Buying into problems
The right manager could make all the difference when it comes to choosing your new apartment When you’re buying a new apartment, even when you’ve sorted out the basics –…
Losers pay on defects
While the rest of NSW lives in a ‘user pays’ society, it seems it’s a ‘loser pays’ world in Strataland especially when it comes to defects. When developers dig in…
Rumbles from the Concrete Jungle
In Strataland, like in space, no one can hear you scream. However much strata owners complain about being let down or ripped off, it seems our state government either believes…
Not sinking but drowning
Imagine what would happen to our speeding laws if there were no were no speed cameras or, indeed, speeding fines. The inevitable bloody mayhem aside, that’s pretty much the chaotic…
Cat lover in dog house
There’s always a new twist in the conflict between our love of small furry friends and our desire to live in flats. Considering the number of questions I get from…
HOW TO ORGANISE AN EC COUP
Running the executive committee of an apartment building is politics at its most fundamental level. Most ECs get along OK, but all it takes is one person to upset the…
Sound and fury – signifying nothing
Some recent rumblings from Macquarie St should have us apartment dwellers pricking up our collective ears. The first was the new neighbourhood noise laws that mean playing loud music after…
You don’t have to be big to be bad.
This column occasionally takes a pop at Big Bad Developers but there’s a breed that tends to slip under the radar – the small, independent, one-off developers who build small…
Air-con con trick
Amid all the complaints I we get about Executive Committees being too hard to deal with, occasionally we come across one that’s being way too accommodating. QUESTION: Tenants in the…
Dumb animals – dumber owners
If there’s one issue that gets Flatchat readers’ goat it’s pets. Maybe it’s because one person’s devoted companion animal and surrogate child is another’s flea-ridden, noisy, smelly and unhygienic nuisance.…
Efficient neighbours or ruthless dictators?
When is an efficient and tightly run Executive Committee a powerful, corrupt and exclusive clique? When someone wants in but can’t get in, perhaps. When ECs work efficiently, with discussions…
Floored by flawed thinking
Living underneath noisy wooden floors? That clattering of hooves you hear may just be an ill-informed strata manager running for cover. QUESTION: I live in a unit and the people…