Flat Chat Wrap #9 – How a pet ban led to the birth of Flat Chat
Jimmy and Sue look back at the first time they bought off the plan … and how it led to Flat Chat
strata
Unit owners face defect bills of $100k-plus EACH
The residents of the Opal building don’t know how lucky they are. The fact that they have both high-profile and respected developers and builders involved – plus the public attention…
Roundup: Opal mining and balcony madness
Happy New Year! A great deal of attention for the last week has been focussed on the Opal Tower crisis, for good reason. But it’s not just the cracks in…
Opal: Roberts steps up while Kean sidesteps strata
If there was any further evidence required of Better Regulation Minister Matt Kean’s waning interest in strata owners, it comes this week as Minister for Planning and Housing (and former…
Cracks in Opal block reveal holes in strata protections
OK, nobody died, but this was a pretty grim Christmas for the residents and owners of the Opal Tower in Sydney’s Olympic Park. Many of them were evacuated from their…
How to rid your committee of control freaks and clowns
Having lived in apartments in Australia for 30 years, I have encountered every kind of dubious committee office-holder, from the corrupt bully to the incompetent narcissist, and the hands-off passive…
Who are your strata saints and sinners for 2018?
It’s that time of year when Santa has to decide who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. And here in Flat Chat Central we were thinking, why should he have…
Failed parking ban costs owners a truckload of cash
With car parking, pets and noise continuing as the three top irritants to apartment-dwellers, it’s amazing to what lengths some people will go to try to settle disputes about parking.…
Party on! It’s time to forget your differences
If you aren’t over Christmas already, maybe you should think about having a Christmas party for your block. Although the combination of alcohol and people with long-held grievances may be…
When ‘common sense’ makes no sense at all
Common sense, that good old standby we apply to any dilemma, however complex, is the thinking equivalent of comfort food: it makes you feel better now but causes problems later.…
When bad by-laws are bullies’ blunt weapons
There are a million ways to get things wrong in strata, especially when it comes to devising the by-laws with which we try to moderate or even control the behaviour…
Pets and apartments – an interview
A couple of weeks ago our friends at Pet Insurance Australia sent us some questions about pet ownership in strata schemes, to form the basis for a feature they’ll be…