High cost of choosing pros who tell porkies
We are conditioned to trust professionals, especially when they tell us what we want to hear. But what happens when they betray that trust and it costs us money, time,…
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Podcast: Two alarms over fire safety in apartments
This week the pod takes a deep dive into the murky waters of fire safety, how we ignore it at our considerable peril and how this essential part of our…
Is this the last gasp for Qld balcony smokers?
Balcony smokers in Queensland could be forced to take their habit indoors after a ruling by the state’s Body Corporate Commission that an apartment resident must smoke inside her unit…
Used RAT kits in unit block bio-hazard warning
As more and more of us are turning to Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs), if only to reassure ourselves that we don’t have Covid-19, apartment block managers are having to deal…
Cut-price construction is a false economy
When it comes to cutting corners, skimping on construction costs in strata buildings is one of the most flawed false economies in our world. But while some outcomes are more…
Forum: Time to rewrite strata manager contracts?
The standard strata management agreement – as issued by Strata Community Australia – is a brute of a document. And while it’s not an mandatory form as, for instance, the…
What the pandemic has taught us about ourselves
There’s a quirky UK comedy series on TV called Taskmaster, in which five comedians are set a series of bizarre physical and logical challenges, usually with hilarious results. At the…
Apartment blocks getting wired-up about EVs
Apartment buildings throughout Australia are racing to install electric vehicle-charging systems in their garages even though many still have no electric car-owners – or, at most, just one, writes Sue…
Airbnb ‘won’t name renter of trashed unit to police’
Just a few weeks since the much-vaunted short-term letting register and code of conduct became law, Riot Squad police have twice been called in to break up violent and destructive…
Strata isn’t fixed – and it’s in the wrong ministry
When Dominic Perrottet announced his new cabinet last week, it wasn’t the changes at the top that drew most attention from apartment owners and strata professionals. It was one near…
When our property market became a space race
Space: the final frontier – or, for those in the Sydney property market over the past year, the financial frontier. For the biggest trend in pandemic-plagued 2021 has turned out…
It’s party time: How to go wild but not feral
It’s safe to say that our New Year’s Eve parties will be different this year. For a start, it will be just over two weeks since social gathering restrictions in…