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…
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From the Forum: Strata manager charges have 10 pages of “extras”
Your strata scheme is in disarray, the strata manager doesn’t know what they’re doing (or doesn’t care … or both). There hasn’t been a committee election for years and nobody…
From the Forum – Ratings sites for blocks, managers and agents
There’s an idea that‘s been floating around for a while now, that we should have a ratings website for good and bad apartment blocks and/or strata managers and rental agents.…
Roundup: We’re back … with the odd hiccup
It’s been a tough week at Flat Chat Central. Our fabulous website developers (Liveby5) have been working overtime to fix a range of problems that have been increasingly causing irritating…
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…
Roundup: Cladding and parking top your responses
Our invitation in our last newsletter for you to suggest new topics for us to write about brought a few suggestions. That’s not to say that there’s a shortage of…
Roundup: Your strata questions take the cake again
There’s so much going on in the website this week that having a Roundup at all seems like icing on a very big cake … or is it over-egging the…
Roundup: And the answer is … the Forum
Usually on the weekly Roundup, I start with a story that’s caught my eye or piqued my curiosity and then lead into the best of the questions on the Forum.…
Roundup: The buck doesn’t stop here … or there
I should really call this week’s roundup the “runaroundup”, considering the way various government departments have had me pinging around like a pinball. A couple of weeks ago, I asked…
Roundup: power brokers, smokers and slackers
Purely coincidentally, in a week where my column in the AFR was banging on about untrained volunteers running massive budgets in their blocks, while competent professionals are too busy to…
Roundup: Should neighbours be given your email address?
Do you guard your email address like it’s a secret code to your bank account. Or do you spread it around like confetti? One of the recurring questions on the…
Roundup: Are you being locked out of cheaper power bills?
Are you being balked whenever you try to take advantage of some of the competitive offers from power companies? It seems some developers and a few not very smart strata…
Roundup: When business bags your parking spots
The often irreconcilable differences between strata residents and commercial operators in the same scheme are to the fore in the Flat Chat Forum this week, with two tales with sadly…
Roundup: The votes are in – noise annoys you most
Guess what! The thing that annoys us most about each other, is noise. Who knew? Far and away the most popular choice in our fun quiz about what irritates us…
Roundup: What made this baby so grumpy?
I couldn’t resist! Some of you missed out on this picture of what must be the grumpiest baby in the world. Due to various bits of new software it didn’t…
Roundup: Your questions … on radio and right here
We were on radio again for the first time for a while last week and we had our usual crop of confused, angry, irritated and frustrated flat owners. One bloke…
Roundup: Confusion as flawed laws revealed
Another week, and the steady trickle of confusion in our daily strata lives is gradually turning into a flood of frustration. Just skimming this website would be enough to give…
Four essential questions for a first AGM
Strata buildings’ AGMs can happen at virtually any point on the calendar but the beginning of the year is a peak period for those occasionally tempestuous, often tepid, always rare…