Recent News
July 2007: In Strataland, like in space, no one can hear you scream. However much strata owners complain about being let down or ripped off, it seems our state government either believes there are no serious problems or it simply doesn't want to know. more
Under new strata laws, apartment buyers will be able to check whether big bills await.
A stitch in time saves nine goes the adage. It has never been more relevant than it is now to Sydney apartment owners.
The first buildings due to meet the new Strata Schemes Management Act requirement to have a 10-year sinking-fund plan, passed last year's deadline without major drama. But given that they are the youngest buildings in the staggered introduction of the law, the trouble-free start is not surprising.
The challenge will increase with age. Buildings due to face this year's July deadline date, built from 1985 to 1995, are likely to face more pressure, as are their older counterparts which need to comply by 2008 and 2009. Building owners who have let things run down will burn.
18 April 2007: Buying a strata-title property need not be an invitation for endless hassles, Fran Molloy writes. Owning your home is the last great Australian dream - but with many people who live in strata-title properties confused about what it is, exactly, that they own, the dream often turns to a nightmare as property boundaries become a battle zone. more
7 April 2007: Large apartments can provide the best of both worlds to downsizers from big houses. more
31 March 2007: From energy-saving lights to stormwater harvesting, apartment owners can do their bit for the environment. more
AEA Grand is the lower of two stratas in an apartment building at 187 Kent Street. An appeal on a proposal to convert the AEA Grand strata to serviced apartments has been refused by the Land and Environment Court. This is a significant decision and will be noted with great interest by many strata schemes around the city where short-term lets are, at the very minimum, disturbing the peaceful occupation by resident owners and tenants.
It follows recent OCN representations to City of Sydney forums and an OCN Seminar that discussed the topic. OCN has been vocal in its objections to mixed occupancies in residential buildings. Occupants of serviced apartments and other short-term letting arrangements cause more noise and wear and tear on the buildings than long-term residents, and there are anecdotal incidents of unruly and even threatening behaviour. Long-term residents are entitled to peaceful occupation. OCN also supports local authorities who commonly have issued a DA for the building based on its use as residences, and are then forced into acting against owners who flout that usage.
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A COUPLE have been ordered to stop smoking in their home in a ruling that the Office of Fair Trading predicts will become more common as the battle against cigarettes intensifies.
Residents of the Highgate apartments in Millers Point won their attempt in the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal to stop the tenants, Chris May and Linda Crossan, smoking at home.
It is easy for residents to ignore the rules, writes Jimmy Thomson in part three of a Herald series.
THEY are noisy, messy, inconsiderate, abusive and aggressive. Or, depending on how you look at them, they are uptight, controlling, intolerant and sneaky. Either way, bad neighbours in a house can make life tough for the people next door. But in strata blocks they can upset dozens of people at a time.
While loud music, yappy pets and illegal parking create most strife, the problem in apartments, townhouses and gated villages isn't that there are no rules - strata bylaws are there by default. It's that the rules are easy to ignore - if residents have seen the bylaws, let alone read and understood them.
WHEN the $650 million residential revitalisation of the Walsh Bay wharves was announced in the late 1990s, the consensus in the property industry was that it would be one of the most exclusive addresses in Australia.
Prospective buyers in 2000 had to pay a $10,000 refundable deposit just to inspect an apartment off the plan. And as one owner, Elizabeth George, recalls, staff from the developer, Mirvac, gave her less than an hour to choose an apartment, so intense was demand to buy into the dream life on Sydney's sparkling harbour.
Owner-managers have a finger in many pies, writes Jimmy Thomson in part two of a Herald series.
RESIDENTS running part of the massive $1.65 billion, 52-hectare Breakfast Point village being developed on the shores of the Parramatta River sat stunned, unable to believe what they'd just witnessed.
They were about to replace their developer-run building managers with an independent company when a representative of the developer, Rosecorp, cast its own votes and proxies at the annual general meeting to block the change.