Roundup: Strata rogue and an offer you CAN refuse
Remember the rogue developer who is basically making up the rules as he goes? Apparently this chump has now sold enough units to trigger the first AGM but thinks he…
Co-op housing: working together to live better
James Brown, Chief Executive of Common Equity NSW, the peak body for housing co-operatives in the state, explains why Australia should be looking at a collective response to a community problem. Co-Op…
Affordable housing: The only way is ethics
Is there anybody in the housing industry who is more interested in doing what it says on their tin – housing people – than making money regardless of the social…
Roundup: Rights, wrongs and the law of diminishing returns
There’s a good old whinge in the Forum this week. An owner has spent $30,000 in a legal battle with the Owners Corp and expects to spend the same again…
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…