Foster or adopt – a pet could end your isolation
As we are all still being advised to stay at home if we can, there is only so much TV you can watch on your own, and so many cute…
New rules on rent relief and evictions announced
Since at least half of the residents in strata are renters (meaning about half of the properties are owned by landlords) the recent announcements about the moratorium on evictions and…
Airbnb ‘ban’ and the Code of Conduct clusterfunk
It was late in the afternoon on Friday, April 3 that we got the tip-off … the long-awaited, much-discussed and hugely haggled-over Code of Conduct for short-term rental hosts had…
Podcast 68: Six months of Sundays, classic movies, perfect pods
In this week’s Flat Chat Wrap. Jimmy and Sue look at the wealth of good advice about how to get through this crisis without the whole system falling around our…
Strata managers step up with info and advice
Monitoring cleaning services, supporting owners who are struggling to pay their levies, keeping track of the disputes procedures, keeping contractors and service providers afloat, advising on the use of communal…
Unintended consequences of late levies – lost jobs and voting rights
There’s a lot of chat at the moment about the pressure on people to pay levies when they might have lost their job or their income has been reduced. I…
From the Forum: Can we block unit sub-division?
There’s been a flurry of activity on the Forum this week, as regular readers find they have time to ask and answer all those question that have been nagging at…
Podcast 67: Airbnb bugged, gym junkies fret … and fun
In this week’s extra-long Flat Chat Wrap, obsession with coronavirus is spreading like, well, a virus. Jimmy and Sue discuss how it may be having a crippling effect on that…
How to manage strata finances if levies dry up
There’s a lot of talk around at the moment about rent and mortgage support, to help individuals and families whose income has been hit by the coronavirus. We touched on…
Surviving and thriving as the world shuts down
Last week we invited our sponsors to let us know what we can do to make life easier during these restricted days, and maybe even to find some positives that…
Working from home works … but only for some
Between social distancing, self-isolation and plain old working from home, there are a lot more people around apartment blocks during the day than there were only a few weeks ago.…
D-Day looms for Airbnb apartment ban by-laws
D-Day for apartment blocks in holiday areas of NSW is just around the corner – where D stands for “Dump short-term letting”. On April 10, the new NSW strata regulations…