in Opal block reveal holes in strata protections
OK, nobody died, but this was a pretty grim Christmas for the residents and owners of the Opal Tower in Sydney’s Olympic Park. Many of them were evacuated from their…