FLAT CHAT WRAP

If NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler has served no other function, he earns our respect and gratitude for being a very useful source of entertaining, informative and occasionally horrifying stories.The latest, from a parliamentary committee meeting, involves an allegation that development company’s executives had tried to smear him with a suggestion that he had demanded a $5million bribe to back off from a development where he’d banned sales until defects were fixed.We pick the bones out of that in the podcast.  But Commissioner Chandler isn’t just a fruitful source of juicy tales, and we speculate as to where the next phase of his property development revolution is going.We have heard suggestions that he is now going to turn his fearsome gaze towards buildings that have defects and are still under warranty.Why? Because recognising you have defects in your building and knowing your rights is no guarantee that the developer and builder will fix them. Far from it, in many cases.And we also take a look at how Sydney’s lower north shore seems destined to be the next hot spot for apartments and the shops and services that people want and need in a modern city.All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00We always seem to be just one step ahead of the news on this podcast.Sue  00:05Yes!Jimmy  00:05Last week, we were talking about dodgy developers and them having the same DNA as criminals and this week, we find out that David Chandler has said that a developer (who has been described as 'dodgy' in parliament), tried to implicate him in demanding bribes. So, we'll be talking about that. We'll be talking about the next phase of David Chandler's work, which is remediation of buildings that are less than six years old and have defects. And you're going to tell us about things that are happening on the lower North Shore of Sydney?Sue  00:46Yes, about revitalising CBD's.Jimmy  00:48Okay. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:54And I'm Sue Williams, and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:56And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. That was a stunning piece of news that came out last week...Sue  01:16It was, wasn't it?Jimmy  01:17Yes, I mean, according to the Sydney Morning Herald and according to David Chandler; at a Parliamentary Estimates Committee meeting, he was talking about the Toplace Group, whom he has identified in the past as being (or they have been named in Parliament), as dodgy developers. They have this very flamboyant CEO, Jean Nassif, who is typical of that kind of person; you know, he was famous for giving his wife, a bright yellow Lamborghini, and of course, that appeared all over social media. They've got a development called Skyview (I think it's in Castle Hill), which David Chandler had slapped an order on, saying, they should not sell any more apartments, until they had fixed defects in the building. According to his testimony at the parliamentary committee, he was at a meeting with them to discuss this, and one of the Toplace executives (who he has not named), read out an email saying 'put $5 million into a trust account, and we can make the Skyview problem go away.'Sue  01:25Wow!Jimmy  01:26You know, there's a couple of things that occured. He told them 'oh, well, just take that straight to the police, because that's extortion.'   They declined to do that, but then he heard that a journalist had been briefed by somebody saying 'did you know David Chandler is corrupt, and he's asked for $5 million as a bribe?' And even then, Fair Trading minister, Kevin Anderson, had somebody come up to him in a meeting, saying 'how do you feel about your Building Commissioner being corrupt?'Sue  03:11That's incredible, isn't it? My god!Jimmy  03:14So obviously,

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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 hardly a true crime podcast but this week, inspired by connections made in the press between the relatives of property developers and their friends with police records,  we wade into the murky waters of past cases where the Venn diagrams of criminals and property developers have overlapped.It should be no surprise to anyone that the high-risk, high rewards ventures like unregulated property development and criminal activities would have attracted similar kinds of characters.But whatever’s going on nowadays – and we shouldn't assume that there was anything untoward afoot in the reported cases –  it would pale into insignificance compared to some stories from the fairly recent past.Meanwhile, Sue explores the still risky but much safer area of searching for bargains in blocks that are known to have problems.We also look (with clothes pegs on our noses) at a Qld body corporate who thought their responsibility for a flat being flooded with sewage ended where their insurance cover ran out.And we get a resolution on the question of whether the representative of one block on a community committee of four can veto agenda items that they don't like.All than and more in the Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00One of the interesting things that came out of the whole David Chandler, Eleni Petinos thing, was that the company that he was asked to go and deal with (who's building he'd put a stop-work order on)... It came out in a paper, that the brother of one of the directors was thought to be associated with somebody who had a criminal record; they had a picture… and that sent a few people into a tizz. So we're going to talk about the connection between alleged criminals and alleged developers, in the podcast today. We're also going to talk about; you did an article about whether it was worth buying into buildings, where you knew there were problems. And we're going to talk about a body corporate in Queensland that got itself in the poo. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:57And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:59And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyProperty developers with criminal connections... Sue, does this surprise you?Sue  01:20Well, it's like going back to the days of the 70s, really, isn't it?Jimmy  01:25I remember, just when we started writing about this stuff, somebody told me a story that they were in a meeting, and there was a building in Victoria Street in Kings Cross, I think, where the notorious underworld character, Lenny McPherson, had been buying up all the apartments in the building, with a view to knocking it down and building apartments. In those days, you had to get 100% approval from the owners, that they would sell the building to whoever. And there was one old bloke who just didn't want to sell. He said "look, I don't want to be difficult, but I've lived in this apartment since I got married as a young man. I brought up my kids here and my wife lived here with me, before she died. I like to just sit in the corner window and look at the world go by. So you know, if Mr. McPherson wants to buy my apartment, all I ask is that I get an apartment in the same position in the new building. And Macpherson's lawyer said "okay, this is how it's going to work. Mr. McPherson is going to let out all the apartments that he owns, to drug dealers and prostitutes and bikies, and young people and backpackers."Sue  02:47That's horrendous, isn't it?!Jimmy  02:48"Then some days, your water will get turned off, and you'll call up the building manager, or the strata manager and they might get around to fixing it. And other days, the electricity will suddenly stop and eventually, your life will just not be worth living, so why don't you just sell?"Sue  03:05Wow! And I bet that happened quite a bit.Jimmy  03:08

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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.

Look, we know it’s all done and dusted. David Chandler has re-extended his contract as NSW Building Commissioner, John Minns is back as Property Services Commissioner and Victor Dominello has returned as Fair Trading Minister (for now).In short, the band is back together and former Fair Trading Minister Eleni Petinos - the Yoko Ono of the strata Beatles – has retreated to Miranda where her skills and character are more fully appreciated.However, we can’t let it lie. Premier Perrottet insists, Eleni was not sacked because Big Dave and the “other Minns" resigned.  But they definitely would not have performed their synchronised 180s, which would have done ice-dancers proud, if she was still there.So forgive us if we take one final poke at that recent example of political roadkill to see where the tyre tracks lead.Elsewhere in the pod, Jimmy comes up with an idea for a fast-track Fair Trading dispute resolution system, based on common sense and … um … Judge Judy.And we try to make sense of an almost incomprehensible report by four universities for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) which comes to the stunning conclusion that developers want to make money on their projects.Who knew?It also claims that unpredictability makes developers nervous and they need more certainty form government but government probably can’t provide it. Or something like that.  Judge for yourself here.And we celebrate a small but significant success by one of our Flatchatters in bringing his strata block back from the edge of the cliff of chaos.All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00I got a very pleasant message from David Chandler, the other day.Sue  00:03Did you?Jimmy  00:04Well, everybody got a message from David Chandler, but it said some nice things... I can't say it said it about me, but the subject line on this email was 'Jimmy Flat Chat,' and it said how great it was to have support among people who actually cared and wanted the whole development thing to be better. So we're going to be talking about how he is back and why he is back; all that stuff. But we're also going to talk about the mess that the previous Fair Trading Minister left, before she got shown the door. We're going to talk about a report from AHURI, The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. Now, they brought a report and I have got to be honest, I don't actually understand what it means, but we'll have a chat about it. And we'll talk about some measures that places are taking, to try and get more rental accommodation available. And we'll talk about a couple of things that have come up in the forum. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  01:16And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  01:19And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyOkay, Eleni Petinos, the former short-lived, Fair Trading and Small Business minister... Now, there's been a lot of stories around about this. About a month ago, she was relieved of her ministry by the Premier, Dominic Perrottet. He said it was because of allegations of bullying and because there was a report about to come out, about bullying and sexual harassment in Parliament. But, it coincided with a letter from David Chandler, basically saying that he couldn't work with her anymore and there was government policy that had been agreed on and they were supposedly moving forward with (but they're basically, stuck in the mud). Then there was a whole business of Ms Petinos having had a meeting with some developers, who had for a while, employed John Barilaro, after he left Parliament, and how Barilaro phoned David Chandler and 'encouraged' him to meet with these people...Sue  02:46That's kind of real 'interfering in the process.'Jimmy  02:48Absolutely and then, we found out later that John Minns,

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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 are going to discuss the local council that’s going to pay someone $100,000 a year to help residents fight high rise developments.It’s the least developed suburb in Sydney, so do they really need someone to take up cudgels against developers? According to this story in the Sydney Morning Herald, the move was triggered by a proposal – approved by the NSW's Eastern City Planning Panel – to knock down four terraces and build two 10-storey residential “towers” at the corner of Syd Einfeld Drive, Oxford Street and York Road in Bondi Junction.We ask, are their nimbys too namby-pamby to do it themselves?  Or is it reasonable to have a council-funded champion for the urban dwellers who don’t want to live in or near high-rises?Talking of champions, we discuss the possibility of NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler changing his mind about retiring in November and ask whether the government would have him back (we have a definitive answer to that!)Sue looks at areas where apartment prices have not only defied the general plunge in property values but have actually gone up in price.And we put her on the spot with a couple of curly questions from the Forum. All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00You're back from Africa?Sue  00:01Yes, I am; back, just a few minutes ago and you've pulled me into the podcast, immediately. Thank you, Jimmy!Jimmy  00:07While you're still awake. As usual, when I started off thinking we didn't have much to talk about, we do. Waverley Council has decided that it's NIMBYs are too namby-pamby...Sue  00:22And it's helping the NIMBYs, isn't it, really?Jimmy  00:26Yes, they want to help the NIMBYs. We've got kind of an update (a bit), on David Chandler. We've got new figures on where apartment prices are going up and where they're coming down. And we're going to dip into the forum again, with a couple of fairly odd questions. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:47And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:50And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. MUSICJimmyYou probably can't hear this, because we have all sorts of noise filters operating, but it is blowing an absolute gale outside.Sue  01:17It's not very nice to come home to, I must say.Jimmy  01:19I'm glad you were on the ground before this hit. It would have been a bit of a bumpy landing.Sue  01:24Especially because I couldn't work out how to do up my seatbelt.Jimmy  01:27Oh really? That's because you were at the posh end of the plane, for once.Sue  01:31I flew business class. I mean, I didn't pay for it; somebody else paid for it. But yes, they put a mattress down over your seat when you pull your seat down, and then it kind of covers the seatbelt. I couldn't work out what to do and the steward came along and pulled out another seat belt, which kind of straps across your body, from your shoulder downwards, like a car seat belt. I couldn't find the other end and I was too embarrassed to ask really, because I seemed so stupid; you know, 'business class newbie.'  I was just hoping that it wasn't going to be rocky coming down, because otherwise, I would have been flying around.Jimmy  01:38You would have been bouncing around the inside of the plane, but you made it!Sue  02:05 I did!Jimmy  02:06There's a couple of things that we are going to talk about... There's a story in the Sydney Morning Herald, about Waverley Council. They are going to pay somebody $100,000 a year, plus another $30,000 to set up the whole business of (what comes down to), opposing high-rise developments in the council. I mean, it's the usual story... 'oh, they're going to build these nasty, bland, identical blocks, that are just going to be big chunks of concrete.

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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 are in a state of shock here at Flat Chat, wondering if, when David Chandler and Victor Dominello both go, and with dodgy developers already circling the bleeding carcass of Fair Trading like vultures, are we going to be back to the bad old days of seriously defective apartment blocks being the norm?We had no idea when we recorded this podcast that Victor Dominello was about to announce his resignation. NSW Fair Trading is obviously spying on us. We reached this conclusion after weeks of recording the podcast only to find out that, as soon as it was in the can, yet another high-profile departure would be announced.But we were pretty sure that this week we had it covered. A trip to Canberra for the writers festival, plus the resumption of my teaching gig, meant we didn’t get this podcast done and dusted until Tuesday morning. No last minute resignations – hurrah!Then, on Wednesday, Sue stepped on a plane for South Africa, rendering her uncontactable and therefore unrecordable for 18 hours.  Minutes later, the news dropped that former, and currently caretaker Fair Trading Minister Victor Dominello is pulling the plug on his political career.It’s due to health reasons and very sad; you can read about it here. He was an innovator and hard worker and one of the best Fair Trading ministers this state has ever hadHowever, we still found a lot to discuss about the latest Fair Trading and NSW cabinet schemozzles on this week's podcast and Sue took a punt on who the latest cabinet minister to walk the plank would be. And no, it wasn't Victor. Also, we look at another collapsing (or maybe not) building in Sydney’s inner west and Sue becomes strataguru for a day when I fire your questions from the Forum at her.While you consider that, I’m off to get my office swept for Fair Trading bugs. I’m not really worried – they’ll probably stop working as soon as the warranty runs out.  TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00David Chandler is going, John Minns has gone. Eleni Petinos has gone, Stuart Ayres is gone; who's next?Sue  00:07Yes! Maybe, Dominic Perrottet?Jimmy  00:10Well, we'll see. We'll be talking about that and other much more interesting (and less important things), from the forum, later on. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:22And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:25And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. [MUSIC]JimmySo, you think Dominic Perrottet is in danger of losing his job?Sue  00:45Well, all these things are happening under his reign, aren't they, really? And I mean, obviously, he wasn't... Well, we don't know, but we must assume that he probably wasn't a part of it, because the origins of all these scandals started a long time ago. But, he was obviously a power broker within the party.Jimmy  01:00Well, you know, they say that it's not the crime that gets you, it's the cover-up.  I'm not suggesting for a moment, that any crime has occurred.Sue  01:08Of course not. Or, any cover-up!Jimmy  01:13Perrottet sacked Petinos, within a day of coming back from an overseas trip, on the (I was going to say pretext), grounds that she had been bullying (or she had been accused of bullying), in her office. And this was kind of backed-up by quite a lot of turnover of staff.Sue  01:38But then he denied it was anything to do with David Chandler, didn't he?Jimmy  01:42He did. And then we saw David Chandler's letter, where he detailed; well it sort of suggested that pressure had been brought to bear by first of all, Petinos and then John Barilaro, who has got his own set of scandals to deal with. And then in that letter, David Chandler said his position was untenable.Sue  02:08It was a pretty explosive letter, wasn't it, really?Jimmy  02:10Yes and he said 'this is not negotiable.' He said 'I'm leaving,

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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.

If there is one area of NSW Liberal politics that may be glad that the kerfuffle over the appointment of a trade envoy to New York is drawing so much media attention and political heat, it will be anyone associated with Fair Trading.When we sat down to record this week’s podcast and discuss – among other things – the departure of Property Services Commissioner John Minns, we had no idea how chaotic things had become there.To misquote Oscar Wilde, to lose one commissioner is unfortunate, to lose two looks like carelessness.The departure of Commissioner Minns occurred in the same week that Building Commissioner David Chandler announced he was cutting short his extended tenure, and Minister Eleni Petinos was summarily dismissed.Now we can report that Mr Minns’ resignation seems to be closely related to a hastily concocted plan to replace him (eventually, if and when parliament gets round to it) with a statutorily appointed independent commissioner.Ironically (or is it predictably?), his temporary replacement has been drawn from Small Business, the part of her portfolio that consumed most of former Minister Petinos' energy and attention during her short tenure.And in another irony, MS Petinos first came to prominence in a sexting scandal involving former Fair Trading minister, Matthew Kean, who has been elevated to deputy premier following the resignation of Stuart Ayres, yet another former Fair Trading Minister.Were our colleagues in the media not consumed with what John ‘Porky’ Barilaro did or didn't do and Stuart Ayres did or didn't know about the New York gig, surely they’d be all over this like a cheap suit. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.  That’s just a small part of this week’s podcast.  We also discuss how the brutalist or modernist, or brutally modernist  high rise block looming over Tamarama beach has been given a reprieve following a major speed bump in its process of renewal.We chat about the NCAT case which established that tenants can take legal action against owners corporations to force them to fix defective common property.We have a look at the block where a majority of owners want to take one neighbour to NCAT for being a nuisance … by continually making successful complaints about their businesses to the local council.And we ask, if the victims of flood damage can get their homes bought off them by the government, why can’t the poor benighted owners of flats in Mascot Towers be bailed out in the same way?That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00Well, the fallout from various ministries in New South Wales continues; we'll be hearing about the Property Services Commissioner and his sudden departure.Sue  00:13Gosh, where will it all end?Jimmy  00:16And, we've got a couple of things from the website, plus some news about that big building at Tamarama. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:29I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:32And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySo it seems Property Commissioner, John Minns, has quit, as well as David Chandler.Sue  00:53Wow! It's a complete fallout, isn't it really?Jimmy  00:56Well, you know, we heard that David Chandler hasn't actually left, but he's cut short his extended appointment and then, apparently the same week, John Minns, the Property Commissioner, left the office.Sue  01:12Why was that, do you know?Jimmy  01:14Well, I think it might be something to do with the fact that they didn't even realise he was there, because you had trouble getting through to him, didn't you?Sue  01:23Yes, I was doing a story and someone suggested John Minns would be the perfect person to give me a comment, so I contacted his office... They said "I'm sorry, do you mean Chris Minns (who's the leader of the opposition)?..

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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 we were, all set with a podcast on David Chandler’s resignation in the can, when we heard that NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet had invited Fair Trading Minister Eleni Petinos to leave at her own chosen speed (one for the Dylan fans, there).Now, we could have fudged it with a new intro but Big Dave’s not-very-imminent departure was already old news and the vapour trail from Ms Petinos' expensive fragrance was still lingering from her exit, so it was back in the bunker for a re-take.And, full disclosure, there was another reason: we said in the original recording that there was no way that the Premier would sack her, having just supported her while he was in India.Ooops! What does this tell us? Maybe things were a lot worse in Fair Trading than he or we thought.The one thing notably absent in most other commentary about her departure is any suggestion that it had anything to do with her throwing Building Commissioner Chandler under the bus, over a dubious claim that he had misled parliament.But we think that was definitely an element in the decision to send her back to Miranda. Loyalty has its own built-in form of instant karma.Other topics include chats about the two stories from the Tribunal that appear on this page -one about a dispute over fire safety and another about a battle to get a second dog into a unit that had permission for one.And a quick correction, contrary to what I say on the podcast, the Castle apartment block has six whole-floor apartments, not eight or 10, and the home of pooches Peach and Zodiac is a semi in a strata scheme, not a townhouse.That's what I get for talking about stories before I've written them.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00Sometimes I think, someone in government waits until they know we've recorded our podcast, and then they make big announcements.Sue  00:09Yes, so we did a big track about David Chandler and now on Sunday night, Dominic Perrottet's office issued his statement about David Chandler.Jimmy  00:20Well, actually, it was a statement about Elini Petinos. We'll be talking about Eleni Petinos and Dominic Perrottet's response to complaints about her behaviour. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:39And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:41And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. [MUSIC]JimmyOkay, last night, as you said, the Premier of New South Wales issued a statement about Eleni Petinos, the Minister for Small Business and Fair Trading. I'm just going to read what he said, and we can talk about her response, and then, we'll look at what led up to this whole thing. So, this is what Premier Perrottet said last night... 'Today I spoke with the Minister for Small Business and Fair Trading, Eleni Petinos, after some further matters concerning her were brought to my attention. In light of these matters, Ms Petino's service as a minister will cease with immediate effect and I will write to the Governor in this regard tomorrow. Minister for Customer Services and Digital Government, Victor Dominello will assume Ms Petino's portfolio responsibilities.' So basically, he sacked her, with immediate effect, Which is incredible really, because usually, Premiers would say 'I spoke to a Minister and they have resigned.' It's really quite unusual, for them to be sacked so abruptly like that. Which kind of suggests that the rumours about her being a fairly acerbic person, who's not prepared to give an inch on much, may be true.Sue  02:15Perhaps, but they are allegations at this stage; we don't really know. But I guess there'll be (yet another) inquiry.Jimmy  02:25I'll get you to read what her response was.Sue  02:27'Tonight, the Premier informed me I would no longer be a Minister in his government. I'm proud of my work while I served the people of New South Wales as Minister for Business and Minis..

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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.

Sometimes we are just too efficient for our own good. No sooner had we sent this week’s podcast off for transcription than the news broke that NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler had announced he will be leaving the job in November – just weeks after he signed a year-long extension to his contract.We’ve covered that in detail HERE and will pick up on the news for next week’s podcast.Meanwhile, there’s plenty to talk about this week, including the TV report that they have discovered that apartment blocks in Victoria have defects.  Who knew? You can watch the ABC report HERE.There’s the anti-strata beat-up about the couple from Earlwood in Sydney who, thanks to bad advice saw an $18,000 special levy blow out to a $44,000 debt – and that was after they had paid off $13,000.Then, on the subject of debts, we have a chunk of last week’s interview with strata lawyer David Sachs which I cut out and set aside for this week as it’s mainly about Section 232 of the NSW strata Act and the various – almost limitless – ways it can be used to resolve disputes.Then we talk about the things we like about hotels that end up being included in apartment designs.So there’s lots to talk about before next week, when rest assured we will get into why David Chandler resigned and what kind of building commissioner the NSW government will be looking for to replace him.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00Okay, back from Bali.Sue  00:02Yes.Jimmy  00:03With no suntan, but a lot of mosquito bites.Sue  00:07Yes, but much more relaxed and happy and content.Jimmy  00:13Well, I was until we had to sit on the plane next to a teenage girl who refused to put a mask on.Sue  00:20Yes, that was very annoying, wasn't it, really? And she wasn't the only one, there were quite a few people on the plane who weren't wearing masks, which is a bit disturbing.Jimmy  00:27Because it says on the announcement, that it's a legal requirement that you wear a mask for the duration of the flight.Sue  00:33But it's pretty hard for the air stewards to insist. They kept coming around and reminding people and people would put on the mask...Jimmy  00:39And then as soon as they were gone, take it off again. And then they ask you to respect people's choices, which means you can't grab them by the throat and say "put your effing mask on."Sue  00:40Even though you want to.Jimmy  00:52Very much so. So today, we are going to talk about... Apparently they've just discovered defects in buildings in Melbourne; it was a big thing on the TV while we were away (shock, horror). Welcome to the real world. And, we're going to have another chat about that. What I think was a confected scandal, about the old couple who couldn't pay their levies... I think we were the first to (apart from the story that broke in the Sun-Herald before we left).. We were the first people to actually pick up on that and comment on it, so I think we're entitled to have another swing at it, now that we've had a chance to think. And, David Sachs, the strata lawyer, was talking about debts last week. And I chopped out a thing (because we kind of went off on a tangent at one point), to talk about section 232, which is part of the act that basically, allows you to resolve disputes with your strata committee, or your strata scheme. So, that's quite a lot really, isn't it?Sue  01:59Absolutely.Jimmy  02:00I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  02:04And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  02:07And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmySo, apartment blocks in Melbourne have defects... Who'd have thunk it?Sue  02:28It's interesting. I guess this story about the defects in the Melbourne block got a lot of traction, because the couple who live in the building were prepared to face up to the med..

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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.

Last week saw the publication of a confected scandal of an elderly couple who’d been given bad advice, blaming their owners corporation for a special levy of $18,000 that had blown out to a debt of $44,000.As we pointed out in this story, and on this podcast, the owners corp were probably just fulfilling their legal obligation to fix common property and charge owners according to their unit entitlements.But the appallingly one-sided yarn glossed over the influence of the financial and legal advisers who got the couple into that financial hole and instead took potshots at the strata committee and owners corp.Anyway, purely by coincidence, the previous week I had sat down with David Sachs, principal of Sachs Gerace Lawyers to talk about levy debts, how they can be recovered and what you should and shouldn’t do when they mount up for one owner.This includes tracking down overseas investors who leave their units empty and never pay levies ... which may involve hiring private detectives in foreign countries. Ooooh... exciting!But seriously, David provides a calm voice of reason in what can be a highly emotive area … something that was notably lacking in the previously mentioned “fake news” travesty.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:03Last week, before the story blew up about the old couple in Earlwood being (allegedly) driven out of their home because of a levies debt, I interviewed David Sachs from our sponsors, Sachs Gerace Lawyers, mainly about debt.That was something we'd organised well in advance, so it's purely coincidental... and this is by way of an explanation, if people listen to this and think "well, why are you not talking about that story that was in the Sun-Herald?" The reason is, it hadn't happened yet.I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review. And this is a very special Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyI am with David Sachs of Sachs Gerace Lawyers,  here in Woolloomooloo, technically, and we're going to talk about levy debts and what you can do about them and what you can't do about them. Good afternoon, David.David Sachs  01:26Hi, Jimmy.Jimmy  01:27Okay, question one; there is a mandatory 10% penalty rate for unpaid levies, or overdue levies... When does that kick in?David Sachs  01:38Well, I would never use the word 'penalty.' It's actually a bit of a black mark for lawyers, because penalties mean, you can't recover it. But, there is interest that is chargeable, and it is chargeable from, I guess, the day after the levy is due, but unpaid, but, there's a grace period, so that if you pay within a month after the levies are due, then you're not charged the interest. But, if you paid two days later, then you'll pay for the full 30 days, plus two days.Jimmy  02:09Which is a proportion of the 10%.David Sachs  02:12Yes, it's 10% per annum, just calculated in the ordinary ways. So if there was a $100 debt, then 10% of it will be $10, and that would be calculated on a daily basis. It accrues notionally for the first month, but it's only able to be recovered, if the levies are not paid within that one month grace period.Jimmy  02:34What processes does a strata scheme have to take, to get unpaid levies back?David Sachs  02:42So there's procedures that are specified in the Act that every strata manager would know about, but it's essentially, you make sure that a valid levy has been struck that the notices to pay the levies have been issued, that the requisite amount of time has been allowed for people to pay. You've got to allow at least 30 days for people to pay, then if they don't pay them, you've got to give them a notice with information that's required under the Act about that payment; how the things' been calculated, etc. And then, after that point, an owners corporation can recover it like any other debt. So most of the time, you'll be commencing a case in the small claims d..

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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 podcast we hop into the highly dubious story that appeared in the Sydney Sun-Herald this week about a poor old couple who are facing bankruptcy because of a special levy imposed on their block by a heartless and cruel strata committee …Hang on! Heartless and cruel? Strata committees can’t set special levies.  And owners corporations have to maintain and repair common property.The block is 50 years old – has nobody been putting money in the sinking fund? (Rhetorical question – don’t even bother).More to the point, as we explore in depth here, how come the couple paid $13,000 of the special levy but are now $44k in debt.And if you think Jimmy tends towards the cynical, wait till you hear Sue’s solution for retired couples who can’t pay their levies because they’re on a fixed income.  FYI, it ain’t setting up a Gofundme appeal.Also on the pod, based on this story, we look again at how much you need to tell prospective purchasers about problems in your block (a lot, it turns out).And we look at a case where two top-floor owners took over their roof space and added rooms, without a by-law or a by-your-leave, but the owners corp over-reached in their efforts to put things to rights.Finally, we have a new promo for our travel website mildrover.com.  Is it an intrusion or a little light relief?  You tell us via [email protected] the way, in case you were wondering, how can we claim in the intro to pod number 180 that we have had 200 episodes? That’s because in the early days we were on a not-very-good podcast platform and our first 20 episode had just a handful of downloads. Just as well we switched to our current pod host Blubrry and started the count from scratch, we now have literally ten times as many listeners as we had before.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00We have reached a milestone, in terms of the number of downloads and listens on this podcast.Sue  00:06Oh, yes, what's that?Jimmy  00:07 Just in the past week, we have ticked over 40,000.Sue  00:13Wow! Is that 40,000 different people who've listened to us?Jimmy  00:16No, it's one person, who's listened 40,000 times.Sue  00:19Is that my mum?Jimmy  00:20That's the one person who is most likely to have done that. But no, it's good. We've had 200 episodes (almost; we're coming up to our two hundredth. In fact, this might be the two hundredth). That works out at an average of 200 per episode. But the early episodes; like the really early episodes, hardly anyone listened to them, and now we're tracking at just over 50 listens per day.Sue  00:47Oh, fantastic!Jimmy  00:47 Which is 350 a week, which is pretty good.Sue  00:50So people want to keep up-to-date with what's happening with apartments and also, find out what they've missed, perhaps.Jimmy  00:55Yes, exactly. I think people listen to it in different ways. Some people listen to it while they're cooking dinner, or while they're driving home from work, or whatever...In the bath.Sue  01:05At the EC meeting, when they get bored.Jimmy  01:07Just switch this on... They feel that they're getting more out of this, than they are out of their own committee. Oh, we shouldn't say things like that. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  01:19And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  01:22And this is the 200th Flat Chat Wrap. We've been getting a bit legal, on Flat Chat this week. A couple of things have come in. One of them is quite interesting, because I have a question for you... If you had a neighbour who was so awful, that you decided to sell up and move out, would you tell the purchasers, that you've got a terrible neighbour?Sue  02:01Absolutely not. Because you want to get rid of your apartment, don't you? You want to sell it for the best possible price,

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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.