Oh my goodness! Every so often I think, sooner or later, most of the problems in StrataLand will have been resolved, everybody will know what they’re doing, all the questions will have been answered and I can quietly pack up my tent or, at least, find another way of annoying politicians, developers and autocratic strata chairs.
Then I get week like the last one. At a time when we should all have been focussed on the federal election or, at the very least, the finale of Game of Thrones, the Forum has been under siege.
No fewer than 15 completely new topics have been started in the past seven days – which I’m sure is some kind of record – plus there have been scores of other contributions to running discussions.
And while they tend to be in and around the usual areas of concern, some of the questions have taken completely new twists.
For instance, the committee in a strata scheme has issued a ban on children under 16 using the swimming pool. And they have introduced a biometric, fingerprint-based keyless entry system, so you can’t just slip the kids the keys.
And this was all allegedly done without an agenda or minutes of a meeting. Can they do that? And if not, how can you stop them? That’s HERE.
And here are a few more questions from a very busy forum …
- You’ve been complaining about a smell of gas for months but the owners corp does nothing and your bills go through the roof. Finally, they discover a gas leak. Can you ask for compensation for the excess payments? That’s HERE.
- What do you do when several owners want to extend into common property, paying for the privilege, and the owners corp wants them to do it because the building needs the money for maintenance bills, however, the calculation for compensation seems punitive? That’s HERE.
- A timber deck on a balcony is common property but it’s rotting away, probably because the drains haven’t been cleared by the lot owner. Who pays for the repairs? That’s HERE.
- A strata newbie’s townhouse roof needed urgent repairs so he went ahead and fixed it. Only much later he’s realised the owners corp should have paid for it as it’s common property. Can he claim any money back? That’s HERE.
- Owners have been given permission for a major renovation – but now it’s clear they are going way beyond what was approved, adding a room and changing the whole floor plan of their flat. Can they be stopped, and how? That’s HERE.
- And there’s a response to our strata manager podcast last week, asking – generally speaking – how a strata manager employed by a developer to set up a scheme, who is then also employed by the new owners of the apartments, can be trusted when it comes to claiming defects? That’s HERE.
As I said, there are a lot more new questions on the Forum, and plenty of discussion to go with them. And there will probably be even more by the time you read this.
Check out the Forum for yourself and if you haven’t already done so, we suggest you subscribe to our weekly newsletter – it’s completely free – and you won’t miss a thing.
Oh, and spoiler alert! Scott Morrison is sitting on the Iron Throne.