Budget builders’ house of cards
It’s more usual for this column to get complaints about Owners Corporations not doing repairs. This week the issue is over who they are getting to do them. QUESTION: The…
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Costing your comfort zone
We all know we’re in the middle of a rental crisis but how much do you get for your dollar when you do find a place? You’d be surprised; there’s…
Picked on for drop-offs
QUESTION: I rent a townhouse where, because of limited spaces in our parking lot at the back, most of us tend to park at our front doors, on common property.…
A law unto themselves
My neighbour plays his banjo on his balcony, smokes by the swimming pool and stores stuff in his car space. Surely this is against the by-laws. – Irritated, Illawarra. OK,…
Funk over dumped junk
QUESTION: A tenant moved out and left piles of junk, four sofas, four mattresses and 10 rubbish bags full of clothes. I know which unit was listed for lease and…
Double downsize eases squeeze
The future is here. Our better run strata blocks are already looking forward, asking what kind of building they want to be in five or ten years and, crucially, how…
Lazy parkers face eviction
QUESTION: Our apartment block has external garages accessed by common property, Tenants park outside their garages – presumably because they can’t be bothered to enter. However, because we are right…
The beat goes on … an on
Nobody wants to discourage young musicians from nurturing their talents but it depends who is playing what and where and how often. QUESTION: The teenage son of a neighbour directly…
Ignorance not bliss in unapproved inprovements
I was posed a tricky question by a strata manager the other day: An owner replaces the common property sliding doors on to his balcony with much more sophisticated and…
The bro must go
QUESTION: When I rented my current share flat, my roomie told me he would only be there three or four nights a week, which was one of the reasons I…
Cage fight over parking space
This is an version, edited for publication, of a question that appears in full elsewhere in this Forum. QUESTION: We have a new owner in our block who wants to…
Garage gate grind
This is a version, edited for publication, of a question that appears in full elsewhere in this Forum. QUESTION: I rent a unit directly over the block’s electric garage door.…