State on brink of flood cover insurance crisis
Strata Community Association Queensland (SCAQ) has issued a stark warning: without urgent state involvement, flood insurance will become unviable.
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Forum: Spare keys and emergency access
A reader asks, if you don't leave spare keys with someone, are you obstructing access to your flat in an emergency when you're not there?
Qld laws blocking relief for flooded residents
Relief and compensation for apartment owners whose homes were destroyed by Queensland’s floods are being blocked because of outdated laws that prevent the sale of apartment blocks unless all owners…
Huge flood damage bills flow on to Owners Corps
Water leaks and faulty waterproofing are the bane of strata residents and managements’ lives. Modern buildings are designed to withstand a fair amount of rain but the recent downpours across…
After the deluge: when mould takes hold
With impeccable timing, given the OCN webinar on waterproofing today (Wednesday, April 6), here’s a Sydney Morning Herald Lifestyle section report by Sue Williams about how mould can come into…
Greens demand airbnbs to house flood victims
NSW Greens are calling on the state government to drag airbnb-style holiday rental properties back into the residential tenancies market to ease a severe housing crisis caused by the catastrophic…
Forum: A warning about issuing warnings
I have to admit I’m feeling unusually smug this week – but that’s what happens when you get things so precisely right it feels like there was a betting fix…
Forum: Under water but over-insured
It’s not often that you hear people complaining about being over-insured but, hey, this is strata and anything can happen. In a nutshell, an owner installed a nice new timber…
Forum: Reno nightmare owner selling up
This week’s lead Forum post is a strata nightmare. It starts when a hobby renovator undertakes a major revamp of his flat, knocking down walls, adding staircases, shifting rooms, ripping…
Forum: Cheap insurance leaves owner under water
There an annoying piece of nonsense that repeatedly comes up in strata – and nobody ever seems to learn. What happens is that there’s a fault in common property that…
PODCAST 59 – Fire and rain, gym hijackers and paying for repairs
In this week’s podcast, with the East Coast states of Australia only just having survived the bushfires, we are now dealing with torrential rain and floods. Sue has contacted the…
Who pays when upstairs kitchen floods?
Who picks up the bill when a two flats are flooded by a defective dishwasher and neither party is insured? The question was raised by Flatchatter “Powers That Be”, a…