Special by-law granting you exclusive access to the path. Discuss with your lawyer & surveyor prior to signing the building contract. (Have your solicitor review your construction contract if it isn't a standard form approved by either the Master Builders Assoc or RAIA.

Take out an owner builders licence, start work then cease. You have then complied by commencing work.

Contact your office of fair trading to find out what you can (if they will talk to you as a prospective owner).Otherwise, find out what the claim is worth, your unit's liability if you lose and negotiate a price reduction. If neither appeals, steer clear until it is resolved.Which state is the property in Bob?

Remember, conveyancers must be licensed in the state in which they work in Australia.

Selling may expose you to capital gains tax, buying one or 2 others will  mean paying stamp duty. Consider refinancing to buy one or 2 other cheapies which are cf+ which will assist in your overall portfolio balance.

If there are no by-laws preventing the subletting or precluding any other use of the garage then there should be no reason why you can't use the space for storage. Of course you should advise your insurer.It is pretty typical to use a 'garage' for storage, units generally have insufficient storage within the building so they utilise the…[Read more]

You may need to speak to a few consultants: town planner, architect, structural engineer, civil engineer, traffic engineer, surveyor etc  all before you get to speaking to a builder.

The answer depends on several variables eg: How many units in the block, where the site is located, is it waterfront/good suburb etc? LV will vary from $negligible to $Mil depending upon the above variables.Ask the strata manager for a copy of the Val General's last assessment or the Council to provide a copy of the land value for ratings purposes.

The book is called the Australian Standard Method of Measurement published by the AIQS, alternatives would be available from the Property Council of Australia.The appropriate book would depend upon the reason that you need to measure the floor space? Examples would be NLA, GLA and FSR.

The main downsides to living next to a school are: parking issues, playground noise, traffic (drop off & pick ups), construction work (thanks to Wayne, Krudd & Jools).

Look to having a 100%  mortgage offset account linked to the loan, that way your 'surplus' cash is offset against the capital that you have borrowed (and lowers the interest payable as well as being accessible without having to be redrawn etc).You will need access to a great crystal ball to determine what will happen to interest rates over the…[Read more]

Here's another that I have come across, I have worked with one of the authors years ago – he is a professional builder with skills in diagnosis of building problems/disputes etc: Your Home – Buying, Selling, Renovating, Building

How much do you want to spend? How many acres are you after? Do you want a site with DA or raw land? Cashed up? What terms?

Alex Morgan wrote:
Hi all, just wondering whether you can rent out an IP during the settlement period?  Alex

If you are the seller, you would need to get the buyer's agreement esp if they were buying with vacant possession.If you are the buyer, you don't own the property yet so you cannot enforce any of your wishes over the vendor. The…[Read more]

Unfortunately you cannot get  2 supplies onto one property – major safety no no.

More info if you want it: REIQ – Blog

After reading today's AFR, anyone with non-complying funds will be hammered by the ATO. Remember, it is not the auditor who gets penalised.

Unfortunately it is open slather with regards to outgoings – consider trying to negotiate a 'gross' rent ie all inclusive except water usage or limit your liability only to increases in outgoings over a base year. Outgoings will include strata levies (admin & maintenance only not capital works), common area power/security/cleaning/insurance/land…[Read more]

If it is non-compliant, who is going to take the risk, you or the auditor?

Worst case scenario, it could be a leak which is shorting out the power, new hws – had this recently. Unfortunately, there is no way of getting the previous owner to pay anything towards the cost of repair or replacement – this comes down to your due diligence. If you had picked it up before you made an offer/during building inspection you could…[Read more]