Podcast: Council cops unit block defects orders
We’re going interstate and all-ages in this week’s mixed bag but we start with a council on Sydney’s North Shore that has been served with a repair order for defects in…
Strata Defects
They range from minor issues with finishes to major structural and fire safety problems – and when repairs are rwuired , the buck stops with the owners. Hers are hundreds of posts that track the failures of the past and the current efforts to create a less defective future.
Up to five more Mascots facing possible disaster
There could be as many as five apartment blocks in NSW teetering on the brink of forced evacuation – as befell the Mascot and Opal Towers four years ago –…
Later deadline for help with recent-build defects
Okay, you can stop panicking … for now. If your strata committee hasn’t applied for help with new or recent block building defects through the NSW government’s Project Intervene, the…
Defects and cladding help deadlines looming
There are two very important deadlines coming up for strata schemes in NSW – both on June 30, this year and both demanding immediate attention from affected schemes. In one,…
Deadline near for free defects repairs program
Owners in NSW apartment blocks that are under six years old and have unaddressed defects have only two months to register their scheme under the Project Intervene program to have…
Huge flood damage bills flow on to Owners Corps
Water leaks and faulty waterproofing are the bane of strata residents and managements’ lives. Modern buildings are designed to withstand a fair amount of rain but the recent downpours across…
No more panic evacs from crisis-hit blocks
EXCLUSIVE: The days of immediately ordering all the residents out of blocks, even where major, potentially life-threatening problems have been discovered, could be a thing of the past thanks to…
Podcast: Chandler’s rating has starring role
This week’s podcast is mostly (but not entirely) focussed on an announcement we believe is going to change the way we buy apartments in NSW and probably across Australia. Last…
Podcast: Are we heading back to the bad old days?
We are in a state of shock here at Flat Chat, wondering if, when David Chandler and Victor Dominello both go, and with dodgy developers already circling the bleeding carcass…
Podcast: The many sins of commission at Fair Trading
If there is one area of NSW Liberal politics that may be glad that the kerfuffle over the appointment of a trade envoy to New York is drawing so much…
Missing Mascot papers prove value of the Hub
As if the former residents of Mascot Towers in Sydney weren’t doing it tough enough, last month they received another blow and it’s one that smacks of local government incompetence,…
Saving lives not levies on old balcony balustrades
There used to be a general principle in strata that even if your old balcony balustrades weren’t up to current standards, you didn’t need to fix them unless there was…