FLAT CHAT WRAP

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. 

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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’re rolling the Wrap out a little early this week because it’s connected to the hottest topic in strata right now.

Linton Besser, the reporter who brought you the Four Corners report The Strata Trap on Monday, has come on to the podcast to answer our questions about what he’s found in the strata industry, not only in NSW, but across Australia. 

What questions? How about what piqued his interest in the story that led to the exposure of strata management firm Netstrata and the resignation of its General Manager Stephen Brell as President of Strata Community Association (SCA-NSW)?

Linton admits he almost ignored the story when the first email landed in his in-tray.  But when another came in a few days later, he thought he might start digging.

That led to the 7.30 report on Netstrata and that sparked a tsunami of tips and complaints that led, in turn, to the Four Corners episode.

The podcast is a wide-ranging chat about the culture of the strata business  – not just in NSW – that leads to big strata management companies believing they can act with impunity while apartment owners are left “incoherent with rage”.

Everyone from complacent politicians to apathetic media operators cops it in this fascinating chat, but he does think some strata managers are suffering too and believes, despite it all, that there is a solution.

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.

Are your cooking and heating appliances giving your kids asthma? This week in the Flat Chat Wrap, Sue talks about a story she’s been chasing where families have found that switching from gas to electricity for their heating and cooking appliances has seen their kids’ asthma disappear.

As we head for net zero emissions and electricity becomes the affordable power source of choice, you might want to start checking your pots and pans to see if they work on induction stoves.

Before that, with Spring definitely in the air, we’re turning down the heat in the podcast this week as we examine why the majority of tenants – especially younger ones – are in favour of the Victorian government’s incoming regulations about insualting homes being introduced nationwide – and why two-thirds of landlords are against them. 

Then there’s a question of what to do in strata when a number of owners want one thing and an exactly equal number don’t.

And when we say “equal”, we mean that the unit entitlements on one side add up to precisely the same figure on the other.

As this story plucked straight from the Flat Chat Forum explains, it has led to a strata stand-off in one small Sydney block.

And finally we look at how an ailing RSL club has been turned into not just one of the coolest venues in a booming Sydney suburb, but one of the hottest properties on the apartments scene.

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.

There’s been considerable speculation about NSW Strata Commissioner John Minns this week after the revelation on an ABC news report that he has retained a significant holding in a property management company, albeit through a family trust.

Is it a serious problem for the man tasked with overseeing strata management (among other things), especially in the wake of the Netstrata scandal?

Or is it just an unfortunate embarrassment at a time when NSW Fair Trading has launched new legislation intended to boost transparency and combat conflicts of interest? We give that question a good kickaround in the playground.

We also look at the new legislation in Victoria which imposes a 7.5 per cent levy on short-term holiday rentals and allows apartment blocks and local councils to curb Airbnb and the like. (We can’t help having a good chortle at Airbnb’s typically left-field response).

And we have a serious disagreement on whether the reduction in student visas is going to help ease the housing crisis or is just a response to the dog-whistle politics of racist right-wingers.

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.

In this week’s podcast, we look at why a problem in a company title block .would have been much easier to resolve had the apartment been in a strata building.

The story in the Sydney Morning Herald is about a 71-year-old woman who has had to move out of her home because of damp caused by faulty water pipes in common property.

We explain why that problem could have been much more easily resolved had it been in strata.

We also touch on the recent albeit modest recruitment drive in the Strata Commission,  and the areas where the profits from selling apartment are outstripping the gains from flipping houses.

And finally, Jimmy asks whatever happened to Strata Commissioner John Minns’ brilliant idea to have a two-stage First AGM for new strata buildings so that strata committees have time to examine the contracts and reject those that are designed to rip them off.
NB: This was recorded and posted before accusations aired on the ABC that John Minns had not told the government that a family trust had retained substantial shares in a property management company called IPG.  We'll cover that in this week's podcast. 

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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.

So the NSW Fair Trading Minister has revealed his law changes in the wake of the Netstrata scandal and they are, as one strata insider put it, like being slapped on the wrist with limp spaghetti.

With the news hot off the printer, Jimmy jumped in with both feet to claim this is a pretty poor response to the revelation that apartment owners are being misled and ripped off by some of the people whose job it is to look after them.

Admittedly, this was recorded before he got the response from Fair Trading that you can read here. Maybe it will all make more sense once everyone has calmed down but for now Jimmy is ropable, which if nothing else makes the podcast more entertaining.

Also in the pod this week, the “wellness” benefits of buying the most expensive home in Australia.

And the areas in your state and across Australia where you are least likely to find apartments that are designed with the health of their residents in mind (according to Dr Sarah Foster of RMIT University in Melbourne).

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.

Having been to more conferences that they’ve had Ubereats deliveries – and with drawers full of lanyards to prove it – Jimmy and Sue headed off to the Gold Coast last week to the Strata Impact conference full of hope that this wouldn’t either be another whinge-fest (not least because JT was MC).

In fact, it turned out to be absolutely fascinating with all sorts of interesting research from why the wrong apartments are built in the wrong places, to why new buildings are infested with mould and, along the way, how to deal with disruptive committee members using tried and tested psychology.

Both of us were impressed by presentations on amazing whizz-bang technology that allows you to get a 3D, virtual reality, fully detailed and inspectable images of your apartment block for about the same as it costs to have a bloke in a hard hat wander round with a clipboard.

You can read more about the conference here but it’s worth a listen to discover what got Jimmy and Sue excited about our strata future, and alarmed about how things are now, in almost equal measure.

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.

Three serious stories straight off the website have caught our attention this week – but there’s a bit of fun too.

The first two reports are changes planned in NSW laws to make life more secure and a bit easier for renters.

Premier Chris Minns announced last weekend that the government is going to stop no-fault evictions – where landlord move tenants out of their properties because that’s the easiest way of pushing rents up beyond what might be considered reasonable.

At the same time the government in going to bring in transferable electronic rental bonds for tenants who are on the move (willingly or otherwise).

When finances are tight, and moving home is costly anyway, people can’t afford to have a chunk of money tied up in their old bod when they are having to pay their new one.  You’ll find both stories HERE.

Then there’s the question of the strata scheme that was fined $235,000 for breaches of Workplace Health and Safety regs. Does the fact that it was non-residential mean we won’t be affected?

Or are we liable for WHS if there are Airbnbs in our blocks – or even if we are just working from home?

And finally, we launch Hug Your Strata Manager Day and you can do that HERE. 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.

Oh, dear. Not another swipe at strata managers, please! Yes, OK, it’s a well-trodden path but, to be fair, the baddies have made themselves easy targets for the past few months.

As for the goodies, we’d say, as we often do, that they are in the majority. And how frustrating must it be to try to earn an honest buck and provide a good service to your customers, knowing that your rivals are getting ahead by playing fast and loose with the rules and regulations?

And it’s with that in mind that we venture into the strata naughty corner this week, to discuss two pieces of information, both of which we hope will encourage the many honest and decent strata managers to keep doing what they’re doing.

One topic is news that a well-known strata manager, who had been sacked several times but then promoted by NCAT into an all-powerful compulsory role, has now been struck off.

Yes, you read it right. On a total of six occasions, his contract was not renewed or he was even replaced with a statutory manager, but then appointed to exactly that role, taking over from the strata committee and owners corp in another strata scheme.

And we have unearthed the amazing, deep-dive parameters of the $300k investigation into Netstrata which looks like it’s going to leave no stone unturned.  

Now, to be scrupulously fair, the independent inquiry could discover the whole problem was little more than a misunderstanding about who was paying how much to whom for what (“what” being insurance premiums and fees to contractors). 

It’s as deep a dive into a company’s structure, business practises and culture as you will ever see, so we hope you’ll forgive us for spending a little longer in the naughty corner than usual.

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.