Shonky block shock – Defects in a third of apartments
28 August 2021 STRESSED unit owners are reportedly being driven to the brink of suicide by home repair bills reaching up to $50,000, with more than a third of apartments built in NSW in the past six years being listed as having “a serious defect of some kind”. Lachlan Leeming Daily Telegraph Read full article here
Strata owners slam NSW Health ‘confused mess’
21 August 2021 With yet another “tightening” of lockdown restrictions for greater Sydney, and once again the specific needs of apartment residents being ignored, the peak group for apartment owners in NSW has come out swinging. The Owners Corporation Network (OCN) has accused the NSW Health depart of creating a “confused mess” by trying to treat 40-storey high apartment blocks the same as stand-alone houses, and explaining that strata committees [...]
Channel 10 News – Your right to know if a resident is Covid-19 positive
20 August 2021 Karen Stiles, OCN Executive Officer, interviewed by Channel 10 News on why residents need to know if someone in their building is Covid-19 positive. Watch the clip:
Australia Today Discusses Strata and Covid-19
18 August 2021 Listen to Karen Stiles, OCN Executive Officer, interviewed by Steve Price on Australia Today about Covid-19 & strata.
Why lockdown really stinks for Sydney apartment owners
16 August 2021 Increasing lockdowns across Sydney have created a problem for apartment residents and the cleaning companies servicing them – there are not enough workers to meet their buildings’ daily waste and sanitation needs. Havencab has 400 workers in apartment buildings in central Sydney including the 68-level GreenlandCentreonBathurstStreet. But, not designated as authorised workers, 120 were grounded in lockdowns of the south-western suburbs and a further 80 with last [...]
‘Fork in the road’: Chant’s grim warning for NSW
15 August 2021 NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant has begged people to stop visiting family and friends as hundreds of extra police begin patrolling streets from Monday in an unprecedented effort to slow rising COVID-19 case numbers. Dr Chant delivered one of her most sober messages of the pandemic on Sunday as NSW recorded 415 new cases, starkly warning: “I cannot describe my concern level if we do not [...]
Podcast: Lockdown PHO a strata dog’s breakfast
3 August 2021 Jane Hearn talks with Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams on their weekly podcast. Jane starts discussions at 3 mins 30 sec. Flat Chat Podcast > Link to podcast
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
‘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 > [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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
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 [...]
NSW Building Commissioner says engineers behind Sydney towers with ‘structural issues’ must be ‘accountable’
14 May 2021 The NSW Building Commissioner says he will refer the principal engineers involved in a large Sydney residential development where "structural issues" were found to the industry's peak body. Karen Stiles, Executive Officer, Owners Corporation Network was interviewed. ABC News > View recording here > Read article here
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 [...]
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
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. [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
OUR PARTNERS
Premium Partners
Major Partners
