In these straitened times, with so many apartment owners and renters suffering severe financial stress, the buck – or lack of bucks – often stops with the owners corporation or body corporate. Whatever the reasons owner-occupiers or landlords have for being short of cash – and in a lot of cases it’s because their tenants […]

Bathroom chronicles, Part 6. It has begun. In an exercise that had the military precision of a Dad’s Army assault gone slightly awry, we rounded up our cats and decanted from our flat on Sunday, across the road to a nearby hotel which has several pet-friendly suites. Unfortunately, as we discovered, our cats are not […]

It’s easy to spot when a state government policy on controlling short-term letting might have serious holes in it – Airbnb and other holiday letting (STHL) operators say they’re happy with it. The first installment of the government’s long-delayed STHL code of conduct has been released, and the first all the truly significant safety and […]

It’s renovations all the way in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap as we chat about a Forum post asking what can be done about a disastrous and unauthorised renovation, now that the owner is planning to sell, bodgy renos included. That’s one end of the spectrum where a major and mostly illegal renovation has been […]

Here’s a question that will resonate with owners in older buildings. When your block’s electrical wiring isn’t good enought to safely power a domestic oven, should the owners corp be obliged to rewire the whole building? In fact, is it not a fire risk not to do so? It’s not just the cables – although […]

When you think about it, we have been brainwashed by petrol pumps.  You roll up, unscrew the filler cap, stick the nozzle in, fill up, pay your money and leave. Because of decades of doing that, it’s what we expect when we want to charge our electric vehicles (EVs); pull up, plug in, pay and […]

Rents in Sydney’s suburbs have been on a rollercoaster for the past few months, with the obvious culprit being the Covid-19 pandemic and all its side-effects. But while some areas have seen serious reductions in rents, allied to increases in availability, other rental hotspots have seen surges in demand and consequent increases in rents. And, […]

Is there such a thing as “undercrowding”? There may well be with the centres of some of our biggest cities turning into ghost towns as Covid-19 restrictions bite, workers flee to the suburbs and foreign students and workers stay away, writes Sue Williams in Domain. Living in one of the biggest apartment towers right in […]

People who don’t care about pets in apartments shouldn’t switch off just yet, regardless of how bored you are with the whole issue. It has implications for everyone in apartments, whether you have pets or not, as you may discover when your upstairs neighbour starts stomping around on their new, cheap timber floor. Letting ourselves […]

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 out bathrooms – and all without owners corp or planning permission (both of which are obligatory). He ignores strata complaints, then gets taken to the […]

Part 5 of the Bathroom Chronicles. It has taken me about 20 years to realise something fundamental about our bath.  The reason it fits so perfectly into the slot behind the door is probably because the bathroom was built around it. It’s an odd size – 70 cm wide by 167 long – and built-in […]

The big question swirling around “no-pets” blocks in NSW, following the Court of Appeal’s decision against the Horizon building’s by-law last week, is “what next?’ And the answer is probably a scramble to remove replace and amend pet by-laws to reflect both the legal ruling and current community standards. According to strata lawyer David Sachs, […]

It was a decision that doubtless had the denizens of luxury Sydney apartment block Horizon spluttering into their sundowner G&Ts on Monday afternoon … and then checking their bank accounts. Much to everyone’s surprise, the NSW Appeals Court – the state’s highest judicial body – has ruled that strata by-laws which ban pets are “harsh, […]

The big strata news of this week stopped us in our tracks. The NSW Court of Appeals has overturned a decision by the strata tribunal (NCAT) which, ealier this year, ruled that strata schemes could create “no pets” by-laws. Just to be clear, NCAT last year twice ruled that no-pet by-laws were illegal, then the […]

It’s good to get a result in short order, especially as strata disputes can drag on for months, if not years. Last week a Flatchatter wrote to us that a mostly hidden gate on his balcony, which has been there since he bought the unit 15 years ago, had been spotted by a committee member […]

Part 4 in the Bathroom Chronicles Choosing bathroom fittings is like starting an online dating relationship with someone who seems smart and stylish at first but turns out to be needy and demanding. One day you are flicking through sinks and vanities and the next you are being trolled by a combination you rejected. Seriously. […]

Apartments weren’t so much an afterthought in the budget, as a hastily scribbled postscript. Sure there are additional incentives for first-time home buyers, and capital gains tax relief on granny flats, but there were very few “big picture” initiatives among the big ticket plans. And there was one area where the government could and should […]

Last week we wrote about the clever apartment owners in Bondi who sold common property air space and converted unused storerooms to saleable units, all to fund a major upgrade of their building. It’s a terrific outcome for all concerned,  but there are tax implications for the owners – and it may well be personal. […]

As we emerge from lockdowns and self-imposed enforce isolation, Zoom-based meetings and working from home have affected our lives in strange and unexpected ways. And, according to this story in Domain by Sue Williams, that includes how we buy property, with potential purchasers prepared to trust what they see on their computer screens as much […]

It’s a bit of a Budget special on Flat Chat this week, if only because we are talking about money. Specifically we are discussing the personal taxes that you probably didn’t even know you are supposed to pay when your strata scheme starts making a profit.  And we’ll discuss where to get dough when your […]