What is a strata lawyer’s job?  That’s the question we ask in the Flat Chat Wrap podcast this week.Is it to find a reasonable solution, based on strata law, so that all sides can feel that they have been treated fairly (even if their client has to concede some ground)?Or is it to go in all guns blazing, threatening and bullying the other party, using hypothetical situations where all the “ifs and ands” are lined up to make the target of their intimidation fear they could lose their home, not just the Tribunal case?A case of blatant legal bullying dropped into our laps this week and it gets a good airing on the podcast.Build your own ebookOn a lighter note, we discuss what to do if you use all your free time at home to dust off that novel or non-fiction book that’s been gathering dust in the bottom of your desk (or languishing on a floppy disk from your old computer).How hard is it to self-publish an eBook.  Is it worth the effort? How important is it to have a good cover?We talk to accomplished author Grant Hyde who’s taken time from being a sidelined Qantas baggage handler and tour guide to publish on the internet a sexsational novel about the rise and fall of a very naughty footy player.You will find links to Grant’s ebooks and paperbacks here on Amazon, including his sailing ship adventures Islands of Gold and Lords of the Pacific.  And if you have a book in need of a cover, Grant’s graphic designer mate Stephen Fletcher of Big Impact Graphics can be contacted on [email protected].$23 billion projectsLater in the podcast, Sue talks about the “topping out” ceremony at the new 700-unit Pavilion project by Mirvac in the Olympic precinct – made unique because the workers all stood on balconies while the guests – limit of 10 –  performed a ceremony usually conducted on the roof, on the ground floor.On a more serious note, the story also discusses Mirvac’s $23billion portfolio of projects, fears of a 30 per cent drop in apartment prices and how social housing could save the post-covid economy.  That’s HERE.And finally, Sue’s “Hey Martha” is the brilliant take-down of UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s confusing coronavirus message by British comedian Matt Lucas (Little Britain) and you can find a full report on the original HERE.Listen to the podcast here

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

It’s an extra long Flat Chat Wrap this week, so strap yourselves in.First of all, there’s a discussion about how our pets could be getting stressed from getting too much attention.Apparently dogs and, especially, cats just need to be left alone sometimes, especially when they aren’t used to you hanging around the house all day.Resist the temptation to pat your napping cat on the head every time you walk past, says Sue Williams.And, of course, sleeping dogs should be left to lie.Then we have a chunk of JimmyT’s session on James Valentine last week, where issues like people installing cameras that look on to other residents property came up.By the way,  the answer that we didn’t get to (courtesy of Amanda Farmer, whose weekly podcast Jimmy was also on last week), was that you can pass a by-law forbidding owners from training cameras across common property, even when they’re installed on their lot properties.There was also a question about the height of balcony balustrades in older buildings – do you have to bring them up to code?And a tenant wanted to know if he had to move furniture from his car space when owners were allowed to have junk in theirs.You can also listen to the unadulterated version of James’ radio show from last Wednesday (May 6) on the ABC website HERE.  Finally, Sue  put on her property writer hat to discuss whether now is a good time to buy an apartment … or should we wait until prices drop even more?  You can read her story in Domain HERE.So much to listen to – just as well we can’t go to work!

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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 a gym junkie, hanging out for those palaces of pain, sweat and tears to re-open?Or are you just coming to the gradual conclusion that binge-watching TV while binge-eating corn chips and guacamole will come with a reckoning (somewhere around your waistline), some day soon.Well, if you're going to get moving, there's no time like the present - and time may be something of which you have plenty. So this week the podcast looks at the kind of exercise you could and probably should be doing in these plague-ridden days.Top fitness trainer Shannon Cleary Zooms in to roadtest a few home fitness programs for us and looks at some streaming exercise videos available online for no money! You can find links to the videos HERE.And she recalls who the somewhat surprising keenest audience was for her morning exercise show when she used to be on the telly.Scathing reportBefore we get down to that, this week’s podcast takes a look at a report issued last week in which the NSW government is taken to task over a raft of alleged failures directly related to apartment living.JimmyT and Sue consider why a scathing analysis of perceived failures in the areas of flammable cladding, certification and building defects barely rated a mention in the Press.OK, we have a global pandemic in full swing but does every story have to be about coronavirus?Apparently so (and we are just as guilty of that as anyone).  So you can expect the Upper House report has already found it’s way to a “nobody cares” file somewhere in Macquarie St.You'll find our comprehensive story on the report HERE.Live auctions returnFinally, Sue tells us what a difference it will make to the world of real estate when live auctions and open homes return this weekend. You can read her story HERE.And she’ll explain how she accidentally turned her parents into addicts during the lockdown.It’s all in the Flat Chat Wrap podcast. And you can listen right here.Listen here

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

Sometimes the way we want to live influences architecture, sometimes architecture influences the way we live.There are still older blocks dotted around Sydney’s harbour suburbs where someone who wanted a penthouse with a view, constructed several floors of units for rent to support (in so many ways) the fabulous pad on the roof.Some original apartment blocks in our inner-cities have tiny kitchens because they originally had restaurants and dining rooms on their roofs (and dumb waiter pulley systems to deliver meals to those who didn’t want to leave their apartments).In this week’s Flat Chat Wrap, Sue Williams discusses a feature she’s written that examines the effect of the current lockdown on the way apartments will be designed in the future.With more people working from home, two trains of thought are in motion.  One, working from home can be a great thing, either permanently or part-time. Two, our homes aren’t ideally set up to allow us to do that.Architects whom Sue has interviewed predict popular demand for proper studies, balconies and shared open spaces, as well as more clearly defined separate areas within the apartments so that residents can get away from each other when they need to. Even two-story apartments could be the next big thing.Home working injuriesSue also raises the issue of workplace injuries in the home – apparently your employer is responsible for your workplace safety, even when you are working off your own dining table.With that in mind, Jimmy explains how squeezing an invisible orange can help your posture, especially when you spend hours hunched over your laptop on a coffee table.A strata lawyer speaksAlso in this week’s podcast Jimmy and Sue chat with specialist strata lawyer David Sachs of Sachs Gerace Lawyers about the new short-term letting by-law provision in NSW and the ability of owners corporations to hold general meetings electronically, despite the Catch-22 of not being able to hold the meetings required to permit electronic meetings.Jimmy pats himself on the back for coming up with the one-person EGM plan which David says is perfectly legal, but suggests holding a plebiscite first, to show that the majority of owners want approval for electronic meetings.FYI, since this podcast was recorded, the Queensland government has announced that all body corporate meetings can now be conducted remotely, via electronic interfaces and voting, without requiring prior approval of owners.Surely NSW and Victoria can’t be too far behind, and avoid the one-person EGMs that Jimmy suggested.One interesting observation from David is that  owner corps often “push the envelope” with their decisions to achieve a specific outcome, and they can operate for years until someone who wants something different decides to challenge them at a tribunal.Coronavirus guideLater, Jimmy explains why the NSW SCA guide to dealing with coronavirus is really good but also just a bit too much.  Should information for strata managers and building managers be lumped in with essential advise for owners, committees and other residents? As in this post, he says no.Sue’s “Hey Martha!” is about how Captain Tom Moore raised $55 million for British National Health Service char

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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 Flat Chat Wrap, Jimmy and Sue discuss the competing and often conflicting needs of those who are working from home and those who are working on their homes.On the one hand, there’s never been a better time to catch up on those little jobs – and some big ones – around the flat.People who live in houses are doing it, getting to project manage their own renovations.  For apartment dwellers, it’s not so easy.And for people who are genuinely working from home, having their thoughts and Zoom conference calls interrupted by drilling, sawing and hammering is far from ideal.Other unintended consequences of the Lockdown are the growing piles of garbage in our bin areas as more of us work and eat at home, overflowing clothing and recycling bins as we take the opportunity to have a proper clear-out of the stuff we don’t use or wear any more.Are Boomers the last generation to hold on to clothes until they fall apart rather than go out of fashion?Jimmy recalls a World Cup football teeshirt he still owns after 30 years.  How does he know how old it is?  It has “Italia 90” on the front.Dressing for successAll of which leads neatly to what we wear while we’re working from home and how it affects our sense of being at work when we haven’t left our front rooms.Sue references an article she recently had published in the Sydney Morning herald which features a friend, Alice Hidajat, who dresses in a different smart outfit every day to work from home … with her laptop perched on her ironing board.You can see nine of Alice’s WFH ensembles HERE, Sue’s “pyjama inspired” outfit and the extremely casual Warren Coleman at his computer screen.Moving houseSpeaking of Warren, regular listeners will recall we spoke to Warren a few weeks ago, pre-Lockdown, when he and his partner Therese were getting ready to sell the apartment they’d lived in for 30 years.They avoided the ban on house viewings and auctions by about a week, but had to do their removals under Lockdown conditions.  Jimmy and Sue catch up with Warren via Zoom and ask exactly how that worked out.  Apparently gloves and face masks come off fairly quickly when a sweat is worked up.Social climbersIn this week’s “Hey Marthas” Sue honours 99 year old Captain Tom Moore who has raised $25 million (the figure keeps going up) for Britain’s National Health Service by walking sponsored laps of his gardenInspired by him, 90-year-old Margaret Payne, from Ardvar, Sutherland, is aiming to scale the equivalent of the 731 metres of Scottish mountain Suliven, on the stairs inside her Highlands home.She was aiming for $20,000 for the NHS and instead has raised $150,000 by climbing her stairs 282 times.As promised, Jimmy has calculated that if you wanted to do a virtual climb of say Mount Kosciuszko (all 2228 metres above sea level) that will take 13,105 steps (@17cm per riser) or 795 floors of a modern apartment block.Slightly less challenging, you could replicate the actual 863 metre climb from Thredbo to the top of the mountain, which would be 5076 steps or 308 floors.But it doesn’t count if you’re under 90 years old.Listen here 

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

This week’s Flat Chat Wrap has just about everything; pets, tradies, TV shows set in apartments and, of course, Airbnb - plenty to keep your spirits up through the Lockdown.Before we get to Jimmy’s rant about Airbnb (Sue says he is “obsessed”), there are other issues you might want to wrap your headphones around.For instance, did you know you can foster a pet, and that’s foster, rather than adopt, which of course you can do too.But it seems there is a need for people who suddenly have the time and maybe the temperament to give injured, sick and recovering animals the level of TLC they might not otherwise enjoy.Really, if you’re seeking companionship and maybe adding a little purpose that’s suddenly missing from your life, but you’re not sure if you want to make a long-term commitment, this could be anything from a trial run to a stepping stone.It’s a win-win (unless the prospect of the emotional trauma of giving your new friend back seems worse than living alone for weeks).  You’ll hear more about it on the pod and can read about it HERE.Home invasionsThen we get to short-term letting agencies, their hosts and various shenanigans all of which come under the category of trying to mitigate the disastrous effects of coronavirus on the global home invasion – sorry, sorry – “sharing” business by taking advantage of the current crisis and, potentially at least, putting apartment residents’ lives at risk.First they wanted to lure people having to self-isolate, including returned travellers, into their abandoned apartments in our homes.Then it was people for whom working from home wasn’t an option. Then it was frontline health workers who rightly wanted to avoid the chance of carrying infections into their family homes.As we’ve said many times, they present like a social service but behave like the corporate predators that they truly are.Sue says our empty hotel rooms are the best possible places to house people who need or want to be isolated. Unfortunately, we’d recorded the podcast before this news came out, taking that idea even further.By-laws: A cunning planThe latest outrage, which even has Sue spitting computer chips, sees Airbnb sending an email from its Irish HQ telling its NSW hosts not to worry about the new laws that allow buildings to ban them because, they say, we can’t hold the meetings to do that under social distancing regulations, and we can’t have electronic or paper meetings unless we’ve already agreed that at a proper meeting in person.What a bunch of charmers! But Jimmy has a cunning plan which he explains on the podcast; basically it involves one chairperson, a security guard and a copy of the NSW Strata Schemes Management Act, Schedule 1, Section 17 (4).Good news for rentersMoving on, Sue has good news for renters (and not so good for landlords) with rents plummeting and availability shooting up, especially in Hobart, which just happens to be the city where the State Government offered short-term holiday letting hosts free money if they would just put their properties back in the residential rental market.You hear more about the effects of the Lockdown on rents across Australia and read more about it HERE.Bad news for tradiesIt’s one of those uni

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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 Flat Chat Wrap. Jimmy and Sue look at the wealth of good advice about how to get through this crisis without the whole system falling around our ears.We log into a comprehensive newsletter that covers everything from managing facilities to online meeting etiquette for these days of Zoom and Skype.Even if your block is not  managed by our sponsors Strata Choice, you can access their Covid-19 Update page which is full of valuable advice and information.Levies lossesAt the same time as many of us are seeing a decline in our incomes, our strata schemes are facing increased costs simply because more people are working from home.Understandably, owners are looking to reduce their outgoings and the whole question of levies (or fees) raises its head.  However, it comes down to this: if you want to cut your levies, what services are you going to cut to make the savings?For owners corporations (body corporates), there’s the very real prospect of funds running out in the next quarter as owners who have lost their jobs can’t pay their levies on time.Now, those levies will be paid eventually – even if they have to be extracted from the sale of the unit concerned – but what happens in the interim?Lannock strata finance (another Flat Chat sponsor) is offering a line of credit through their Levy Assist Loans to owners corps to cover the shortfall.  However, that comes with its own complications: how do you collectively pay interest on a loan not everyone needed?The answer, unfortunately, may be to resist the temptation to waive penalty interest on the overdue levies – harsh as that may seem. Or you could just suck it up in the interests of sharing the pain.Would you dob?On a slightly different note, JimmyT and Sue Williams ask, would you dob in a neighbour who wasn’t socially isolating, whether it was hosting dinner parties or hanging out with their friends on common property?And what would you do if you were the secretary or chair who received the report?Informed and entertainedAnd with a view to keeping ourselves informed and entertained during these isolated times Sue came up with a list of classic apartment-related movies,  See how many you would have chosen.Meanwhile, Jimmy talked about the political podcasts that keep him up to date with what’s happening elsewhere in the world, including NPR Politics, Pod Save the World, Guardian Politics Weekly and its Australian Cousin, the BBC’s Coronavirus Newscast and Embedded.And if you’re into property in all its glories, check out the Elephant in the Room, if only because they described Jimmy as “multi-talented” in the blurb for the episode on which he was a guest. Finally there's our best of frenemies, strata lawyer Amanda Palmer, who has just published her 208th episode ot the yourstrataproperty podcast.On a lighter note, to put a (wry) smile on your face, check out Judith Lucy’s Overwhelmed and Dying, Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb’s Chat 10 Looks 3  and the Friday Night Comedy on the BBC.Finally, not really a podcast, more of an audiobook and, admittedly, a bit of acquired taste, Ed Reardon’s Week is a radio sitcom about a failing writer and you can get the fourth series free if you sign up for a 30-day trial of Au

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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 extra-long Flat Chat Wrap, obsession with coronavirus is spreading like, well, a virus.  Jimmy and Sue discuss how it may be having a crippling effect on that other viral sensation from recent years … Airbnb.Not only are their potential guests staying home, whether or not they want to, there was the decision by Airbnb head office to waive all cancellation fees, plus NSW hosts are about to be hit with another blow … new laws coming in next week mean unit owners will be able to pass by-laws banning short-term holiday lets from their blocks.With many holiday letting hosts virtually dumping their properties on to the residential let market, that’s a lot of prime apartments and houses coming up for knock-down rents – well, compared to what they were getting from tourist.So there will be a lot of choice for renters, not least the decision of whether to go for long leases – in case the tourists come flooding back in Spring and they get turfed out to make way – or to gamble on there being even more uncertainty and disruption down the line when their flexibility will be at a premium.Jimmy and Sue discuss which are the best options.With many apartment gyms and pools being closed due to the coronavirus threat –  rather than being managed properly to avoid breaching the social distancing regulations, residents are having to fall back on their own resources.  J&S recommend the Centr fitness videos promoted by actor Chris Hemsworth with six weeks free membership.If that sounds too much like hard work, try the Seven-minute Body Weight workout – aka the “hotel workout” which you can do in your own home without any additional equipment.  There’s an excellent example here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jru5B044HOsYou can load versions of that on to your phone so you can take it with you (if you were allowed to go anywhere.)  By the way, Jimmy has heard that Fair Trading is about to issue guidelines that suggest the cautious committees who shut our strata gyms down may have gone too far.Meanwhile, you can do what J&S did which was to dig out all their old unused exercise gear – and there’s a lot of it – plus buy a couple of weights from a sports shop (if you can get them, Jimmy says they’re selling like toilet paper) then find an online workout that suits you.And if just the thought of exercise is stressing you out even more than fear of Covid-19, Sue recommends this article in The Conversation about enjoying the simple pleasures of life.And for Sue they include this hilarious video about a man who thinks he’s receiving a Skype call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0VHQj-6lBA.And finally, a song about what we do – or plan to do – during our coronavirus-enforced isolation, purloined from this BBC Sounds podcast of The Now Show.Listen to the podcast here

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

In this week’s Flat Chat Wrap, Jimmy and Sue discuss Australia's coronavirus lockdown and what it means to people living in apartments.There’s the whole issue of returned travellers settling in to 14 days of self-isolation and whether or not they really will wear masks when they pass through common property, as government health measures demand.We look at lifts and whether or not we should travel in them with strangers.  And then there are gyms and pools, with news that some apartment blocks are shutting them down, just to be on the safe side.But what do you do when the government also advises you to exercise to boost your immunity?  Is the thump-thump of you exercising at home not really just revenge for the late night doof-doof of the downstairs neighbours’ sound system?Pets and hoarding are also on the agenda along with growing outrage over Airbnb hosts offering self-isolation packages in apartment blocks.Should we turn our asylum seeker detention centres into quarantine camps for suspected Covid-19 carriers and low-level sufferers?And there’s a fascinating clip from a BBC podcast about coronavirus misinformation, with Jimmy explaining how he fell for bogus medical advice passed on by a normally reliable strata source. And you can find a more detailed and expansive look at coronavirus conspiracies here.FYI, if you want the latest real and truly reliable information on Covid-19, log into the Federal Government Health website, the NSW Health website, and the Victoria Health website. There are also websites for Queensland, WA, South Australia, Tasmania, ACT and the NT.Finally, on the bright side, there’s a virtual visit to a couple of zoos, with furry friends to keep you company during your less-than-splendid isolation. Melbourne Zoo has a live ‘animal-cam’ where you can watch cute snow leopard cubs, majestic giraffes, penguins and other animals.Meanwhile, Mogo Zoo on the NSW South Coast has a beautiful picture gallery and you can support these survivors of the recent bushfires who are doing it tough all over again with tourist numbers, obviously, having hit a new low.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.

In this week’s Podcast, Jimmy and Sue examine the plusses and minuses in the new NSW rental laws, which tilt things in tenants’ favour but don’t go all the way.For instance, tenants will be able to make changes to their rented properties – subject to approval that can’t reasonably be refused – and they’ll be able to demand minimum standards of habitation.They’ll know what their break fees will be if they choose to end the lease and leave early, and they’ll have to be informed about anything significant regarding the property’s history – like, if it had previously been used to manufacture drugs (the example Fair Trading uses).And landlords will have to show them their apartment building's by-laws BEFORE they sign the lease for a flat.But there will still be the option of no-cause termination of leases for the landlords, who will only be required to give notice if they decide they want the tenant out for any reason – like, if they want to get another tenant in so they can put the rent up a lot.The old “my brother is getting married and needs somewhere to live” story will still be available as an excuse to evict the tenants so the landlord can charge the next residents a higher rent.That might even be more the case with the new laws limiting rent rises to one per year for ongoing tenancies.You’ll find a rundown of the whole comprehensive law changes HERE.Meanwhile we also look at why the NSW Liberals backed away from a law that would ban developers from being elected to local councils. [Spoiler Alert! It’s party politics.] If you recall the original  story a couple of weeks ago, the NSW Libs were about to thwart the Right in their party room and bring in a long overdue law. Now Labor have been trying to get in on the act.And we look at how the coronavirus is changing all our lives, and not always for the worse.  But first we have to cope with all the confusion and contradictions as different experts recommend different things … and then the politicians get involved.All that and more in this week’s extra-long edition of the Flat Chat Wrap.If you want to get new episodes of the Flat Chat Wrap and as soon as they are posted, just subscribe to one of the links underneath the player at the top of this page … it’s completely free!  And if you enjoy the podcasts, please share with a friend, (especially in strata) and leave us a rating – it helps people to find us. 

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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.