FLAT CHAT WRAP

In this week’s podcast we ask leading strata lawyer David Sachs to run the rule over some of the questions in our Forum. For instance, can the owners corporation charge Airbnb hosts the difference if insurers increase premiums because there are short-term holiday lets in the block? Is it okay to have a paper only AGM with the committee elected by pre-meeting electronic votes? Who pays the costs wh...

This week on the Flat Chat Wrap we get a glimpse behind the scenes as NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler is a guest at a “town hall” meeting for members of his team. In it David outlines some of the Building Commission’s achievements over the past five years, including the creation of a “defects library” so that certifiers, owners corporations and eventually universities can access the same...

The tax office is coming after double-dipping landlords who claim all sorts of things they shouldn't, or just claim for stuff the wrong way. And what about levies? It turns out some are tax deductible and others aren't. But which? By the way, in the podcast we say 86 percent of owners who use tax agents get their returns wrong, in fact the ATO says the majority of investors make mistakes...

A slightly shorter but more pointed podcast this week as Sue reports on plans to demolish two affordable-rent apartment blocks and replace them with one luxury block with fewer, but presumably high-end apartments. It's another potential blow to the supply of affordable housing in desirable areas. City of Sydney have said “no” so the developers have appealed to the Land and Environment Court (...

This week we take a swing at polarising polititicians who are hoping to fire up the Nimbys against medium-density housing. They know it's what the state needs, they know it will help resolve the housing crisis, they don't have a viable solution, but hey, if it means they can get a few more votes in marginal constituencies, to Hell with the homeless. Then we go back to the future with Com...

The Podcast takes a musical twist this week when we discuss the ear-bending plight of residents of four apartment blocks in the Sydney suburb of Meadowbank who have been subject to an opera singer practising his scales for 90 minutes every Sunday. How bad can it be?  The perp is clearly talented and may even think he’s doing his neighbours a favour by standing on his balcony belting out his do-re-...

This week’s podcast is mostly devoted to embedded networks, what they are, why they can be good or bad, and what you can do to make them work for your strata scheme.  To that end, we chat to Joseph Arena of Embedded Networks Arena,  a company that will analyse your embedded network contracts – e.g. for energy and hot water systems – and tell you how you can get a better deal. This was recorded via...

The only story in strata in the past week  has been the decision by Building Commissioner David Chandler to hang up his hard hat and retire in August.  So we thought the time was right to look at what he has achieved, the challenges he's faced - like being encourage by his then Minister to have a sit-down with a very dodgy developer - and the legacy he leaves behind for his successor. He says...

This second part of Lawyer In The Hotseat opens with an apology for promising a discussion on ebikes in last week's podcast, forgetting that it's actually in this, the second part (promise). Otherwise our discussion with strata lawyer David Bannerman covers  renovation by-laws and the value of by-laws that would stand up if challenged at a Tribunal but send out a signal about what is una...

As promised, this is the first part of the recording where JimmyT fires questions at leading strata lawyer David Bannerman. Topics include: Does your strata manager have to give you access to the strata roll (including other owners' email addresses)? And what do you do if they don't. What are the new strata laws all about? What do you do about do-nothing strata committees. All this and m...

This week’s Flat Chat Wrap covers a lot of ground. including a prison cell in in a studio flat – seriously! – in the same small town in England where our very own Sue  Williams cut her journalist teeth. We take a long, hard and highly suspicious look at how real estate pictures are altered to make us think we’re getting something that just isn’t there.  You'll find a link to the video HERE ....

It feels like the dust has settled  a little too quickly on the Netsrata Scandal , as exposed by ABC TV.  There has been no public statement on it from the state government or their professional body, Strata Community Australia (NSW). But strata managers are hurting, as even the most cursory skim of LinkedIn posts will attest.  The good operators know they are being tarred with the same brushes th...

Are we building the wrong kind of apartments for families? There’s a very interesting report in the Sydney Morning Herald about a survey that suggests that the cookie-cutter apartment designs we see all around us may be fine for singles and couples but are all the wrong shapes and sizes for families with growing kids. How can this be?  For a start, a two-bed units – three-bedders are well outside...

It's interesting listening to the podcom Hyperbole Towers - the podcast comedy we recorded almost four years ago - to hear how much has changed. There's a reference in there to pets not being allowed - that's gone.  And the whole episode centres around a by-law permitting owners to meet online.  That's now part of the fabric of strata law.  But some of the issues are timeless,...

As you’d expect, a lot of this week’s podcast is taken up with the resignation of the SCA-NSW President and Netstrata boss Stephen Brell, as well as the ABC News story and its follow-up that exposed his company’s business practices.. We’re taking the stance that Netstrata is not the only strata management company engaging in dubious (though not illegal) practices and allegedly concealing what were...

The Flat Chat Wrap comes to you from a whole other country – or at least half of it does – with Jimmy in Saigon trying to finish his fourth novel (writing, not reading). While there he has discovered that there are very similar problems with overseas investors as we have here in Australia. Continuing the travel theme, Jimmy and Sue discuss the proposed changes to Airbnb laws intended to correct th...

There are myriad reasons why apartment rents are getting closer to and even, in a couple of areas, have overtaken the rents demanded for houses. Is it because the immigration tap has been turned back on for people from countries where they aren't horrified by the prospect of living in apartments/ Is it because more, especially younger Aussies (wherever they originated) are seeing the benefits...

In this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast we look at a report that building commissioner David Chandler has issued a stop-work order at a Wollongong construction site after structural defects were discovered in a 149-unit apartment block. According to a story in on the ABC news site , Mr Chandler said the prohibition order followed the detection of a number of issues in the Crownview building in the l...

In this week’s pod we look at “placemaking” which seems to be designing communities just to make them nicer places to live. By nicer, of course, we mean places that don’t stress you out in the walk to and from the station every day. More trees and open spaces are a start, but then open spaces are exactly where developers want to put buildings. And trees generally get in the way of that. We look at...

We’ve lifted a post from the Flat Chat Forum this week to illustrate two issues – one basic common sense, the other highly contentious. The post explains how a strata manager managed to legitimately charge $17,000 for sending out five emails.   Obviously, our advice would be to read the small print in your strata management contract with a focus on what the worst-case scenario might be. The other...

This week on the podcast we are talking about YOU.  At least, we are talking about your pet hates, as defined by our highly unscientific and totally skewed poll on who irritates you most in your strata scheme. The poll is on the Flat Chat home page and you can see the results when you vote. Sneaky way to get clicks?  Not really.  We simply don’t want to influence your choices. Also we have a look...

There’s some good news, some bad news and some great news in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap. The good news (for investors) is that apartment prices and rents are going through the roof in Brisbane. The boom is being stimulated by preparations for the 2032 Olympics and an influx of new residents. Of course, what’s good news for investors is generally bad news for tenants and not only are they facing ri...

This week we take a deep dive into the next swathe of proposed NSW strata reforms which will include attempts to cut through the baloney and BS and make it easier for owners to overturn unfair contracts. What does that mean, exactly.  Well, when you realise that the maintenance fee for your stormwater drains actually includes the cost of installing them – which should have been borne by the develo...

When newspaper reports presented the story about the defects in the Lachlan's Line apartment block in Macquarie Park, as if it was another Mascot Towers, Building Commissioner scolded journalists, assuring everyone that there was no need to panic. There would be no evacuations, he said, but admitted his department might need to consider the language it uses when alerting the public to problem...

After three pods in a row about Mascot Towers, we decided you (and we) needed a break so we are heading off to the seaside – figuratively, not literally – to see how property prices are doing on the North and South coasts of NSW. One report has said that prices in some coastal areas have bounced back more than those in the city, while others have said there are bargains to be had outside (but not...