Roundup: Mystery tapping had a criminal cause
Tap, tap, tap. The sound had been driving neighbours mad. Every night from midnight for several hours, the people in one of the top floor flats would come home and…
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How I failed to stay calm and write a submission on Airbnb
The NSW state government has called for submissions responding to their Options Paper on legislation to govern the rapid expansion of short-term holiday letting in residential homes. My view of…
Is flammable cladding such a big deal after all?
The NSW state government has sent out the first 800 letters to apartment buildings to find out which of them has dangerous inflammable cladding. What happens if you say yes?…
Roundup: Daylight robbery by commercial lot owners
Think things are less-than-perfect in your strata scheme? There’s a full-blown nightmare scenario happening right now in Sydney city. The scheme is dominated by commercial lots that have somehow (probably…
Why Flat Chat moved house
After 13 years in the Domain section of the Sydney Morning Herald, Flat Chat has flitted to the Saturday edition of the Australia Financial Review and new readership, new challenges…
How to avoid buying a high-rise lemon
Flat Chat is now appearing in the Australian Financial Review, both in print and online at weekends. This is the first column in its new home. With recent revelation that…
Capital works and avoiding that sinking feeling
Do you “get” the capital works fund? No, me neither and neither do all those committee members around the state who think a spreadsheet is something you put over the…
Roundup: Guess who pays when new cladding task force finds blocks at risk
There we were, sitting down to compose our submissions on holiday letting (again!), when the State government announced its proposals for dealing with inflammable cladding on high-rise blocks. The same…
Barbie and smoking bans could cut crippling cladding costs
Bans on smoking and removing barbecues from balconies could be a low-cost option for apartment owners as the State government plans to force buildings with inflammable cladding to own up…
Roundup: Elevated anger over lifts that never arrive
Ever wondered why you always seem to be waiting ages for the lifts in your building? Maybe the lady upstairs is holding it for her partner while he hunts for…
Short-term letting: may the Astroturfing wars begin
The key word in the coming months of argy-bargy over the various options in the holiday letting proposals is Astroturfing – meaning a fake grassroots campaign. In an Astroturfing campaign,…
Big guns line up to shoot down holiday let legislation
New holiday letting law proposals have been caught in the crossfire from both online holiday letting agencies – Airbnb and Stayz – which have lined up to shoot down the…