Four-year fight shuts door on inspection that never was
A NSW Owners Corporation has been forced to meet its common property obligations, after a four year battle with one of the property owners over a sliding door and an…
Alarm as Fireys levy sparks strata fears
A wave of panic has run through StrataLand in the past couple of weeks – hardly a tsunami but more than a ripple – with the news that the Fire…
Look out! They’re going to tax your view
They say you don’t own the view from your apartment but a scheme has been launched today to allow apartment blocks to register their vistas … provided they are prepared…
Flat Chat: How off-the-plan buys went off the boil
There was a time when buying off the plan was a gamble well worth taking. Investors and ordinary home buyers with a good sense of where the property market was…
Roundup: Monstered by tradies with trucks
I was in at the ABC doing my strata spot with James Valentine the other day and the question of monster trucks and the increasing squeeze in apartment block car…
Why Airbnb is nothing like Uber
As Airbnb pumps bucks by the bucketful into the local media to try to convince our MPs to remove the legal right of apartment owners to keep holiday lets out…
Winners and losers – the five main options for Airbnb laws
As D-Day approaches for holiday let legislation to be tabled in the NSW parliament, Jimmy Thomson looks at the five main options currently under discussion – and examines the likely…
City hosts strata living workshops
Sydneysiders can learn how to get the most out of apartment living in a series of free interactive workshops for apartment residents, organised by City of Sydney. The City has…
Roundup: Same-same strata shame in Singapore
Flat Chat has just returned from Singapore where they know a bit about building lots and lots of apartments for their booming populations – and face many of the same…
Strata management giant slugs unit owners millions
More than 200,000 unit owners have been slugged with compulsory ‘compliance fees’ potentially totalling millions of dollars, that critics have branded ‘gouging’. And the NSW Government Minister in charge of…
How to beat balcony bombers
Of all the neighbours in apartment blocks who can turn tolerant, accommodating, reasonable residents into screaming psychopaths, it’s not all-night party people, or weekend hobby home renovators, or barking dog…
Roundup: The upside of apartment living
We’ve been doing a fair bit of trumpet-blowing this week, what with being praised in state parliament, podcasts of our radio chats and all that. So, while we have our…