OCN in the Media

OCN in the Media2023-12-20T18:36:38+11:00
29July, 2021

New iCIRT tool will rate home builders and developers

29 JULY 2021 Home builders will get a rating of one to five stars based on how shonky their work is, in a move aimed at restoring confidence in Sydney’s new builds and leaving dodgy developers “nowhere to hide”. Minister for Better Regulation Kevin Anderson said the new ratings system would end the days of people moving into defective apartments. Owners Corporation Network executive officer Karen Stiles said the move [...]

21July, 2021

Combustible cladding could become ACT’s ‘second Mr Fluffy’ without full audit

21 July 2021 The ACT Government has been warned that unsafe cladding could become the Territory’s “second Mr Fluffy” if a full audit is not carried out and more support is not offered for rectification works. President of the Owners Corporation Network, Gary Petherbridge, has raised concerns about the government’s duty of care to around 90 residential apartment buildings which may have combustible cladding, describing government offers of concessional loans [...]

3July, 2021

Construction watchdog: Body corporates are not reporting known defects

3 July 2021 The NSW construction watchdog has major concerns that body corporates are underreporting serious defects in high-rise apartment buildings to government officials charged with cleaning up the construction industry and restoring public confidence. A survey of more than 500 buildings in NSW built in the past six years found that 36 per cent had serious defects. Of those with defects, just 17 per cent of the buildings had [...]

28June, 2021

‘Pointless engagement’: Real estate agents slam minister, quit reform body in dismay

28 June 2021 The peak body for real estate agents in NSW has quit an expert panel advising the government on the industry as a stoush between the minister and agents escalates. Real Estate Institute of NSW chief executive Tim McKibbin says the Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation, Kevin Anderson, has created a panel for “pointless engagement” as a “ruse” for consumer protection. Nigel Gladstone Sydney Morning Herald > [...]

27June, 2021

Lockdown on Elan, one of Sydney’s biggest apartment towers, eased after no more positive Covid cases

27 June 2021 The lockdown on a major Sydney apartment tower has been eased after a mass testing of almost the entire population of the block unearthed no more positive COVID-19 cases. Now the 500-plus residents of the 40-storey Kings Cross building Elan are back under the same stay-at-home orders as the rest of Greater Sydney, with just the one infected person and five other close contacts all self-isolating. “Pretty [...]

25June, 2021

Apartment building owners and managers urge plans for dealing with COVID-19

25 June 2021 Apartment buildings have the capacity to be super-spreaders of COVID-19 “like vertical cruise ships”, but the state government has completely ignored the potentially catastrophic dangers, those in the sector claim. With one of Sydney’s biggest apartment towers now in lockdown after a resident tested positive to the highly infectious Delta variant, angry apartment owners and professional managers have accused the authorities of negligence. “We’ve got shared airconditioning [...]

16June, 2021

Airbnb is eating the neighbourhood

16 June 2021 Last month the NSW “Airbnb Policy” was quietly gazetted by the Minister for Planning, Mr Robert Stokes MP. This is a major planning reform that permits all housing to be used for short stay tourism. It takes some chutzpah to give in to tourist Platforms in the middle of pandemic with housing prices soaring. There has long been holiday letting along the coast, and some corporate lets [...]

5June, 2021

Heavy hitters line up for Strata Matters seminar

5 June 2021 Efforts to curb dodgy developers and their farcical phoenixing frauds have been the focus of a lot of media coverage of late, but what does it all mean? Are the efforts by the New South Wales government to implement substantial reforms in the apartment development industry actually making a difference? Are they likely to encourage potential buyers or do the many small victories simply remind us that [...]

1June, 2021

Owners Question East End Contract

June 2021 A group of owners in the new East End redevelopment has questioned how a company which shares a director with developer Iris Capital was awarded a lucrative long-term building management contract shortly before residents settled on the properties and moved in. Michael Parris Newcastle Herald Link page 1 of article Link page 2 of article Link to original article – https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/7271639/apartment-owners-question-25m-east-end-management-contract/?src=rss  

21May, 2021

A young family’s dilemma: Is a house really better for raising kids than an apartment?

21 May 2021 As more young couples are deciding to raise their kids in apartments, we ask the age old question of whether having a quarter acre block house is really necessary to raise children. .. It’s the mindset that’s the most important element, believes Phillipa Dobbin, director of the apartment owners peak body, the Owners Corporation Network. “Being closer to amenities and transport hubs, having shared facilities and a [...]

5May, 2021

Mascot owners’ best hope is for $40m firesale

5 May 2021 Apartment owners in Sydney’s Mascot Towers will vote this month on a $40 million proposal to sell their troubled apartment tower as a redevelopment site, with many resigned to losing up to 80 per cent on their property as the most realistic way to end their two-year nightmare. Apartment advocacy group Owners Corporation Network says a review of NSW strata laws under way should reduce the scope [...]

25April, 2021

Dodgy Home Builders – Seven News

25 April 2021 As if they weren't expensive enough, new Sydney home prices are being pushed up by sky rocketing insurance claims that are gouging taxpayers for more than $700 million. Claims have surged for defective work by dodgy builders - some who've since disappeared.  OCN's Executive Officer, Karen Stiles, was interviewed for this news article. Seven News > View recording here

19April, 2021

High-rise owners to get government advice about safe replacement cladding

19 April 2021 Owners of high-rise buildings in Sydney will finally receive advice from the NSW government as early as Monday about what products they should use to replace flammable cladding found on their towers. The long-awaited findings from a report by the state’s cladding product safety panel are set to be released, helping to end years of uncertainty in NSW about whether replacement products are safe or too risky. [...]

15April, 2021

Bungled holiday let rules put on hold

15 April 2021 When NSW Planning tried to finish its planning instrument, it was the start of a whole new set of problems. There’s an old saying in politics that if you’ve upset everyone, then you must be doing something right. Or perhaps you just screwed up spectacularly. Late last week when the NSW government finally released the second part of its new regulations on short-term holiday letting, there was [...]

13April, 2021

New rules for Airbnb-style letting in NSW delayed by three months

13 APRIL 2021 The NSW government has decided to delay the introduction of new rules for Airbnb-style letting across the state by three months after an outcry from councils and online rental company Stayz. The short-term letting rules were due to come into force on July 30, but the government has decided within the past 24 hours to delay their introduction to November 1. But the non-profit Owners Corporation Network, [...]

30March, 2021

RE ‘experts’ on better service exclude customers

30 MARCH 2021 If there was any doubt which side of the great strata divide Fair Trading is on – between those who make money from Real Estate and those who live in it – it was clarified last week in an announcement from Better Regulation, trumpeting the creation of a Real Estate Expert panel. “The NSW Government has established a panel of real estate professionals to be a voice [...]

15March, 2021

Developer of Sydney’s ‘worst’ tower ordered to fix faults

15 MARCH 2021 The developer of a 16-storey apartment tower in western Sydney, which has been singled out by NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler as one of the worst he has inspected, has been handed orders forcing it to fix serious defects. The tower at 93 Auburn Road in Auburn has joined a growing list of apartment buildings to have been slapped with orders in recent weeks as the commissioner steps [...]

9March, 2021

Latest NCAT decision on by-laws affecting the keeping of animals

9 MARCH 2021 - OCN Statement On 1 March 2021, NCAT senior member R C Titterton OAM handed down a decision in the matter of McGregor v The Owners – Strata Plan Nº 74896.   The building in which Mr McGregor and his partner live is part of a complex in Camperdown where each of the individual stratas is required to comply with the by-laws of the Community Management Statement [...]

24February, 2021

Sydney building commissioner raises standards, builds confidence in apartment industry

24 FEBRUARY 2021 The new building commissioner appointed to raise standards in NSW’s construction industry – and his willingness to use his unprecedented legal powers to do so – is having a major impact on the standard of projects around the state. Six months on from being given the right to enter and inspect construction sites, issue rectification and stop-work orders, and prevent settlement on sub-standard properties, industry watchers say [...]

18February, 2021

Developers forced to fix defects after commissioner wields new powers

18 FEBRUARY 2021 Developers have been slapped with orders to fix serious defects in apartment buildings and townhouses, as the NSW Building Commissioner signals he will not hesitate using his strongest powers to stamp out shoddy work in the construction industry. Almost six months after his powers came into force, commissioner David Chandler has issued prohibition orders in the past week to developers of four buildings in Sydney and Forster, [...]

15February, 2021

NSW to Start Removing Flammable Cladding This Year

15 FEBRUARY 2021 Construction on the first projects to start under a three-year program to remove combustible cladding from 225 high-risk apartment complexes in NSW will kick off around the middle of the year, the government in that state says. In an announcement last week, NSW Minister for Better Regulation Kevin Anderson unveiled details of the state’s cladding rectification scheme which was announced in last October’s budget. Labelled Project Remediate, [...]

18November, 2020

NSW Stops Short of Paying for Cladding Rectification

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 [...]

9November, 2020

NSW building reforms to put strata managers under microscope

NOVEMBER 2020 The conspiracy of silence that surrounds apartment buildings and possible defects would be ended in the next round of landmark building reforms. In the wake of the Grenfell, Mascot and Opal tower disasters, Better Regulation Minister Kevin Anderson is proposing law changes forcing strata schemes to hand over basic maintenance information about their building. OCN executive Karen Stiles said the strata portal would only be the second in [...]

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