Apartments in Australia

I have many Indonesian friends in Australia and Singapore and through your paper I would like to bring to the notice of your readers the questionable methods used by some large developers in Australia who sell apartments to Indonesian citizens and manipulate the strata laws to gain huge profits.

These developers, in some cases, also neglect building regulations in regard to fireproofing these apartments, which leaves all residents exposed to an increased risk in the case of fire.

A huge number of Indonesian citizens purchase these apartments to accommodate their children while they attend universities in Sydney and it is of great concern that these children are exposed to these risks.

I have for two years attempted to get the New South Wales government to take appropriate action and stamp out these practices, but to date, all efforts have been ignored.

The strata law in New South Wales allows the lender to vote on any matter affecting the apartment building and that vote takes precedence over the right of the borrower/owner.

The builder provides attractive finance packages to purchasers in Australia and to Indonesian buyers, and the builder in this way gains the voting power to manipulate the management of the building to their advantage.

It sells the management rights to the apartment building for millions of dollars, committing future buyers to excessive levies in meeting the terms of the contract, which are usually for a period of fifteen years.

The builder initially sets these levies at a ridiculously low level to attract buyers, and within two years huge levy increases are needed to meet running costs.

The management it installs is a prodeveloper, which means that very little maintenance work is done by the developer under the building warranty as complaints are put off until the warranty period expires or the complaints are not passed on from the manager to the builder.

The building becomes run down and huge levy increases are needed, which makes the building unattractive to buyers if you wish to resell.

Your investment is put at risk by the deliberate abuse from these builders to the provisions on mortgagee priority voting contained in the Strata Schemes Act 1966.

Thousands of apartment buyers are suffering losses as the result of this abuse by developers.

Representatives should be installed by the Indonesian authorities to the New South Wales and Australian governments to ensure that its citizens are protected.

DONE BATE

N.S.W., Australia