FLAT CHAT WRAP

This week the pod is lighting up (but not inhaling) the smoking ban placed on a Queensland apartment resident who’s been ordered to take her habit inside and off her balcony because her smoke is a hazard to the neighbour upstairs.There are so many aspects to this, not least that her block has a designated smoking zone and her committee has been rapped gently but firmly on its knuckles for declining to enforce its own by-laws.Why does this mean for Queensland smokers?  Are they retreating to the toilets where the fans can deal with their fumes? Or will they be trying to amend their by-laws to force the neighbours to put up with smoke, like freshly caught salmon.The resistance is already fired up (ouch!), according to a comment on the end of the original story.While we were on the topic of by-laws, I tried to find the “model” by-law on smoke drift that Victoria was bringing in.  I couldn’t locate it before we recorded the podcast, but after chasing down broken links and hidden entrances, I tracked it down. In schedule 2 of the Victoria owners corporation regulations, it says:1.4 Smoke penetrationA lot owner or occupier in a multi-level development must ensure that smoke caused by the smoking of tobacco or any other substance by the owner or occupier, or any invitee of the owner or occupier, on the lot does not penetrate to the common property or any other lot.Interesting!  It’s says nothing about nuisance or hazard, just that the smoke from tobacco or “other substances” must not penetrate other lots or common property.Moving on (while we casually flick our ash off the balcony), we also discussed the apparent contradiction between hosted properties as per Planning NSW regulations and principal places of residence, as in Fair Trading’s short-term letting rules.Planning said there is none, we disagreed and they’ve gone off to check.And finally, the strange case of the attempt to overturn a no-pets by-law which failed because there was no pet.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00There's been a few very interesting developments in various Tribunals, in the past week or so. Smoking has been dealt with in Queensland, in a very interesting way. There's also been an instruction about the too-hard basket; I think we're seeing the death of the too-hard basket.Sue  00:22Surely not!Jimmy  00:23Well, you never know!Sue  00:24I mean, that rules supreme in strata, really!Jimmy  00:27And, in New South Wales, a very strange decision from a Tribunal, about a no-pets by law, where an adjudicator decided not to overturn a no-pets bylaw, for a very strange reason. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:46And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:49And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. [MUSIC]JimmyUp in Queensland, they like their personal freedoms...Sue  01:08They certainly do.Jimmy  01:10And there's been a Tribunal decision, which reminds people that they have personal responsibilities as well, when it comes to living in apartments there.Sue  01:19Oh yes? Tell us about it.Jimmy  01:21A woman (and this started last January), complained about the neighbour below her, who was constantly smoking on her balcony. She was saying "well, this interferes with my rights to have a peaceful enjoyment and it's a health hazard and it's a nuisance."Sue  01:41That would be horrible.Jimmy  01:42Absolutely, and she claimed the woman was a chain smoker, which is not strictly correct, because to me, a chain smoker is somebody who lights their next cigarette with the end of the previous one.Sue  01:52That's a very literal definition. I mean, there have been lots of chain smokers, but there's not many people who do that, because you'd get through, how many thousands of dollars a day?Jimmy  02:01Well, that's true.

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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 the pod takes a deep dive into the murky waters of fire safety, how we ignore it at our considerable peril and how this essential part of our strata lives is ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous contractors.This discussion was prompted partly by the terrible fire in New York a couple of weeks ago when, it seems, doors left open during a relatively small fire allowed smoke to spread through the building, killing 17 people by asphyxiation.And we were also drawn to a Forum discussion about how buildings can pass fire inspections for years, then suddenly find that a new company has discovered a raft of flaws.And guess who’s ready to fix them (often at considerable expense).On the topic of fires, we get a sneak preview of Sue’s upcoming biography of Dr Fiona Wood, who invented spray-on skin which is extensively used on burns victims.We also look at conflicting advice between Fair Trading and the Department of Planning on who is allowed to let their apartments on Airbnb and Stayz etc, and when.And we try to get to the bottom of how some properties are exempt from having to put a short-term letting registration number on their listings.All that, and more on the Flat Chat Wrap. Jimmy  00:00We're going back a couple of weeks today on the podcast, because there's a story that we hadn't really addressed, in full. I mentioned it in passing in last week's forum on the website. It's about the fire on January 9 or 10th, in the Bronx, in New York.Sue  00:20Oh yes, that was horrible.Jimmy  00:23So, we're going to talk about that and, we're going to talk about fire safety (in general), in Australian apartments. And, we're going to have a look at some confusing stuff about Airbnb, so that's a lot to talk about... We better get on with it. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write 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.[MUSIC]JimmyOkay, that terrible fire in the Bronx... I think the latest figure is 17 deaths, including 8 children.Sue  01:13Oh, how horrible!Jimmy  01:14The terrible thing about it is that it seems like most of the people died from smoke inhalation. This is an old building; 19 stories. All the fire escapes are internal. You know, in a lot of these New York apartment blocks (the older ones), you see the fire escape is on the outside and that's the city regulations, but apparently, this was a federal building, so they didn't have to abide by city ordinances and so, all the fire escapes are internal. It sounds like smoke from a fire on the second floor, just went straight up into the fire escapes and...Sue  01:57Oh, how horrible! So, people had no way of getting out?Jimmy  01:59No, I mean, some were rescued by getting out the windows with fire trucks with ladders, but even the firemen (and women), who were going into the building; it was so bad, they were running out of oxygen, as they went in to try and rescue peopleSue  02:15Because it kind of sealed all the smoke inside.Jimmy  02:18It kind of just acted like big chimneys and there's been some accusations of victim -blaming, but it sounds like the fire started in the bedroom with a space heater that malfunctioned. The parent in that apartment, grabbed his kids and ran out and the door to the apartment didn't shut behind him.Sue  02:41It wasn't a proper fire door, because most fire doors have to swing shut, don't they?Jimmy  02:45Well, we have them on all our apartments; they have that big sort of spring thing attached, which pushes the door closed and if they're not adjusted properly, the door just slams. A lot of people either adjust them to not slam, or disconnect them completely. I think it's totally wrong to say that this is victim-blaming, because I don't think it's the residents fault.

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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 an air of cynicism – or maybe it’s just weary experience – around this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast, but we only have ourselves to blame.Last week we were touting the potential for a mandatory strata management contract – like the residential tenancies lease in that the legal conditions would be fixed, but the financial terms would be variable – and realised we were joining a chorus of support for the idea, notably promoted by the Owners Corporation Network.What we and they didn’t realise is that Fair Trading has already nixed the idea in its review of strata laws that will occur this year.Citing the views of the ACSL (which turns out to be the Australian College of Strata Lawyers, something we didn’t know when we recorded the podcast), the Law Society, the Urban Development Institute of Australia (developers) and PICA, the strata and building management giant, the policy wonks have decided that they won’t have a mandatory contract but they will come up with conditions that must not be in contracts and clauses that must.We’re calling BS on the proposal, not least because there is already a mandatory contract – the one issued by strata managers on a take it or leave it basis.After years of saying we should have a strata commissioner, it seems we already have one.  The published remit of the Property Services Commissioner includes strata, it seems.  Does that John Minns is the Strata Commissioner?  We’re going to track him down and find out.We also explore the idea of subsidised private rentals for frontline workers like nurses, ambos, teachers and police. And we chat about some bizarre tribunal cases from Queensland, including a block that wanted residents to carry pets in cages up 16 floors in the fire stairs and another that tried to ban doormats.And final our friends at Strata Answers are looking into the successes and challenges of strata owners who want electric vehicle charging in their blocks – how they succeeded if they did get it in,  and why they failed if they didn’t.All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy 00:00I've got a feeling we're going to be disappointing some of our listeners this week. SueOh no, why?!Jimmy  00:04Because we've been talking about the strata management contracts and how a lot of us think there should be a standard strata management contract.Sue  00:14Oh, yes.Jimmy  00:15The same way as there is a prescriptive one for rentals. Everybody has to use that contract and even if they don't use that contract, the law says well, that contract applies. Even if you've got a verbal contract and nothing on paper, that contract still applies.Sue  00:32Yes, we were hoping the New South Wales government was going to bring that out.  For strata residents?Jimmy  00:35Yes, so we have some updated news on that. And, we're going to talk about pets in Queensland and doormats in Queensland. We're going to talk about the new Property Services Commissioner, John Minze and, we're going to talk about some research into electric vehicles. For strata residents. So, a lot to talk about; we'd better get on with it. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  01:04And I'm Sue Williams. I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  01:06And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. We've been having a debate in the Flat Chat forum... Somebody wrote and said they'd just had a look at their strata management contract, and they couldn't believe how one-sided it was. Basically, the problem is there are so many provisions in there that say that the strata manager isn't liable for anything that they've ever done and even in the unlikely event that you do find that they were liable for something, then that liability is limited to how much you have paid them in the past two years. We discussed this last week. Basically,

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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.

Like a wayward teenager who stayed out too late, Airbnb is creeping back into our lives, hoping to avoid our parental wrath, but finding a less than loving reception waiting for it.As we discuss in this week’s podcast, the holiday/retirement town of Noosa, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, has had enough of badly behaved holiday renters’ shenanigans.In a few weeks the shire council there will bring in a “rapid response” hotline on which neighbours can report disruptive behaviour – that’s the old-fashioned version of disruption when it was a bad thing – and a designated responder will be expected to attend and deal with the problem.Also this week the University of NSW has issued the second stage of a comprehensive report that shows that wherever Airbnb and other holiday letting agencies are most active, residential rents go up and housing availability goes down.Before you file that in the “well, d’uh!” folder, bear in mind that this is the kind of credible information that politicians are obliged to consider when they are devising their policies in the great juggle of housing affordability, rents, investments and income and jobs from tourism.Perhaps in this pre-post-pandemic period, we should reflect on what happens in your favourite cafes when the waiters and baristas aren’t around; now because of covid, but in the future when they are driven out by Airbnb-inflated rents.The forces closing in on Airbnb and holiday rentals generally will be the topic of this week’s Flat Chat column in the Australian Financial Review but you can hear a sneak preview here.Also in this week’s podcast we look at the 50-storey Sydney apartment block where the intercom hasn’t worked for more than four years, meaning residents can't get deliveries and have to travel down in the lift to let visitors in.In the podcast we ask, if overseas students can rig up a mobile phone to trigger the access button on their overcrowded flat’s intercom, how come the Park Regis owners corporation say commercial operators can’t be trusted to fix the system?And, finally, prompted by this post to the Forum, we examine the standard strata management contract and flag the idea that it needs to be fairer and maybe even a standard mandatory document, like the residential rental lease.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLSue  00:00Suddenly, there's a lot happening, especially around Airbnb.  Yes, it's been a bit quiet for a while, hasn't it?Jimmy  00:05Yes, I thought it had kind of settled, and because everybody went away, a lot of the Airbnb properties ceased to be and went back into the residential rental market... We'll be talking about that. We'll be talking about people saying that the standard strata management contract needs to be revised and we're going to talk about the woman who lives in an apartment, where she has to go down 20-odd flights and lift, to let people in, because the Owners Corporation won't fix the intercom system.Sue  00:41Well, they say they can't, but the fact is, it's been broken for about four years, I think now. It's a pretty bad state of affairs.Jimmy  00:49I don't believe that it is impossible to fix things like that; it's just difficult and it's one of these things that can find its way into a too-hard basket, but we'll talk about that, in what is going to be a pretty full podcast. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  01:11And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for the Domain.Jimmy  01:14And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyAirbnb, you just can't keep them out of the news. I think we discussed last week (briefly), their problems with riot police being called to an apartment block. In fact, a couple of apartment blocks (one of them in Ultimo), where 100 people were in a flat-wrecking party.Sue  01:50Oh, god, yes, it was horrendous. But yes, they are back in the news this week again,

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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 pod we ask the question, if Strata doesn’t belong in Fair Trading, then where should it go?As Jimmy explains in this column (which also appeared as an op-ed in the Sydney Morning Herald) our brand-new Fair Trading Minister Eleni Petinos has also been given Small Business on which to attach her training wheels.So now strata isn’t just a part of a huge, rambling and largely unconnected and complex ministry, that department itself is parked in a side street off another ministry, which has been given precedence (if the new minister’s title is anything to go by).That the case for taking strata out of Fair Trading is stronger than ever is inarguable. But if the NSW government did remove it, where should it go?Also in the pod, we look at the failure of the short-term letting code of conduct at its first test with riot police called to a 100-hoon party, exacerbated by Airbnb’s alleged refusal to provide the names of the perpetrators to police due to its “privacy” policy.Then we check out why so many strata blocks are rushing to install electric vehicle charging when there are so few electric vehicles.Finally we look at how we have come together to help each other as omicron runs rampant though our communities.That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00Happy New Year!Sue  00:01And Happy New Year to you too, Jimmy!Jimmy  00:03And Happy New Year if you're listening to us somewhere in Australia, or, in other places. You could listen to us all over the world. I think we've got a couple of listeners in America.Sue  00:13Really?Jimmy  00:14Yeah. I think they are in condo boards and they've decided that however bad it gets there, "listen to what's going on in Australia!" I don't know!Sue  00:24That's not very reassuring, is it?Jimmy  00:26No... Today, we're going to talk about where strata should be, because I don't think either of us think it should be in Fair Trading.Sue  00:34In New South Wales Government?Jimmy  00:36Yes, it  should be somewhere else. It's not quite big enough to have its own department, but it's way too big to be in with others. We'll talk about that later. We'll talk about the latest Airbnb scandals, with riot police called to Airbnb parties, and you're going to talk about the electrification of buildings that are supplying power to EV-vehicles...Sue  01:04That's right, yep.Jimmy  01:05In apartment blocks, which is a thing...Sue  01:07That's becoming a bigger and bigger issue for a lot of people.Jimmy  01:09It is, and people kind of want it, but they're not sure if they need it, or...Sue  01:15How to go about it.Jimmy  01:16Or, what level of it, to have. And, as a note, this week, we are recording in mono.Sue  01:23Really? That seems a bit of a backwards step, doesn't it?Jimmy  01:26Not according to The Beatles! The files take up less space and in any case, what happens is we record in stereo, and then the software reduces it to mono, anyway.Sue  01:39Oh, okay. So maybe, listeners wouldn't hear any difference.Jimmy  01:43Well, they might not hear any difference, but they might. If they do hear any difference, maybe they'll tell us.Sue  01:48Yes, let us know.Jimmy  01:49All right. I am Jimmy Thomson, and I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  01:55And I'm Sue Williams. I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  01:57And this is the very first Flat Chat Wrap of 2022.[MUSIC]Sue  02:17Jimmy, you wrote a column about this, didn't you, for the Sydney Morning Herald; about where strata should be, in terms of New South Wales Government departments?Jimmy  02:25I did. We've got a new Minister; 'Eleni Petinos Attracts Attention,' (as the Sydney Morning Herald lawyers changed it to, in my op-ed piece, last week).

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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 you stuck at home because state borders aren't as open as they want us to think, or you can't go anywhere until your covid test results come out?Maybe you're self-isolating because someone in your family went to a herd immunity superspreader party. Or you just don't feel like running a gaunlet of unmasked festive huggers.Perhaps you're stuck in a traffic jam on your way to somewhere ... anywhere ... nice.Or you're in queue for a covid test that doesn't seem to be getting any shorter.Here at Flat Chat we're taking a bit of a break too, certainly as far as this week's podcast is concerned, but we didn't want to leave you with nothing to listen to.So we've dug our PodCom, Hyperbole Towers, out of the archives to put a smile on your face (and so we can again thank Todd McKenney for his uncredited contribution to the audio comedy that we first podcast more than a year ago).Back then, the idea that a fractious strata committee might have to meet online was hilarious. Now it seems a bit less amusing.But the need to stay at home did give us the opportunity (and City of Sydney funding) to pay a bunch of talented actors to bring our little comedy to life.So what's going on in Hyperbole Towers (apart from the committee not being able to meet in person)?Well, there's a plan to open a massage parlour in the block, and a mysterious and irritating tapping noise coming from one apartment.And what exactly is Building Manager Alfie up to?Listen and 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.

It was Monday morning and we had just finished editing the podcast when we got the word that NSW had a new Fair Trading minister.Meetings are cancelled, lunch is postponed, and schedules are re-drawn  for the simple reason that this is, in our world, a big deal.Eleni Potinos may have been a media footnote in the cabinet reshuffle instigated by NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet this week, but for us she is big news.There are four things that jump out, for those of us who have been close observers of strata politics for the past few years.One, she is a woman; after six men in a row, the first female ever to serve as Fair Trading Minister for the Liberals.Two, at 35, she is relatively young, confirming Fair Trading as being a training-wheels ministry.Three, she comes from Miranda, an area with a lot of high-rises. But it’s the fourth thing that’s the clincher – she has also been given the Small Business portfolio.At a time when there is clear evidence that strata is too big an issue to be lumped in with broken toys, faulty toasters, dodgy mechanics and sneaky real estate agents, our newly minted Fair Trading Minister gets a whole other portfolio to look after as well.Forget sexting and Barfgate – this is the real scandal.  The government clearly thinks that with the Building Commissioner on the warpath, and 139 proposals on the table, they have fixed strata.  They clearly don’t realise they are just at the beginning, not the end.Meanwhile we also look at the dramas at Tamarama where a bid to rescue a huge block that really shouldn’t be where it is has hit the Building Commission buffers.We examine the major trends in the real estate in the past year.And we have a non-Christmas poem that might bring a smile to your face.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00Exciting times, in strata land. We're leading up to Christmas and then all of a sudden, Santa Claus drops in our laps, a brand new Fair Trading Minister!Sue  00:10Wow, yet another one!Jimmy  00:12 This will be the Liberal Party's 7th Fair Trading minister, since they came to power.Sue  00:18And how many years is that?Jimmy  00:20It's like, one a year.Sue  00:21Oh my gosh!Jimmy  00:23 Yes and it's a woman, which is their first female Fair Trading Minister.Sue  00:28Yes, because Labor usually has female Fair Trading Ministers, don't they?Jimmy  00:31The last three were, and they seem to have changed the name of the Ministry back to Fair Trading. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about trends in property. We'll talk about what's going on in the Tamarama apartment block. And, we might even have a Christmas poem.Sue  00:49Oh, excellent!Jimmy  00:50So that's all coming up. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:56And I'm Sue Williams and I write property for Domain.Jimmy  00:59And this is the Flat Chat Wrap. So, as I said at the top of the podcast, we have a new Fair Trading Minister.Sue  01:19Yes. Tell us about her; I don't really know anything about her, really.Jimmy  01:23Her name is Eleni Patinos. She is the member for Miranda, down in the Shire. I was hoping to dig through Google and find out stuff about her political beliefs and whatever. What I hit first of all, was a couple of scandals... In 2018, Matt Kean, the former Fair Trading Minister (or Better Regulation Minister, as he was called then); his ex -girlfriend (or his soon to be ex-girlfriend), sent screenshots of fairly racy sexting texts.Sue  02:04Wow, so that was happening back then, too.Jimmy  02:07It sounded like they had something going on and it all got a bit ugly, but Gladys said "look, you know, it's a personal matter." As we discovered recently, she has her line in the sand on these things and it's pretty easy to stay inside. She didn't sack Matt, but the previous year,

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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 person in the strata sphere who’d say Building Commissioner David Chandler is not the Strata Messiah, it would be the commissioner himself.As we discuss on this week‘s podcast, he cringes at every mention of himself as some sort of saviour, constantly deflecting all the abundant praise he gets onto his team.They no doubt deserve all the kudos they can collect, but Jimmy wonders if the BC is, even just subconsciously, trying to avoid a similar fate to another NSW Commish.He means one who went from messiah to pariah – at least in the eyes of the media – Police Commissioner Peter Ryan.Sue was Peter Ryan's biographer and saw at close hand how he was adored by the public while vested interests and viciously hostile media figures brought him down.You can't help but wonder if David Chandler might face similar challenges if his enemies in the building industry -dodgy developers and shoddy certifiers - find a compliant shock jock, some internet trolls and a tiny chink in his armour, real or imagined.Before that, we unpack what we learned from the OCN ‘Strata Matters’ Seminar. The fact that there’s a lot of angry people out there is only part of it.Later, Sue digs into the story she wrote about the strata scheme that’s planning to impose pet behaviour bonds of $2000 per animal – something a senior Fair Trading official described as a clear attempt to get round strata laws allowing pets.And she recalls the harrowing story of the mother, grandparents and baby who were forced  to move back into a dangerously mouldy flat because of NCAT delays and bungling.There’s all that and more in the Flat Chat Wrap.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00It's been a big week for us here, at Flat Chat.Sue  00:02It certainly has!Jimmy  00:03We had the OCN seminar, which I emceed, and there was a couple of stories that came out of that, that appeared in the papers. You've had a couple of stories; you've had a pet story?Sue  00:13That's right, and an NCAT story.Jimmy  00:17An NCAT defects story. Lots to get through; we'd better get on with it. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  00:25And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  00:28And the Sydney Morning Herald.Sue  00:29And the Sydney Morning Herald, yes!Jimmy  00:31 Increasingly.Sue  00:32Yes. I don't know what has happened, but I think the Sydney Morning Herald has taken over a lot of the Domain stuff, so I think a lot of property stories are now appearing in print and the Sydney Morning Herald first, before they appear in Domain.Jimmy  00:45So, you're back in the Herald?  That's great! Alright, this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyThere's a lot to get through, from the seminar. It was four hours of (often), heated discussion. The Building Commissioner was there; he and a big crew from Fair Trading, some interested strata owners, some angry strata owners, and even you turned up and did a piece about the media. But even your question session got hijacked by people, who are just angry; just very, very, very angry and, you can understand why.Sue  01:36Yes, there's a lot to be angry about, with the situation with defects in apartments. As David Chandler was talking... He was talking about the measures he's going to ensure that apartments being built now, won't have defects in the future. But also, a lot of people there were from apartments that are more than 10 years old and that were having real problems. He did say at one point, didn't he, that when the new apartments are done, he's going to be looking at Legacy apartments, after that.Jimmy  02:04Yes, but in a very different way and I wonder if for the people in those (so-called), 'Legacy apartments,' it makes it feel even worse, that something is being done, now, but it's too late for them.

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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.

With two major chunks of strata legislation landing last week – Victoria’s new laws and NSW’s proposals for a revamp of theirs – we pick the bones out of the plans and read their entrails for signs of what’s in store in the future.As usual, there are a few significant changes plus much tinkering around the edges, in both areas, but it’s what the perceived need for these new laws reveals that’s most interesting.How cosy are the developers and strata managers of Victoria?  How many kickbacks and from how many sources do the latter enjoy? And how many loopholes in the law will Victoria need to close before dodgy developers are driven out?We also touch on how a lack of a strong owners’ and residents’ voice in Victoria (like its northern neighbour’s Owners Corporation Network) has left that state’s legislation, frankly, years behind NSW’s laws.And on that subject, in the case of the 139 items in the NSW review, we ask how soon can we expect to see those proposals become a reality and what will the process be to get there?Elsewhere in the podcast we look at a new trend in high-end hotel-style apartments, where you can order everything from room service to theatre tickets from your concierge.And we discuss the message from the AFR Property Summit that counters the doom and gloom about apartment prices.Finally, a reminder that the OCN’s Strata Matters seminar is on, on Thursday 9th, hosted by Jimmy and with a guest appearance by Sue (oh, and David Chandler will be there too).There was a handful of extra tickets newly released on Tuesday. You can try to nab one or sign up to follow us on live streaming via this link.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00I just checked our figures for the podcast. So, nearly 26,000 people have listened to it, so far.Sue  00:09Well, that's quite intimidating!Jimmy  00:12I should say, it has been listened to 25,000 times, rather than 25,000 people, but we suddenly got a jump in the number of listeners, just a couple of months ago.Sue  00:24Really, why is that, do you think?Jimmy  00:25I have no idea, but I wonder if it was the pandemic, or people just passing it on, or something. Anyway, we now have twice as many people listening to the podcast per week, as we had at the same time last year.Sue  00:41That's fantastic!Jimmy  00:42So, it's roughly about 200, a week and as somebody said, if that doesn't sound like much, imagine if you were organising a meeting, every week and every week, 200 people turned up. You would be quite pleased with that.Sue  00:58That's fantastic. I think it shows that people are getting more and more interested in apartment living, aren't they, really? More people are moving into apartments and they're curious, and they want to avoid problems. They want to know a bit more about the politics.Jimmy  01:10And maybe, they like listening to you.Sue  01:12No, I don't think so. Maybe you!Jimmy  01:15Not at all! Anyway, this week, we are going to be talking about the new laws that have just come in in Victoria, the proposals for new laws in New South Wales, and you've got a couple of items?Sue  01:28Yes. The AFR had its property summit this week, which was really interesting. They had a big section on residential property, which was mostly apartments. Also, I did a piece for Domain magazine about how new apartments are increasingly becoming like hotels.Jimmy  01:45Okay, well, I'm Jimmy Thomson, and I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  01:51And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age.Jimmy  01:57And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]JimmyBig week in strata law, last week. On the 1st of December, the new strata laws came in, in Victoria. We'd known they were coming for a while, but they actually became law,

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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 a massive review of NSW strata laws landed in Parliament and it’s given us a lot to talk about … perhaps a little too much.As you will see from this story, there are proposals about educating committees, defining what their members do and making it easier to sack individual members.There are suggested rewrites for the rules on pets and assistance animals, so that you don’t force vision-impaired residents to carry their guide dogs across common property.There are many much-needed regulations concerning building managers plus plans to allow Fair Trading to run cases at NCAT.  That may turn out to be the most radical suggestion of them all, as there is also a proposal to make not maintaining common property a punishable offence with penalties attached.Our comments came as the review was hot off the internet, so they’re fresh, even if we were not quite able to get to all 139 of the proposals. But at least we didn't run out of things to talk about.Also in the podcast, Sue outlines how to find the perfect apartment to rent, or even buy.And we discover how Jimmy was guilty of a classic mistaken identity at the Strata Community Association shindig.And, allowing ourselves a small moment of self-congratulation, our total listener figures just ticked over 25,000 in the past week. I looks like more people are finding the most recent podcasts then tuning in to previous links for more. Thanks for your support.TRANSCRIPT IN FULLJimmy  00:00So, we didn't get thrown out of the SCA event the other night!Sue  00:03No, that was good, and they actually quite welcomed us, didn't they?Jimmy  00:05They mentioned us.Sue  00:06They did; they welcomed us...Jimmy  00:08By name.Sue  00:09Yes, alongside David Chandler.Jimmy  00:11Yes, I 'booed' our name, just to get some balance. I knew that half the strata managers there wanted to boo.Sue  00:23Well, it was funny, because one of them reminded you of a speech that you made a few years ago. Do you remember that?Jimmy  00:27Yes, the conference.Sue  00:28And he remembered your first line...Jimmy  00:31Which was "I am your worst nightmare. I'm a disgruntled owner, with a newspaper column."Sue  00:38So, you obviously made quite an impression on him, because I think that was about 15 years ago, and he's still hates you today.Jimmy  00:46Probably! We've got a lot to get through today. We have the review of all the suggested changes to the Strata Management Act, that are going to be tabled. Well, by the time you hear this, it will have been tabled.Sue  01:01We've been waiting a long time for this.Jimmy  01:02It's a year. It's a year since they closed submissions.Sue  01:06Wow!Jimmy  01:06I don't know how much longer it will be, before they actually make a decision. Possibly another year.Sue  01:12 Oh, no! Surely not!Jimmy  01:13There are 139 recommendations.Sue  01:16Wow! I wonder how many letters they had from people?Jimmy  01:20I don't know. Maybe, they just had one long one. I think they got a lot of responses, because this is the five-year review of the 2015 Act.Sue  01:32Did they accept any of your suggestions?Jimmy  01:34Not that I could see, but anyway, we'll talk about that later. And, we'll talk about an article you wrote, about how to find the best place to rent. And, we might have a chat about what the SCA event was all about. I'm Jimmy Thomson, I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.Sue  01:54And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.Jimmy  01:56And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.[MUSIC]Jimmy139 recommendations, in the review.Sue  02:18And, we're going to go through every single one of them, now. No, we're not!Jimmy  02:21We might split this over a couple of weeks,

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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.