Podcast: Strata scandal right on our doorstep
In this week’s podcast we find ourselves victims of the kind of scams we have been warning people about for a couple of years. We are about to go to…
rort
Unit buyers beware – the Qld disease is spreading
The true extent of the price apartment owners pay in Queensland due to its distorted management rights system is becoming apparent. And even more alarming, it looks like the “Queensland…
Long and short of the Qld caretaker con-trick
We’re giving a fair amount of space to Queensland caretaker management rights at the moment, and that’s for two very good reasons. Firstly there is a multimillion-dollar rort of strata…
Newbies get one shot at curbing locked-in rorts
Let’s be clear about this, if you have bought into an off-the-plan apartment, or a brand new one that hasn’t held its first AGM yet, you have one chance to…
Podcast: Buying and selling the air above us
We are all used to being told that we only own the air inside our apartments’ walls, although not the walls themselves, depending on which uniquely quirky set of strata…
Pouring chilled water on the govt ‘gift’ to strata
It’s starting to feel like strata in NSW is one big marginal electoral constituency – except the government can’t give apartment dwellers sports stadia and railway stations. What they can…
Qld strata: Confusing one day, corrupted the next
Even with interstate travel restrictions tightening, rather than easing, we can be pretty sure that travel within Australia will be possible before international destinations come back on line. With that…
Strata charges – a question of cheques and balances
How much can you – or should you – trust the professionals who are contracted by your owners corporation? Bearing in mind the major factors at play here – owners’…
Return of the dodgy developer
Just when we started to believe property developers could be trusted, writes Jimmy Thomson, the grubbier, greedier figures lurking in the shadows of the industry have been exposed. When NSW…
Redefining off-the-plan rorts
Here are a few new definitions for your strata dictionaries: Sunset clawbacks: Where a developer in a ‘hot’ market allows a project to over-run its “build-by” date, uses the sunset clause…