It’s very much a tale of two slices of strata in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast. To begin with, you can listen to two over-privileged, entitled professionals (us) whingeing about what went wrong … and right … when we decided to renovate both bathrooms in our flat at once. BOTH bathrooms? “When I was […]

While some strata schemes struggle to deal with the fact that their “no pets” by-laws have been rendered obsolete by the recent NSW Court  of Appeal ruling, others seem to have decided to pretend it never happened. Our Flatchatter Stringer was hoping that the ruling by the Court of Appeal that the no-pets by-law in […]

A free legal service set up for strata owner-residents has been overwhelmed by appeals for assistance due to covid-19 lockdowns and lay-offs. Marrickville Legal Centre (MLC) has been providing free strata legal advice to all NSW strata residents for about four years now but its referrals and requests for help with issues like levies, by-law […]

It’s a poll that’s less reliable than the US Election result but more indicative than, say, asking people how much junk food they eat: It’s the most popular dog breed or variety of 2020. The poll has been conducted by our chums at Pet Insurance Australia who have been busy crunching the numbers to see […]

First it was “embedded networks” now it’s the pre-sale of management rights – it seems there are some NSW developers who don’t miss a trick when it comes to squeezing a few extra bucks out of naïve apartment purchasers. In most states, it is illegal for developers to lock strata schemes into contracts before the […]

Last week a reader asked us if her company title scheme should be converted to strata to allow it to be more easily managed and to potentially increase the value of the apartments. She thought it would cost about $10,000 per unit.  You can find that correspondence in full here, but it prompted a comprehensive […]

Bathroom Chronicles, No 11. Well, we’re in the home straight, so to speak.  Or, to put it another way, we are no longer going round the bend. The shower screens have been installed, the bath is in place, the toilets are working (thank God) and it all looks pretty good. One wall of Sue’s bathroom […]

There’s the smell of freshly made coffee and baking cookies wafting through the doorway of a building boasting rental apartments inside, writes Sue Williams, in a recent article in Domain. A woman comes out to welcome potential renters, does the COVID-19 checks, and then whisks us all off on a complete tour of the various […]

The latest news out of NSW Fair Trading depends very much on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. The former will be delighted to hear that the state government is listening to the more than one million people in NSW who own or rent apartments. The pessimists among us will note that the […]

In this week’s podcast we catch up with what’s happening at Mascot Towers as owners in the ill-starred building prepare for their day in court. Specifically, they will be pursuing legal action against the developers of the apartment block next door, construction of which, they claim, undermined the foundations of their block. Meanwhile they are […]

There’s an element of strata living that many people find frustrating if not infuriating.  It can probably be best described as a symbiotic relationship between a strata manager who wants, above all, to keep his or her job and a committee that doesn’t want them to do anything that might cost the scheme money. The […]

A new defect rectification guide will help current and future apartment owners discover and deal with building faults, say its authors. The step-by-step guide, devised by academic researchers in conjunction with strata managers, will helps strata property owners and managers to identify and ultimately rectify defects in apartment buildings. The authors say this free consumer-friendly […]

Following on from our “best of the worst” podcast last week, and as we emerge from our Covid-enforced hibernations, here at Flat Chat we’ve been looking back at a busy year. Because, far from traffic to this website being being reduced by the various shut-downs, more people have been spending more time at home – […]

Councillors in one of America’s largest cities have voted to ban smoking cigarettes and vapes in apartments – but not marijuana. According to stories in the online versions of the  Guardian and the San Francisco Chronicle , San Francisco will ban tobacco smoking inside apartments but will allow exemptions both for medically prescribed marijuana and […]

We turn back the clock – but just a little – for this week’s podcast when we look at the weirdest and wackiest questions asked and problems presented on the Flat Chat Forum in recent months. And we have a long chat with Kathlyn Loseby, President of the NSW chapter of the Australian Institute of […]

As we emerge blearily from our Covid-induced hibernation, obviously some strata schemes are quicker to get back to normal than others. One Flatchatter wants to know why the spa and swimming pool in his block remains steadfastly shut while others blocks’ facilities are open. Hey, even Queensland is letting people in. We reckon there are […]

Bathroom Chronicles, Part 11 The bath has arrived, as promised by the lovely people at Parisi.  Although I admit I did have a few last-minute doubts. When the Chinese government went all Trumpy and started Tweeting fake pictures of Australian soldiers killing kids, I thought, “here we go, I’m going to be washing out of […]

The pandemic hasn’t quite killed off short-term holiday letting but it’s certainly applied a hefty brake – at least as far as our cities are concerned. The return to the residential letting market of large numbers of apartments that were until recently listed as holiday rentals has been good news for tenants in some areas. […]

New research has revealed that both tenants and landlords believe unhelpful real estate agents are among the biggest obstacles to their happy co-existence. Research commissioned by the founders of a new “matchmaking” app that connects renters and property owners has found that 64 per cent of Aussie renters wished they could deal with a landlord […]

With most of the worst of the pandemic behind us here in Australia – or, at least, the first and hopefully the last wave of infections – we thought we’d take a few moments in the podcast to discuss positives that have emerged from the months of lockdown and working from home. Apparently, according to […]