Home Building Act Review 2021
OCN Executive Director2023-10-08T18:15:46+11:00OCN strongly supports the root and branch review of the Home Building Act 1989 and associated legislation, to ensure maximum consumer protections.
About OCN Executive Director
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Relief for Residents Locked Out of Own Reception After Bitter Dispute
OCN Executive Director2022-03-21T11:47:26+11:00A 25-year contract originally sold by developer Meriton for hundreds of thousands of dollars, giving another company exclusive rights for property management and letting services in one of their multi-storey apartment complexes, has been cancelled by a tribunal in a first for NSW. Apartment residents who successfully challenged the contract that earned Meriton an extra $310,000, in a practice that is now outlawed by the NSW Government, and which tied the [...]
Promoting Innovation for the NSW Energy Sector
OCN Executive Director2023-10-08T18:16:08+11:00OCN welcomes the NSW Government’s intention to deliver an energy system that puts the customer at the centre of policy and program design, while delivering an affordable and reliable energy future that helps achieve net zero emissions by 2050
Sydney Apartment Investors Fear Debt Trap As Levies Skyrocket
OCN Executive Director2022-02-08T15:07:11+11:00Investors from retirees to single mothers on low incomes fear losing their properties after their strata levies jumped from under $2000 per quarter to more than $10,000 for building repairs they had no say in approving. Bright and Duggan told the Herald it was appointed to do work that the owners’ corporation had “failed to undertake over many years with the highest priority of ensuring the building can be safely occupied”. Executive director [...]
Smoking on the balcony of an apartment declared a ‘hazard’
OCN Executive Director2022-02-08T18:02:07+11:00A Queensland regulator has banned a Surfers Paradise woman from smoking on her apartment balcony after a neighbour’s complaint, declaring it to be a “hazard” rather than a “nuisance”, in a move that could allow bodies corporate to outlaw smoking completely. “If you live with the urban myth that strata title is like a title to land, you are only encouraging ongoing conflict,” Mr Goddard, a spokesman for the Owners Corporation [...]
Queensland unit dwellers could be barred from smoking on balconies after landmark decision
OCN Executive Director2022-01-27T13:48:03+11:0020 JANUARY 2022 OCN talks to Dee Dee at 3AW about the news that Queenslanders living in apartments could be prevented from smoking on their balconies after a "game changing" decision to ban one unit owner from doing so after a complaint from an upstairs neighbour. The Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management's adjudicator ordered that the eighth-floor owner must no longer smoke tobacco products on the [...]
This Sydney strata nightmare started as a power struggle — then the police were called
OCN Executive Director2021-11-30T15:59:17+11:0027 November 2021 It's the stuff of Sydney strata nightmares: a cracking building, an expensive repair bill and an owners' meeting that got so heated the police turned up. The drama started in the basement of the Vicinity apartment towers in Canterbury earlier this month, when owners couldn't agree over who should be put in charge of managing the affairs of the troubled apartment block. Read article, watch TV clip: > This [...]
NSW Strata Hub
OCN Executive Director2023-10-08T18:16:21+11:00OCN strongly supports, in fact requested, the establishment of a strata register to capture core scheme information and enable the NSW government to communicate with, gain insight into, and support this fast growing housing sector.
Cracks in the System
OCN Executive Director2021-11-30T16:09:48+11:0018 November 2021 It's every home buyer's nightmare - moving into an apartment only to discover serious construction defects. Watch ABC 7.30 Report of 18/11/21: > https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2101H184S00 (0 – 8.0 min).
NSW apartments: New defects insurance scheme to protect off-the-plan buyers
OCN Executive Director2021-10-25T09:53:40+11:0023 October 2021 Dodgy developers and bad builders who construct shoddy apartment towers that can lead to heartbreak and financial ruin for home-buyers are set to be driven out of NSW with a ground-breaking new defects insurance scheme. The DLI advisory panel comprises insurance experts, developers, financiers, strata bodies and the apartments consumer representative, the Owners Corporation Network (OCN). OCN executive officer Karen Stiles said members were excited by the news [...]