developers

17 JANUARY 2024 People who bought into the Lachlan’s Line apartment complex in Sydney’s North were promised a “prestigious new community”. Now they’ve discovered the basement floors in all four blocks are at risk of collapse. Karen Stiles, executive director of the advocacy group Owners Corporation Network welcomed the order which follows increased scrutiny of apartment developments.  The Macquarie Park apartment’s car parks on the basement level are at risk of [...]

7 DECEMBER 2023 Desperate apartment owners in Sydney’s notorious Mascot Towers are appealing for the state government to buy their defect-riddled building after the NSW Supreme Court slammed shut the gate on their last-ditch exit strategy. The apartment owners’ peak organisation, the Owners Corporation Network (OCN), is also calling for action. Executive director Karen Stiles said: “The OCN has sadly witnessed the four-and-a-half-year Mascot Towers debacle, caused by wholesale regulatory failure. [...]

12 JULY 2023 Controversial Sydney developer Jean Nassif is being urged to submit to authorities as his company collapses, a month after a warrant was issued for his arrest. NSW Fair Trading this week said it was working with Strata Communities Australia and the Owners Corporation Network to help strata managers and owners in Toplace buildings. The agency advised buyers with deposits on off-the-plan Toplace sales to contact their conveyancer or legal [...]

23 DECEMBER 2022 People in the market for a new apartment are being urged to steer clear of developers lacking a star rating or defect insurance, four years after the mass evacuation of a cracked apartment tower in Sydney. Read article, which appeared in several publications:> HERE  

26 NOVEMBER 2022 A five-year battle to get structural problems in a Sydney unit block repaired has resulted in cosmetic fixes described by the NSW building boss as ‘lipstick on a pig’. The project will now become part of the Project Intervene scheme where Mr Chandler and his team can bypass the courts to engage directly with the developer to fix flaws.  It's a move welcomed by Owners Corporation Network head [...]

15 NOVEMBER 2022 Owners corporations can now dob in defective buildings up to six years old and receive help from the government to resolve the dispute outside the courts under an initiative set up by the state’s inaugural Building Commissioner. Karen Stiles, the head of Owners Corporation Network – an advocacy group for strata owners – welcomed the initiative and said owners were “crying out for help” to avoid lengthy and [...]

5 OCTOBER 2022 Developer Australia YMCI is counting on a vote by owners of defective apartments it has rectified in western Sydney to draw a line under legal action and allow it to get on with marketing the next stage of its $5 billion Ovation Quarter development. Strata owners advocacy group Owners Corporation Network said the streamlining of rectification processes would remove a lot stress. “Enforceable undertakings by the developer would [...]

1 SEPTEMBER 2022 He has another full year (at least) to clean up property development in NSW and will then turn to recently completed blocks with serious problems. This is wider than NSW however.  "I wish we had a David Chandler in Victoria" was a recent plaintive post to the Flat Chat forum. Apartment owners in Victoria don't even have an equivalent of NSW's Owners Corporation Network to fight in their [...]