Apartments in Australia

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