FLAT CHAT WRAP

Three big stories get most of our attention in this week’s podcast.

Firstly there’s the publication of the new Guide to Strata Living, which earns some praise, but a few brickbats from JimmyT.  You can judge for yourself HERE, where there are also links to the actual guide for you to download.

Then there’s the recent attack on unfair strata management contracts by eminent construction lawyer Bronwyn Weir.  And, once you’ve listen to the podcast, you might want to read more about it HERE and HERE (with links to the original ABC news story).

Two years ago, Jimmy wrote that apartment blocks in Victoria were rotting from the inside.  Now a report by the strata government’s Cladding Safety Victoria has confirmed that half the buildings they inspected were doing exactly that. You can read about it HERE.

And finally, would you leave a spare key with someone, in case of emergencies? Should it be compulsory?  That’s all in the Flat Chat Wrap.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

We’ve been catching up with all the strata stories that emerged while we were away – and there’s a lot of them, covering just about every aspect of apartment living.

The plan to boost Sydney’s night time economy with 24/7 bar openings has alarmed well-heeled resident so Circular Quay (according to this video on the Sydney Morning Herald website).

And there’s more angst over noisy gyms which we first highlighted in this podcast and Sue’s SMH story before we left for Europe.

We discuss why strata schemes are way behind free-standing homes when it comes to installing solar, prompted by this story.  Does it have something to do with embedded networks and devious developers?

We look at a renewed push to wash away outdated and anti-sustainability by-laws that forbid drying laundry on balconies.

And we wonder if councils could be doing more to encourage the inclusion of creative spaces in new apartment blocks, following this report.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

Can you imagine paying $30,000 a night for a pad in London? Yes, that’s thirty thousand dollars, in case you thought it was a misprint.

And this is in a city that has its share of homelessness and has had to introduce a 90-night limit on short-term holiday lets to combat the drain on residential properties caused by platforms like Airbnb and their ilk.

Also in Britain, a government survey has revealed how many previously unidentified apartment blocks still have potentially fatal flammable cladding, more than seven years after the Grenfell disaster.

Meanwhile the contrast in Australian political approaches to the housing shortage – lack of supply or excess of demand – was brought into stark relief by the result of the US presidential election. 

One side said it was a failure of investment, the other that it was caused by immigrants. 

Spoiler alert: Donald Trump will be back in the White House until J D Vance slips an overdose of moonshine and opiates into his diet Coke then announces he was secretly a liberal all this time.

Seriously though, as we discover, even a socialist republic has trouble building apartments ordinary people can afford (unless you’re Aussie – then they’re a bargain).

This week’s podcast is the last to be recorded on our travels and is a bit shorter than usual, not least because we were cramming the last of our journalistic tasks in between trying to make the most of our dwindling days in France.

Next week we’ll be back to whatever passes for normal in strata.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

Your intrepid Flat Chat team’s travels take them to London this week but that doesn’t mean they have lost touch with what’s happening in Australia.

For a start a boost to funding for tenants’ supports agencies has been announced by the NSW state government.  

That will no doubt be very useful when the inevitable confusion arises from the raft of changes to tenancy laws, passed by state parliament last week, come into effect in the new year.

That doesn’t just help tenants. As Jimmy says, if landlords or even owners corporations want to know what renters’ rights and responsibilities are, check the websites that offer advice to tenants and you’ll know exactly where they are coming from.

Then we have the latest apartment prices from the last quarter with Queensland outstripping Melbourne.

And finally, a sad story that has a bit of everything: A pregnant mother of five falls from a tenth-storey window, a boyfriend with a criminal history, conspiracy theories on the internet and a miracle of survival.

But seriously, if as Sue says, you find the story disturbing or know someone who does need advice and support, you can always call Lifeline on 131 114 or go online HERE.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

This week’s podcast comes to you from less-than-sunny Glasgow, which may explain the slightly different sound quality.

But the chat is up to its usual standards as we speculate on what new Building Commissioner James Sherrard will bring to the job as he fills the substantial shoes recently vacated by the redoubtable David Chandler.

Then we have a look at the recent revelations about Netstrata allegedly slipping old receipts and invoices into their strata schemes’ portals. 

This has led to some strata owners realising for the first time how much extra they have been paying for compulsory insurance, thanks to hidden brokerage fees and commissions.

And we speculate on what the next strata scandal will be – the potential misuse of “full delegation” clauses in contracts, which allow strata management firms to take over the running of strata schemes with little or no consultation with their owners.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

____________________________________________________


Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

There are so many issues it strata that are “he said, she said” - or “they said, they said”, to put it in a more contemporary context –  that the temptation to not take sides is sometimes overwhelming.

But consider the plight of an owner on the first floor of a block who has a noisy commercial gym operating from 6am until after 7pm every weekday.

Then add in the fact that most of her strata committee’s members live several floors away from the noise are undisturbed and therefore unperturbed.

And, for the cracked and uninviting icing on the strata cake, the role of chair and secretary has been taken by a strata management firm that’s rapidly becoming synonymous with shady practises. 

Should commercial gyms ever be allowed in strata buildings? The local politicians and council officials who can’t see any problem don’t spend nearly enough time in gyms, or strata for that matter.

Also, this week, we use the excuse that we are travelling overseas to look at how the anti-Airbnb backlash is spreading, the form it’s taking and how a TV ad campaign is hitting the global holiday rental platform right where it hurts – in the big lie about “sharing”.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap

____________________________________________________


Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

There’s a lot of anger and frustration behind this week’s edition of the Flat Chat Wrap.

The fury on display on a recent episode of A Current Affair on Nine is both clear and understandable.

Prospective owners in the Sapphire apartments in Gosford on the Central Coast of NSW had been told to be ready to move in, only to discover that work has stopped on the near-complete block and there is no occupancy certificate.

The developer has long ago gone into receivership and the Receiver says they don’t have the finances to complete the building, which would include a slate of defect rectifications identified by the NSW Building Commission.

Jimmy and Sue discuss how this mess came about and if anything can be done to remedy it.

And they also have a chat about whether strata managers are entitled to be angry at Press coverage. It’s never ideal when good professionals are tarred with the same brush as bad operators. 

But is it a case of “don’t shoot the messenger”? That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

____________________________________________________


Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

When it comes to getting your attention, there’s nothing quite like being warned that the latest innovation could put you out of business.

Okay, we’ve heard it all before, but imagine if a friend was able to access a reliable response to a strata question instantly, wherever you happen to be. 

And we’re not talking technical, jargon-ridden geeky stuff. If you everyone was able to get an instant answer to a normal question, like what to do about an annoying but scary neighbour, that could put paid to Flat Chat and especially the Flat Chat Forum.

That’s why this week’s podcast started with an experiment over a glass of red (or two) in a pizza restaurant. The results were fascinating, for good and bad reasons, so don’t be put off by the fact that we’re talking computer stuff.

Leading on from that, we look at how spectacularly wrong an AI survey was when asked what you get for your money in real estate.

And that in turn takes us to where rents are rising fasts – and not at all – across Australia.

Lots to think about, as ever, in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap. 

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

It’s been a tough few months for strata managers, especially the good ones – and there are many of them – who have been trying to do the best they can for their customers while the industry as a whole has been exposed to strident and mostly valid criticism.

The irony for the honest and decent players is that they have been copping the additional scrutiny and suspicions directed at the whole industry without reaping the financial benefits of their vertically integrated, conflicted and less scrupulous rivals.

Coincidentally, we recorded this week’s podcast with friend-of-the-Wrap Tim Sara, Associate Director of Strata Choice, our sponsors and one of the original strata management firms, on the morning that the NSW government announced it had passed the new laws on conflict of interest, insurance commissions and transparency in strata.

Strata Choice has turned its back of vertical integration in recent years, to concentrate solely on its core business - strata management.

So we had a chat about that, as well as the  the idea of split first AGMs, how to make strata communities better, and asked who would make a better strata manager – a former hotel concierge or an ex-cop?

Notwithstanding some technical audio difficulties (which we hope have been cleared up by our podcast platform Buzzsprout’s Magic Mastering), this message from the other side of the strata divide is well worth a listen.  Enjoy. 

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

We start this week’s podcast by looking back at the previous episode which has broken all our records for regular downloads.

It’s not surprising really, given that it was a chat with ABC TV Four Corners investigative reporter Linton Besser about how and why he pulled together the Strata Trap report.

At more than 450 downloads after only a week, this one will run and run, as they say in showbiz.

This week we look at another of strata’s big problems – defects – through the eyes of Acting Building Commissioner Matt Press.  What’s happening with defects now that Building Commissioner David Chandler has retired?

One thing that hasn’t changed is the Building Commission’s tendency to use initials,  acronyms and fancy techie terminology. 

So, just in case you are wondering, the “LDI” referred to means Latent Defects Insurance or it could be DLI (Decennial Liability Insurance).

Either way, it’s a 10-year insurance against defects that the better developers are able to take out. Maybe they could call it Defects Insurance. Too on the nose?

Apart from that, Matt Press assures us that even though David Chandler has gone and Project Intervene has been absorbed into the Building Commission’s complaints process, the good work in making sure apartment owners get what they paid for continues unabated.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap. 

____________________________________________________


Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.