15 JANUARY 2021 The D&PB legislation is incredibly important to owners – it creates a retrospective duty of care to owners by designers and building practitioners. OCN made a detailed submission on the draft Regulations to improve consumer protections. > Download PDF
The small red car was illegally parked. A handwritten note read, “No power when we got home. No parks outside. Call Adrian…” That was from the night before, when it all began. Since early evening I’d had no hot water. Now, at 10am, I was locked out myself, barefoot, unwashed, on the street, in a thunderstorm, staring at the kerbside evidence of collective frustration. Not because I’d forgotten my keys, but [...]
Hundreds of Sydney apartment owners are facing an uncertain future after the collapse of a company linked to the builder of the Opal Tower, with allegations that it collectively owes them $30 million to repair seven defective builds across the city. The revelations come as another high-profile construction group, Ganellen, placed one of its companies into administration last week, midway through a court battle over defects and only days after it [...]
13 December 2020 Businesses at the base of Sydney's harrowed Mascot Towers have been caught between the directives of a government minister and the building's owners corporation, which has given them a week's notice to vacate over safety issues. The owners of seven shops say they will lose everything if they are forced to close a week before Christmas, following a letter from the lawyers for the owners regarding unstable facades [...]
14 DECEMBER 2020 Do you live or work in a in a building with electric sliding gates? These gates can be dangerous –SafeWork NSW has been investigating two fatalities that resulted from large electric gates falling on workers, as well as multiple other serious incidents. Any damage or wear to parts of electric sliding gates creates a risk, so they require regular inspection and maintenance to keep you, your visitors and [...]
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has concluded its three-year inquiry into insurance affordability in northern Australia by calling for broker commissions to be replaced by a fee-based system. > Read the full article in Insurance News here > Link to ACCC Project Overview
30 NOVEMBER 2020 OCN is calling upon the government to refer the propositions identified in the Strata Schemes Management Amendment (Sustainability Infrastructure) Bill 2020 to the review of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) currently underway. >Download PDF
18 NOVEMBER 2020 Owners of buildings with flammable cladding in NSW will still need to pay tens of thousands of dollars per apartment to rectify their complexes after the NSW Government refused to Victoria’s lead in paying for flammable cladding to be rectified. Whilst the preference would be for the government to pay for the cost of remediation, Karen Stiles, Executive Officer for OCN welcomed both the announcement of the low [...]
17 NOVEMBER 2020 Apartment owners forced to replace flammable cladding on high-risk buildings across NSW will be able to access interest-free loans as part of a $1 billion government program over the next three years aimed at helping to resolve the crisis. The program, which will be unveiled in the state budget on Tuesday, includes $139 million to establish and offer technical support to owners for the remediation of at-risk buildings. [...]
16 November 2020 Today in the 2020-2021 NSW Budget, the Government announced a landmark three-year program to remove combustible cladding on hundreds of the most at risk residential buildings across the state. Minister Anderson thanks OCN as a key stakeholder in the journey. The centre-piece of Project Remediate is a commitment to pay interest on loans by commercial lenders to Class 2 residential building owners and owners corporations to help them [...]
