Rant: To the barricades … or the pub?
Another week in StrataLand and another selection of questions on Flat Chat – some new, some returns to old favourites and a few that are frankly well out of left…
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Dear idiot: How to manage angry emails
When is a determined owner an email pest? Or, to put it another way, how do you tell the difference between someone with a legitimate complaint, who won’t let it…
New strata laws explained
We seem to have been talking about strata law changes for the last 100 years and certainly we are on the brink of the biggest shake-up of strata law in…
Strata troublemakers nailed
Are you a criminal, a rebel or a know-all? Or is it your neighbour who’s one of apartment living’s permanent pests and constant troublemakers. Strata lawyer Amanda Farmer, founder member…
How can you put a strata pro in charge?
How bad does your strata committee have to be before a tribunal will sack them and appoint a strata manager to take over? If you can’t vote the committee out,…
Recycle bikes – even if you’re breaking the law
A friend got a bike over Christmas. Nothing fancy – just a second-hand 12-speed rattler with sit-up handlebars and a basket on the front. When she approached her building manager…
NCAT: New name, same problems?
Way back in the early days of Flat Chat – about 11 years ago – I wrote a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald called “Send In The Clowns” which…
Time running out for balcony barbecues
The new NSW legislation due to come in mid-year doesn’t specifically ban balcony barbecues – or even barbecue smoke – but it does make it a lot easier for those…
Owners balk at booting Auntie out of her flat
The Auntie Mabels of Strataland can sleep a little more soundly. For all the huffing and puffing about forced sales of apartments, the big bad wolves of property development won’t…
How to choose a new strata manager
That old saying of “better the devil you know” rarely applies more than in your choice of strata managers. But if, like one Flat Chat reader, your strata manager’s contract…
Why poor areas will miss out on urban renewal
Owners of units in crumbling apartment blocks in poorer areas of Sydney may be stuck with them indefinitely, according to a new report, while their better-off counterparts in in more…
High Rise: When fiction was a prediction
Imagine a 40-storey high-rise building beset by all the usual minor irritations – noisy parties, petty rules and restrictions, privileges for the rich on the upper floors, the occasional champagne…