I often wonder where some strata managers get their ideas – it certainly doesn’t appear to be from professional training. Take the case of our Flatchatter who is in dispute with his strata committee over a relatively minor but deeply annoying (to him) issue, specifically that the electric motor that drives the garage gate, and […]

Bathroom Chronicles 9 It is the most human of responses, it seems:  when disaster strikes, you go looking for someone to blame. The disaster in this case is bathroom No.1 which can no longer be referred to as a bathroom because it is lacking one critical element … a bath. We discovered this when the […]

This year has been huge for pet owners in strata, especially in NSW, with companion animals moved from the small print of our by-laws to the news pages of our media, as “no pets” rules in NSW were declared illegal, then reinstated, then revoked again. So it’s good to put some of the stress and […]

Bathroom Chronicles, Part 8. “Are these tiles coming off, then?” There can be few more chilling words from a tradie’s mouth to a home renovator’s ears. “For God’s sake, man,” I blurted. “We’ve just had them laid.” I took a few minutes to blank out the horrific thought of what would have happened if we’d […]

There aren’t many investment options that offer you four or five times your stake within six months … well, few that don’t have you looking over your shoulder for  ICAC investigators or large men with suspicious bulges under their jackets. But if you own an apartment in an old, three or four-storey walk-up apartment block, […]

Are you a member of a tight  and lively social group in your apartment block or are you a lone wolf, happy to keep interactions with your neighbours to a minimum. Is your smartphone WhatsApping out of your pocket?  Or does it remain so un-pinged that you have to keep checking to make sure it […]

We’ve scored our century! This week sees us post is the 100th episode of the Flat Chat Wrap – at least, if we’re only counting properly produced and distributed episodes. We would have held a giant dance party to celebrate but, hey, what with Covid-19 and social distancing and all, we might limit it to […]

The NSW Government is offering a small but significant financial boost to efforts to remove high-risk combustible cladding from residential apartment buildings across the State. It’s not going to pay for the removal and replacement of flammable cladding on the more than 400 NSW apartment blocks estimated to have the kind of dangerous cladding that […]

There are two major strands to this week’s podcast. The first stems from a question raised in the Flat Chat Forum, about an apartment owner who wants to install a stairlift – one of those seats that trundles up a staircase – in a narrow common property stairwell. It’s for his elderly mother, so you […]

The French, as a nation, are known for a lot of great qualities but I’m thinking patience may not be one of them. One of Australia’s cheapest electric cars – the Renault Zoe – has had its plug pulled after just 63 were sold over the past three years. And the French manufacturer is blaming Australia’s lack […]

I have a confession to make.  I have hijacked the question of the week for the Flat Chat Wrap podcast as well as this weekend’s column in the AFR. The post was asking about a plan by one owner to install a stairlift – one of those chairs that takes older or incapacitated people upstairs […]

Just as different states have different strata laws, they have very different approaches to revising and updating them. NSW, Victoria and Queensland are all at various stages of reviews while WA introduced their reforms earlier this year.  Generally speaking, state governments prefer evolution over revolution, and are unlikely to dump one set of laws in […]

Airbnb has “welcomed” the new short-term holiday lets code of conduct but is staying notably silent on the proposed register of STHL properties in NSW. And while accommodation hosts in a popular South Coast holiday spot have welcomed the register, a new book has revealed the damage short-term letting has done to urban communities across […]

This week we returned to a topic we raised in the last podcast, namely build-to-rent and specifically the new Liv Indigo building at Sydney Olympic Park. They held an open day last weekend and we went down to have a look and chat to … well, anyone who was interested in talking to us. You […]

The main story from the Forum this week is a real comedy of errors, with a dash of misguided or mischievous bush-lawyering thrown in. A Flatchatter has written to us about a floor that has been installed which clearly breaches the schemes by-laws requiring owners to install flooring that is adequately insulated against noise transmission. […]

Bathroom Chronicles, Part 7 We’re rapidly reaching the conclusion that cats and renovations don’t mix. After our misadventures in the hotel across the road, we thought we’d be past the worst of it. We should be so lucky. Last week we had the all-important membrane was laid – or rather spread – in the bathrooms, […]

It’s been called window dressing and a sham.  In fact, the only thing in favour of the “party animals” short-term holiday letting (STHL) code of conduct announced  last week is that party animals probably don’t read the small print of state Government press releases … if they read at all. Last week the NSW government […]

We are looking at two very different kinds of rentals this week.  The first is build-to-rent apartments (which is definitely NOT affordable housing, regardless of what anyone else might tell you). The other is short-term holiday rentals which are routinely and often erroneously called Airbnb. That’s the generic term but, in fact, we will be […]

It can hardly be called a secret but scaffolding, workers in high-vis vests and trucks are the only obvious clues to an intriguing new development underway in Pyrmont. The project has only a basic website, no pre-sales and little in the way of publicity – yet some of the homes being built in the grandly […]

Sometimes in life, the secret of success is a question of good timing. Strata living is no exception and this week our Flatchatters have been watching the clock or, at least, the calendar. For a start, if someone wanted to be on the committee but they missed the AGM, can they just be added to […]