Podcast: Reno regrets and free strata legal advice
It’s very much a tale of two slices of strata in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast. To begin with, you can listen to two over-privileged, entitled professionals (us) whingeing…
renovation
When is a bathroom not really a bathroom?
Bathroom Chronicles, Part 9 It is the most human of responses, it seems: when disaster strikes, you go looking for someone to blame. The disaster in this case is bathroom…
Podcast 97: Renovation – best-laid plans (and tiles)
It’s renovations all the way in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap as we chat about a Forum post asking what can be done about a disastrous and unauthorised renovation, now…
Forum: Reno nightmare owner selling up
This week’s lead Forum post is a strata nightmare. It starts when a hobby renovator undertakes a major revamp of his flat, knocking down walls, adding staircases, shifting rooms, ripping…
That sinking feeling and the insanity of vanities
Part 4 in the Bathroom Chronicles Choosing bathroom fittings is like starting an online dating relationship with someone who seems smart and stylish at first but turns out to be…
Why self-financed upgrade could only happen in NSW
A small one-bedroom flat in North Bondi was listed for auction last week, with the vendors hoping for about $800,000 when it goes to auction early next month. Nothing very…
Five stages of bathroom renovation grief
It’s been about a month since we decided to renovate our 20-year-old bathrooms and we are going through something that is akin to the five stages of grief. Except, instead…
Forum: Space invader demands squatters rights
It’s amazing how often this old chestnut comes up and it reminds me of friends who had a “creative” young chap move into their small 1930s walk-up and announce he…
Podcast: Email privacy & Afternoons radio with JV
This week’s podcast takes a look at an area of strata life where strata managers could be breaking the law … because apartment-owning clients want them to. We’re talking about…
Wins for Vic residents as lockdown renos halted
There have been two pieces of very rare good news for Victorian strata owners and residents, in the past week. The state government has extended the defect claims period for…
‘Dream’ bathroom project: the nightmare begins
There comes a point in the life of every apartment when you have clear-cut choices – renovate your kitchen or bathrooms, or leave them exactly as they are in the…
How to game the home reno grants and win
If you’re wondering if you can take advantage of the government’s HomeBuilder renovation grant to improve your investment property, the simple answer is no. But it could be used to…
Mutually assured distraction … working AT home or ON your home
If there was going to be anywhere in these long days of lockdown that mutually exclusive wants and needs were going to butt up against each other, it was apartments.…
‘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…
From the Forum: Airbnb budget by-law and four reno posers
We’re taking moment before our Forum questions this week to urge you not to miss the opportunity to get a cut-price, off-the-peg by-law to prevent Airbnb and other short-term holiday…
Why pre-sale renos could be bad planning
For any prospective home buyer with a skerrick of visual imagination, a rundown home is a massive canvas on which to express themselves. That might apply to apartments even more…