FLAT CHAT WRAP

Are you feeling under-exposed and ill-informed?  That may be because the much-vaunted NSW strata data Hub doesn’t tell anyone who doesn’t already know stuff very much about your apartment blocks at all.We take a look at the information available on the Hub to non-residents (not much) and residents (not much more) and what’s in the “coming soon” section (ditto).Which prompts the question – if having strata information on the Hub is a good idea, why isn’t there more of it.  What’s so sensitive about some of the info we aren’t getting? Shouldn’t there be an option to provide greater detail, if the strata scheme wants to?Sometimes in life, less is more – but, usually, less is just less.Also this week we dig down into the Building and Design Practitioners Act (whoo-hoo!) to explore why simple renovation jobs are suddenly costing two or three times the original asking price.And we ask why you have to be an expert data miner, digging through layer after layer of building laws, to discover the genesis of the word “exempt” beyond the tail-chasing, tautological, circular meanings you first encounter.And for those of you who are not in NSW, we are spreading our wings and bringing in a strata expert from interstate.Also, we take a moment to wonder how many ways our artificial intelligence transcription service can get the words “Flat Chat Wrap” completely wrong. All that and more in this week's podcast. Enjoy!TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00Well after last week's marathon flood chat wrap [I left this in deliberately – JT], we're going to go for a slightly shorter version this week, partly because you're heading off to the UK.Sue  00:10Yes, that's right. Yes, I leave tomorrow.Jimmy  00:13I was just telling somebody about the transcription service we use for these podcasts, Otter AI, which is really good. Except it's completely incapable of getting the words Flat Chat Wrap. It gives us, flat check rip,  flat pack rope. But by the time we have tidied it all up, of course it appears as it should.Sue  00:44Yeah, fabulous Rafa, what would we do without her? (Well, this, is the answer. She’s still on a well-earned break so the transcript could make a lot less sense this week).Jimmy  00:48Indeed. Now today, we're going to talk about what is on the New South Wales strata hub information website thing, and what isn't? We're going to talk about problems with the design and building practitioners act. And we're going to briefly mention a new correspondent coming on to the Flat Chat website. He's from Queensland, which is really exciting.Sue  01:12Fantastic.Jimmy  01:13All right, well, we'd better get on with it. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the flight check (sic) column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  01:20And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  01:23And this is the flat chat wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySue, you suggested that I should have called us the flight route check and see what Otter did with it.Sue  01:48Anyway, maybe it's your accent, maybe that's what the AI can’t understand.Jimmy  01:52They gotta get used to it. And there must be other Scottish people, other Scottish Australians using Otter. But it is really good. Okay, the data hub, the big information portal for strata owners and residents in New South Wales came in with a big fanfare. And not a little controversy about what it's got on it, but mostly about what it doesn't have on it. So Sue, what would a person who is not an owner in a strata find if they went looking for information on the strata hub?Sue  02:26Yep, let's see the number of lots in a Strata community and the date the strata scheme was registered. So maybe so they'd be able to know whether it was a new building or whether it was on board or whether it was out of warranty.  And a map showing where the building is. And coming soon,

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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 a longer than usual podcast this week so strap yourselves in. Firstly we look at the Owners Corporation Network’s (OCN) 10-point manifesto which they have announced leading up to next year’s NSW state election.It’s part wish-list and part statement of intent and you can read it in detail here. What we discuss is why those demands are there and what it might mean if they are taken up by the next state government (whoever that might be).Then we dive into the foaming waters of Bondi Beach where, according to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald, locals are concerned that it's losing its egalitarian charm and in danger of becoming another Yuppified concrete and glass suburb. Meanwhile in another yarn, the local Waverley council has, somewhat typically, said that developers should consider the spiritual, cultural and historical and climate aspects of the neighbourhood before they start throwing up (pun intended) cheap and cheerless unit blocks.Developers, in the form of the Urban Taskforce, have equally predictably said life is hard enough without adding more obstacles to their business.Here at the Flat Chat Wrap have a solution which only requires some compromise and lateral thinking – so it is pretty much guaranteed never to get off the ground. In any case, don't say it out loud, but the biggest threat to Bondi is Airbnb and it's ilk. Just wait till those A380s are back in the air again and the area once again has more baristas than barristers, and you'll know all about it.And finally, we have built an extension to the podcast, in the form of the third and last part of David Bannerman’s Lawyer in the Hotseat webinar.That all adds up to an hour of chat, so pace yourselves. But remember the football World Cup is only a week away so some time management may be required.Before you go, in the next week or so we will be experimenting with ads at the beginning and end of each podcast (but not in the middle). The podcast takes up a lot of time to record, edit and transcribe so if we can get a little financial assistance with that, it would be great.However, if you hate the ads and they make you want to turn off the pod, please let us know and we can decide if it’s worth the hassle.If you enjoyed listening to this podcast (or reading the transcript), please share it with your friends using the social media buttons on this page.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLNB: This is a combination of two transcripts so the timings for the latter section - Part 3 of the Lawyer in the Hotseat webinar - will be off in terms of the audio. If you want to locate a specific section of audio, take about 25 minutes off the listed timing in that section and you'll be close to the mark.Jimmy  00:00I was on a panel at the SCA New South Wales owners day.Sue  00:06Oh, that's the strata Community Association.Jimmy  00:07YeahSue  00:08Which is the strata managers thing.Jimmy  00:10Yep. And it's our first time in ages have been at one of their events and, and certainly the first time I've participated in an owner's section, because for a while they were making fairly aggressive efforts to recruit people who should have been joining OCN. And in fact they were publicising themselves as being the voice of owners in strata,Sue  00:38okay. And that's kind of a bit hard, isn't it? Because they're actually the voice of strata manager?   So it's okay for them to have an owner's chapter, isn't it.Jimmy  00:48Advising owners and stuff and education and stuff like that? But as I, as I said, many, many, many times, if you're in a dispute between a strata manager and an owner, and you go to the strata managers organisation, who are they going to support? And if you're a strata manager, it's part of that organisation, and they support the strata owner, you're going to be a bit miffed.Sue  01:10For sure.Jimmy  01:12So anyway, I went to this thing,

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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 a little bit of everything in this week’s podcast.  We start with a story about how people who either ignore or don't know by-laws and regulations (not to mention common sense and personal responsibility), can get their come-uppance.And then we slide into the second part of the Lawyer in the Hot Seat webinar with David Bannerman.But first we bring you the story of a person who really should have known better, who laid down a timber floor which, in its design, could not have been noisier if it had drums and cymbals attached.Complaints from the downstairs about night time crashings and bashing were dismissed or, at the very least, downplayed by the committee.But then something happened that will bring a smile to the face of anyone who has ever had to deal with a noisy and inconsiderate neighbour and a committee reluctant to get involved.Then we hear part two of Lawyer in the Hot Seat where David Bannerman answers our questions about everything from defect claims to the appointment of compulsory strata managers.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLNB: The timings on these transcriptions do not match the exact timings on the podcast audio as the Lawyer in the Hotseat section comes from a different recording.Jimmy  00:00We’ve got a bit of a lighter load today, Sue.SueOh, yeah?JimmyWe're going to be listening to the second part of the David Bannerman Lawyer In The Hot Seat webinar, the thing we recorded a couple of weeks ago. And before that, we've got a really interesting story about somebody who has been caught having put down an illegal floor.Sue  00:22Yeah, that's a cracker. That one.Jimmy  00:25Yeah, well, you know, the people think they can just do what they want and get away with it. But sooner or later, they get caught out. So that'll be fun.I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:37And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:41And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyOkay, well, we're not going to name names here, because this happens to be one of the more litigious buildings in Sydney, let's just say. So the story is, first of all, background, a resident and owner in this building has been complaining for years about noise from her upstairs, thumping and banging all night, okay. Yep. And not being taken seriously by her building committee after a while.Sue  01:27Oh, that's really hard, isn't it? Because you do get people complain a lot. And sometimes, other people start kind of getting complaint blindness and start thinking, well, maybe they're imagining it, or maybe they're oversensitive, or that kind of thing. Really.Jimmy  01:38Yeah. I mean, that's a problem. You know, you do get people who complain a lot about not very much. But you also get people who complain a lot because they've got a lot to complain. So this person had been complaining about the person upstairs crashing and banging around and what seemed, she said was totally unreasonable. And then the person upstairs did a renovation. This is more recently.So this person had bought into the apartment block, years ago, done a big renovation, the person we know had moved in underneath and discovered all his crashing and banging. And you know, the committee was saying “Oh, we've never had any complaints before” kind of stuff and basically fobbing her off. To the point. I think it was so bad that she rented another apartment in the building just to have somewhere to sleep at night.Sue  02:27Yeah, I guess she'd made lots of complaints to this guy upstairs before. Yeah. And the guy had not been particularly kind of helpful or receptive any in any way. Really. So yeah. But finally, it seems that the guy upstairs has been caught out.Jimmy  02:42Yeah, because he's done another renovation. And during that renovation, something went wrong.

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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.

I know we already have two posts up on the website but we couldn’t let the news that an insurer is going to offer a 10-year warranty on new apartment blocks pass without comment.This is a huge deal for apartment buildings in NSW and, you would have to think, for the rest of Australia too (if their state governments can get over their instinctive and deep-seated contempt for apartment owners and residents).This is exactly what Building Commissioner David Chandler set out to achieve – get the trust in quality of apartment block construction to the point where insurers were prepared to back them. What follows next is that potential buyers will avoid the blocks that aren’t insured. Then the developers whose reputations mean they can’t get gold star approval, and therefore insurance, will go out of business.And this time it will be for good – not just until they can take another $200 company and start ripping people off all over again.That said, the main part of this week’s podcast is the first part of Lawyer in the Hot Seat where strata lawyer (and Flat Chat sponsor) David Bannerman answers your questions, fired at him by yours truly.In this, the first of three parts of our Q&A, David answers questions about mould, including who can claim what from whom, and possible NCAT orders if you or your tenant discovers mould. And on the broader subject of defects, we'll be talking about what is actually the start date for the window in which you can claim against your developer for repairs and remediation.That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap..TRANSCRIPTBecause I have recorded different parts of this at different times, and then split the Lawyer in the Hot Seat webinar recording into three parts, there has been a lot of cutting and pasting.  That means the timings will definitely not relate to the audio and some of the transcriptions may not be as accurate as usual.Please bear with us and, hey, maybe this is your opportunity to receive this as it was intended.  Just click on the play arrow under “Listen Here” and let your computer or phone do the work. - JimmyTJimmy  00:00Do you know what the word decennial means?Sue  00:02Is it every 10 years or something like that? Yeah. Why do you seem so surprised?Jimmy  00:08Well, I didn't know what it was. I kept reading about David Chandler, the building Commissioner talking about decennial insurance. And I'm going, what is the decennial, and why does it need to be insured? I asked him why? He doesn't mind a bit of jargon, Commissioner Chandler, and he loves an acronym. He loves initials and the sometimes you read his stuff, and you think I'm gonna have to send this to ASIO to get decoded.Anyway, we will be talking about the decennial insurance and how that's the final piece of the new building gold star iCIRT - there's another acronym –  approval system and how it's going to, or it should make a big change for people who are buying new apartments, especially off the plan. And then the rest of the podcast will be devoted to a big chunk of my Lawyer In The Hot Seat session.Sue  01:15Great. So that's answering lots of questions about lots of different things.Jimmy  01:19Yes, lots of different things.Sue  01:21So Jimmy, talking about the commissioner liking acronyms, I seem to think to seem to remember that you made a speech the other day, and you mentioned a number of acronyms that were particularly pertinent to strata.Jimmy  01:33Well, yeah, that may be my made-up fun ones. Like, WTF means “where's the finance?” And AC/DC means “Anyway, Call David Chandler”. LOL: “lower our levies”.Sue  01:52That is not the only one, isn't it?Jimmy  01:54Well, yeah, no, it definitely not the only one. I keep getting people coming on the forum and using acronyms. And I'm going to have no idea what you're talking about. And I have to look it up. But we have a list of acronyms, now.

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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.

Co-podder Sue Williams and I took ourselves off to the Owners Corporation Network’s 20th anniversary event last week and it turned out to be a very revealing evening indeed.OK, the plaudits and praise were flowing faster than the free wine – and that’s saying something. I hosted and Sue delivered a fascinating speech about how the OCN was formed in the darkest days of battle against corrupt developers, their sleazy managers, our supine strata committee and our incompetent strata managers.We thought we were suffering a unique confluence of bad luck … until Sue met other strata chairs and discovered we were far from alone.The big event, however, was Building Commissioner David Chandler’s speech. In it he revealed the next phase of his revolution, which will gladden the hearts of owners in older buildings.He also flagged an interest in carbon neutral buildings in the future and had a none too subtle sideswipe at yours truly for my ongoing campaign to get strata out of Fair Trading.But it was generally agreed that the work OCN and especially its executive officer Karen Stiles has done laid the groundwork for David Chandler’s appointment as building commissioner.You can hear David’s speech in this podcast, but OCN members will be able to stream the entire event — including Sue, strata lawyer Stephen Goddard, OCN chair Fred Tuckwell, stalwart Gerry Chia and Karen (Brokovich) Stiles – on their website ocn.org.au. There were also messages from Fair Trading Minister Victor Dominello and City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore.If you’re not a member, there’s a simple remedy for that. Check it out … but only after you have listened to this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00So as we mentioned last week, we went to the OCN's (the Owners Corporation Network's) 20th anniversary event on Wednesday. There were quite a lot of high-powered people there.Sue  00:12Yes, the room was packed. It was a fabulous occasion.Jimmy  00:16The Building Commissioner, David Chandler, was there and the Property Services Commissioner was there.Sue  00:21John Minns...Jimmy  00:22And we got a video message from Victor Dominello and Clover Moore. It was very exciting and interesting. So today, we're going to take a listen to what David Chandler said in his speech. He said a couple of really interesting things about new innovations. We'll have a chat about that. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I wrote the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:46And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:48And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. David Chandler seems to be a very popular man?Sue  01:07Absolutely. He's a great speaker, isn't he? I mean, he's very colourful and interesting, and very accessible.Jimmy  01:12Yes. We're going to take a listen to his speech and then we'll have a chat about that... "Now, without OCN, we might never have been blessed with a Building Commissioner at all. And without this particular Building Commissioner, we might never have witnessed the profound and meaningful change in the building industry. Please welcome your Building Commissioner, David Chandler."David Chandler  01:37Well, it's a privilege to be here today, because we've been on a long journey together. But today's story is really about OCN and I was talking earlier with a few folk here, that I see this is a bit like a graduation ceremony, where I've seen an organisation over 10 or so years (where I've been observing it), go from what was essentially about victims, to an organisation that's about advocacy. And you get a much more coherent engagement with people who have a clear advocacy perspective, rather than just simply being bogged down with their experience as victims. Now, that's not in any way to devalue the hell that I have seen people going through and it's been really... The motivator for me,

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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 that you simply want to exercise your rights to have your defects fixed and a representative from the developer bails you up in the street and tells you people have been killed for less.Or your chair was in cahoots with the developer and agreed to an $80,000 pay-off for $3million worth of defects?Or your strata manager was so incompetent that he put the strata scheme’s legally binding seal on a contract that had been changed by the developer to say that you would pay the wages of their corrupt and sexist building manager indefinitely if your block forced him out.This week we’re looking back as the Owners Corporation Network celebrates its 20th anniversary, with a glance back at its early days when there was complete lack of government interest in strata … except as a good source of political donations from developers.But first, there’s good chance that if you’re reading this you are either a tenant, have a neighbour who’s a renter, or you’re a landlord (“property provider” in Victoria). After all, more than 50 per cent of strata residents rent their homes.With the Greens announcing that they want to introduce a ban on “no-fault” evictions in NSW, we have something a focus on tenants this week.Similar legislation has been in place in Victoria for over a year, but what does it mean? Can tenants only have their tenancies ended if they behave badly?And if there are valid reasons for ending tenancies - like wanting to move back in, or need to renovate - what if the landlord or agent lies about them?We also look at a survey that shows landlords are three times as likely to take their tenants to a Tribunal than vice versa, and why, surprisingly, social housing organisations taking tenants to NCAT outnumber “civilian” landlords by similar proportions.That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00We're going to be talking a lot about renters this week. There's a report out by the Tenant's Union about who is taking whom to the Tribunal, NCAT. And the Greens have announced that they want the laws changed to something like they have in Victoria, where you cannot have a no-fault eviction.Sue  00:20Yes, look, that's long overdue, I think, really.Jimmy  00:24And we'll also be talking about a big anniversary this year; 20 years of the Owners Corporation Network. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:34And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:36And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyOkay, well, look at the Tenant's Union New South Wales; their survey into who is taking who to Tribunal and why. There's some quite surprising figures in there; social housing landlords are three times more likely to take their tenants to the tribunal, than ordinary landlords... Commercial landlords.Sue  00:36Why is that?Jimmy  00:54Well, it seems to be that the reason that they take them is because of non-payment of rent, which is the most common reason for anybody to be taken to the Tribunal.Sue  01:26Sure. I guess it's become more common these days, because rents have gone up so hugely. And also, we've had COVID, and lots of people lost their living.Jimmy  01:36But the interesting thing; well you think the social housing people are (and that's affordable housing and housing associations, and community associations and things like that)... You think, well, they'd be the last to take their tenants to a Tribunal. But it turns out that even though they do take the tenants to Tribunal, it's not to get them evicted... It's to basically force them to sit down and talk about a payment plan. So it's kind of like...Sue  02:05A mediation, really.Jimmy  02:06Well, yes, I guess in a way. I think it's signalling to them, look, this is serious. You can't keep not paying rent and expecting us to live ..

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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.

Surprise, surprise! What started off looking like a barren day on the pod-front, right at the end of the school holidays,  turned out to give us a lot to talk about.First of all, there was the fact that apartment rents are rising three times faster than house rents, and what that could mean for inner cities with both tourists and overseas students on their way back in droves.We also touch on the implications of that and what our various governments could and should be doing about all that in this column.Then we discuss a Tenants Union report about the discovery that private rental landlords are taking disputes with tenants to tribunals twice as often as tenants are challenging their landlords, and why that might be.Is it because landlords are more likely to be sinned against than sinners? We don’t think so – it’s a lot more complicated than that.Then we look at why sports and social clubs are queuing up to have their airspace and spare land turned into high-rises. And is it such a bad thing?And finally we ask if it’s OK for strata committees to insist that owners are identified when they make a complaint.  Is it a case of victim and whistle-blower naming and shaming?All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00One of those days, when we looked at the news, or had to think about the podcast, and thought 'oh, we don't have anything to talk about,' and then we had a quick look and there's actually quite a lot.Sue  00:11It's always the way, isn't it?Jimmy  00:12It always is. So we're going to be talking about how rents are going up. We're talking about tenants and landlords taking each other to NCAT (or not). We're talking about buildings going up above sports clubs, and whether you should be named and blamed, if you complain. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:36And I'm Sue Williams, and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:39And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySo rents are going up?Sue  00:56Yes, absolutely. So there's new reports coming out, last week, and this week, all about unit rents for the September 2022 quarter. And it's interesting, because house rents are going up hugely and unit rents are going up quite a lot, as well. I mean, as we know, during COVID, lots of people favoured houses, rather than units, but unit rents are really catching up quite quickly.Jimmy  01:18Yes, I heard a bit about it on the radio this morning, and they were saying that a lot of overseas students are coming back, and overseas workers are coming back. But I think they said there was a record number of visa applications from overseas students, wanting to come here.Sue  01:33So that's really going to increase demand for units and so there's going to be even more pressure on rents really, because vacancy rates are already incredibly low. So it's going to be very hard for many people, I think, looking for apartments to rent.Jimmy  01:48Absolutely. I just cast my mind back, to all the stories we had a couple of years ago, about how people would overfill their units; you know, cramming in a dozen students, into the one space. I remember one of the stories was about a studio flat, which had a lofted sleeping area. So you've got the ground floor, and then up behind it, a sleeping area, but it only takes up half the width, so that it still shares the light from the window. And people were just getting joiners in, to fill in the floor.Sue  02:25Oh my god!Jimmy  02:26So they had, you know, a false floor, so they could cram more people into them.Sue  02:33It's like that movie where they had seven-and-a-half levels.Jimmy  02:37But this, they would put a mattress across the washing machine and dryer and sink in the laundry, and that was somebody's bedroom. And the amazing thing was,

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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 on the Flat Chat website we celebrate the launch of Sue's new book about spray-on skin pioneer, Professor Fiona Wood.What's the link with strata? Well, if there ever was a cladding fire and someone was badly burned and ... em ... OK, Sue's the link. Forgive us for indulging in a little self-promotion.Elsewhere on the pod, we take a closer look at the much-vaunted (by us if no one else) iCIRT star ratings for developers and come away a little disappointed.Basically, if a developer gets more than three stars, they’re on the list.  Fewer and they’re not.  But there’s no actual star rating on show (unless it’s on their advertising).And what about developers who’ve been late in getting with the program or have decided it’s not for them?Sue has a very pointed message for the backsliders and recalcitrants.Elsewhere on the pod, Jimmy takes a deep dive into some new strata laws and regulations and works out what the strange change in office bearer nominations rules is.Most importantly, he says, why was it so hard to find it out.And finally we talk about a council in Sydney that wants to curb short-term holiday lets by increasing their rates, and a group in Byron Bay that’s battling to prevent holiday lets there being restricted.All that and more on the Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00It's a long weekend everywhere else in Australia (I think), but not here, in the Flat Chat Wrap studio.Sue  00:07Yes, we never rest.Jimmy  00:09We never stop, as Ange Postecoglou says of his football team, Celtic. We are a bit annoyed this week; very annoyed, actually... Annoyed and disappointed. We are annoyed about the latest press release from New South Wales Fair Trading, about changes that have been made to the regulation. And we are disappointed about the iCIRT developer ratings thing, that we trumpeted (at great length) last week.Sue  00:36A bit disappointed; we're not completely disappointed...Jimmy  00:38We're not distraught; we are just a little bit, hmm.... We will be talking about that in a minute. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:50And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:53And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySue, you're back from Perth?Sue  01:11Yes. That's right.Jimmy  01:12What were you doing over there?Sue  01:13I just had the launch of my new book, a biography of Professor Fiona Wood, the burn surgeon; world-leading burns pioneer.Jimmy  01:20Is she the spray-on skin woman?Sue  01:22She is, yes. She became quite famous, because of the Bali bombings; that's when we all started noticing her and then she became Australian of the Year. Amazing woman.Jimmy  01:29And it's the 20th anniversary?Sue  01:31 It is next week, of the Bali bombing.Jimmy  01:33How did the book launch go?Sue  01:34It went fabulously, actually. There were 200 people in the audience and we signed 300 books. It was fun. You know, there was real love in the room for Fiona and maybe, a little bit for me. It was really good!Jimmy  01:34We don't have any link between burns victims and strata, unless you count flammable cladding and we haven't had any burns victims in Australia from that, yet.Sue  01:59No, fortunately.Jimmy  02:01But it does bring us to the question of the developer-rating system; the gold star rating that was launched last week. We are a bit disappointed with it.Sue  02:14Yes. Look, it's a fantastic advance, really. I mean, it's wonderful to know the developers are being really thoroughly vetted and rated; that's great. But when you go onto the iCIRT website, the ratings have been done by the ratings company, Equifax... But when you go on and have a look at their ratings, they just give a list of the developers who have achieved thre..

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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 is mostly (but not entirely) focussed on an announcement we believe is going to change the way we buy apartments in NSW and probably across Australia.Last week NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler announced the first four developers in NSW to achieve more than four out of five gold stars from the state’s revolutionary Independent Construction Industry Rating Tool (iCIRT).And in a speech to the Toga group - recipients of one of the 4.5 ratings – he said that NSW apartment purchaser now no longer have any excuses for buying below-standard apartments from dodgy developers.By the way, we don’t think this will only affect apartment buyers in NSW; will a developer with a four-star Sydney rating hide that from their potential purchasers in Victoria or Queensland?You can read about the first four companies to achieve 4.5 stars – Toga Group, Helm, Meriton and Dasco Australia – in this story in the Sydney Morning Herald.You can hear David Chandler’s speech to the Toga Group in the podcast, as well as credit check agency Equifax executive Alexandra Shaw’s explanation of how the ratings system works.And if you don’t give 4.5 hoots about star ratings, we also pick the bones out of a story about the scheme where visitor parking have been given over to employees of a commercial tenant in the block – and how the strata committee can’t or won’t do anything about it.That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULL(Timings on these sections may be a little off in places as we rearranged the content in edit)Jimmy  00:00Sue, you were at a big event in the world of strata the other day?Sue  00:03Yes, on Saturday. I was there when New South Wales Building Commissioner, David Chandler, was presenting a gold-star rating award for one of Australia's developers.Jimmy  00:14Okay, well, we'll be talking about that. We'll be listening to David Chandler's speech, and a couple of other things. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:26And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:29And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyOkay, I think before we talk about what David Chandler said, we should possibly listen to the speech he made. This was at the presentation of the four-and-a-half (out of five) gold stars, for the TOGA Group.David Chandler  01:02My role was always to come in and get the customers back. At the end of the day, it's no good having a regulator who just holds a stick; you've got to do it with a purpose and the purpose of this whole exercise (the last three years that we put into turning the compass around in New South Wales), is that we wanted the customers back.And I think we're now starting to see customers talking about feeling more confident, and starting to be more interested in getting back into the market. Frankly, for rated developers, I think the next three to five years are going to be the golden years of residential apartment building sales. I think we're going to see a mass-migration into this country. We're going to see people moving from other asset classes, into this asset class. I think it's just terribly important to realise that this is the time to actually let the fresh winds that are blowing in the sails of this industry, start to carry the good boats forward, and leave the ones that are risky, still back in the docks.So this whole process today, is really about now starting to shift the conversation around... What we did in the last three years, was we had a very serious conversation with the industry, about the industry. We've been really very focused on an inward-facing conversation, saying "guys, we've got to lift the game. We've actually got to do a lot better and we've got to show what better looks like, and we've got to show what bad looks like."Now, most of you who followed my media in the last t..

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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.

OK, it’s our stupid fault for crossing the ditch to New Zealand without taking even our basic recording gear.We could have just about coped and recorded it on our return but our flight was delayed by an hour and a half and that mean that not only would we be later than planned in getting back to Sydney but we’d be tired and grumpy too.Then I discovered my phone has an “interview” setting in its voice recorder app and all we had to do was talk into opposite ends of the Samsung to get a reasonably clear recording.So, we recorded this week’s podcast in Auckland Airport’s departure lounge and, with most of the airport sounds edited out, and living with the occasional “plosive” pop and puff from using this basic equipment, we present it for your enjoyment.In it we discuss the new build-to-rent development controversially planned for an historic area of Sydney.And we chat about the dramatic drop in apartment approvals – down 40-plus per cent according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures – and ask if David Chandler is doing too good a job of driving away dodgy developers (as if such a thing were possible).Finally we dip into the Forum to ask if you can pass a by-law forcing landlords to evict bad tenants who constantly breach by-laws.That’s all in this week’s podcast and if you can’t bear to listen to a recording that’s not up to your usual high standards, you can read the transcript right here.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00If you can hear strange background noises in this recording, it's because we're doing our podcast in Auckland Airport, where Sue and I are about to get on a plane (we hope), back to Sydney. But there's a lot to talk about. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:19And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:21And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyOkay Sue, there was some alarming news in the papers last week?Sue  00:42That's right. There's been a bit of controversy about this. Over in Harris Park, in the west of Sydney, there's been an application for 483 apartments. A series of five blocks, I think, of four, six and eight storeys high and they're all going to be build-to-rent apartments and I think a lot of people feel that it shouldn't really happen, because it's in a very historic part of Harris Park, which is very close to Elizabeth Farm, where Elizabeth MacArthur and her husband, John MacArthur, started the Australian wool industry.Jimmy  01:14That you wrote all about in your book, 'Elizabeth & Elizabeth.'Sue  01:18Yes, absolutely. I went over there quite a bit. It's a beautiful place. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere, in lots of ways.  I haven't looked very closely at the plans for this development, but if you actually built nice -looking, affordable build-to-rent housing in the area and linked in  Elizabeth Farm, with the other historic places nearby... It's very close to Experiment Farm as well, which was the first European colonial farm that was set up in about 1834. Then there's also Dumbledore Cottage just nearby.Jimmy  01:57Dumbledore, isn't that from Harry Potter?Sue  02:00Same name!Jimmy  02:02Oh, is that where she got it, do you think?Sue  02:03Quite possibly, yes.Jimmy  02:05So, Dumbledore Cottage, and there's a Maronite Christian Church; a Lebanese Christian church nearby, as well.Sue  02:12A cathedral. That's just next door, as well. I guess it's got lots of esteemed neighbours and many of them are actually protesting about these plans.Jimmy  02:23Are they just NIMBYs?Sue  02:25Well, it's hard to know, isn't it really? The build-to-rent sector is a really important part (and becoming an even more important part) of the Australian housing sector. To recap on build-to-rent; they are apartments which the developer retains ownership off,

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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.