FLAT CHAT WRAP
Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams
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All about living in apartments (condos), from dealing with your committee to getting on with neighbours and - a dose of healthy skepticism about dubious developers.
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6 days ago
Podcast: Pets (again!) with James Valentine
Every so often – about once a month – I get invited on to James Valentine’s Afternoons on ABC 702.
Last week the topic was pets in apartments – partly because that was all anyone was talking about.
So we had a couple of people ringing up with their pet questions and complaints, all of which has indirectly added to a pet-heavy Flat Chat website this week.
And that was exacerbated by my response to a question about whether or not there was a guide to the best dogs for apartments.
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“Oh, yes,” I blithely replied. “You’ll find it on the website.”
I wasn’t sure where but I knew it would be there … except it wasn’t. I don’t know how I managed to convince myself that I’d already done this, but I did and I hadn’t.
Which is why I spent my weekend digging through and collating the opinions of half a dozen websites purporting to offer the definitive list of the best dogs for units.
If you are interested, you can find that info here. Otherwise, if you missed the session on Afternoons, sit back and enjoy our chat from last week which we hope was entertaining and informative.
Transcript in full
Jimmy 00:00
Every so often (I won't say regularly, because it's anything but regular), but just about once a month, I get invited onto James Valentine's Afternoons on ABC 702 radio. Last week, James asked me on to talk about pets, because everybody's talking about pets. Nobody's talking about anything else except pets at the moment. I thought that would make a very good podcast. I'm Jimmy Thomson. This is the Flat Chat Wrap.
[MUSIC]
James 00:55
Hello, Canberra, hello, Sydney, hello, Newcastle. Three of the great cities of this nation, combined together with one radio show. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. For those in Canberra who haven't encountered Jimmy Thomson, let me set the scene for you. Jimmy Thomson (for longer than even he cares to remember and for longer than most people can), has been looking at the strata rules of largely, New South Wales and the ACT. Now, you might think to yourself, ‘wow, he sounds like an interesting fellow,’ and this is the odd thing about Jimmy Thomson… He makes it very interesting. As more and more Australians (in all those cities I'm describing), end up living in apartments and strata and townhouses and the like; more of us have got to get our head across what that means and what some of the issues are. Jimmy runs a website called www.flat-chat.com.au He's also written for the Domain and the Herald for many years on these issues. You can follow up on anything we're talking about today by going to www.flat-chat.com.au and you can look at the debates they've had and the issues that have been there. We found it very, very helpful (and many have, listening to this), to get Jimmy in to talk through changes as they're coming along. Now, we decided to have something of a Flat Chat special today, because Jimmy and I were linked in to a discussion on Twitter, about an assistant dog. Jimmy, g’day!
Jimmy 02:27
Good afternoon.
James 02:31
Good afternoon. Nice to have you have you along, as always. Look, I'm so annoyed. I can't believe that our building manager is having another go at removing Buddy from the building; Buddy being a dog. We've got the Assistant dog jacket and approval. This person has now gone to their employer and they've sent a letter, because now the building manager is saying ‘oh, the dog is overweight; the dog is over a weight limit. The dog is too big for the building.’ The building manager hates dogs, and it's making it so difficult to deal with this. This is an Assistance dog. These are these marvelous dogs that will be trained in all sorts of ways to help people with all kinds of disabilities, mental health issues, and all the rest. It is absolutely fantastic thing. If there's one dog you might want in your apartment building, it would be an assistance dog. It'll be really great; it will be well-trained and would a...
Feb 15, 2021
Podcast: New pet laws and defining ‘reasonable’
In this week’s podcast we give the NSW Parliament’s deliberations on it’s new strata pet laws a kick along.
As reported here, the Lower House has taken a good six months to deal with a procedural Bill that would have promoted sustainability and tidied up several odd loopholes in strata law.
However, it was tagged with an amendment that would have meant pets could only be excluded from apartments if it was detrimental to the animal.
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The amended Bill, which was approved by the Upper House with its Animal Justice Party alteration, had zero chance of being approved by the Legislative Assembly. Right or wrong, the majority Coalition government was simply not going to approve open slather for pet owners in strata.
So Sydney MP Alex Greenwich stepped in and wrangled a compromise that basically says pets could not “unreasonably” be refused domicile in apartment blocks while getting a commitment to a parliamentary report on what “reasonable” actually means.
And that’s where we hop in with our ten cents worth on the podcast.
Rental as anything
Elsewhere in the pod, in light of the tax and planning breaks now on offer from the NSW government, we discuss the rise and rise of build-to-rent apartment blocks – there are 40 “in the pipeline” according to real estate marketing giant CBRE.
But will they be snazzy upmarket facilities-filled developments like Mirvac’s Liv Indigo? Or will they be cheap and cheerless, renters-only versions of the cram-em-in, stack-em-high chicken coops beloved of some well-known developers? Time will tell.
Commish kicks butt
Finally Sue chats about her recent conversation with Building Commissioner David Chandler.
Six months into his much-hyped crackdown on dodgy developers, is he making a difference, especially with regard to confidence in our high-rise buildings?
We dig around for evidence.
Zany Zoom calls
And keeping things upbeat, Jimmy points us to these two videos.
The first, is balm to the soul of any strata chair or secretary who’s had to deal with unruly members at an online committee meeting.
If you are one of the few people on the planet who hasn't already seen this, it made a global viral video heroine of Council Clerk Jackie Weaver and her ruthless handling of obstreperous members of Handforth Parish Council in England.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB3P_0GAi0I
And on a lighter note, there’s the lawyer who appeared on a Zoom video as a cute little talking kitten.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcnnI6HD6DU
Almost as amusing in the video from Texas is the warning in the top left corner that recording the meeting was an offence. Well, that really worked.
But maybe if we all had to adopt animal alter egos, online strata meetings would be a lot less fractious and a lot more fun.
Enjoy the podcast and let us know what you think of the new format on mail@flat-chat.com.au.
Transcript In Full
Jimmy 00:00
Big news on the pet front this week in strata.
Sue 00:04
Yes! it's all happening, isn’t it?
Jimmy 00:04
We've got ‘build to rent’ to talk about and you've been chatting to Building Commissioner, David Chandler?
Sue 00:14
Yes, that's right.
Jimmy 00:15
Is he making a difference; let's find out, later on. I'm Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.
Sue 00:24
And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain with the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age.
Jimmy 00:29
This is the Flat Chat Wrap. Well, let's get straight into it. The New South Wales lower house (which is actually the most important bit of Parliament), last week debated an amendment to their sustainability strata bill.
Sue 01:01
That was the one where there was an amendment put on by the Animal Justice Party, wasn't it?
Jimmy 01:05
Yes. This was originally a bill that was all about fixing up loose ends.
Feb 9, 2021
Podcast: Bad landlords and skinny buildings
The Flat Chat wrap this week is taken up with three main topics.
The first is a petition to parliament to create a blacklist of bad landlords … launched by someone who is a landlord herself.
Victoria is about to get one next month and it seems only fair that, if NSW tenants can be put on a blacklist that makes it harder for them to get rentals, then bad landlords should also be named and shamed in the hope they sharpen up their ideas to get good renters.
You can find links to the petition here.
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Our second topic is the “skyscratcher” hotel planned for Pitt St, Sydney. In the podcast we erroneously reference the architects’ (Durbach Block Jaggers) website as the home of some caustic comments.
In fact, we were thinking of the excellent Dezeen online architecture and design magazine (from which we pilfered the illustrations on this page). Check it out if you are at all interested in innovative building design.
And by the way, some reader comments on that site say the plan was just a kite-flying attempt to get publicity and that development application to City of Sydney had been withdrawn after objections from neighbours.
That doesn’t seem to be the case if you look at the detailed application documents HERE on the City of Sydney website.
If you’re excited by innovative high-rise architecture (even though it’s an hotel) have a look at Dezeen for more detail.
And finally we found the pet-friendliest apartment block in Sydney which has its own cat café. However, we’ve also found another one in Surry Hills called Catmosphere which offers cat yoga (among other things) for feline-deprived locals.
It’s bookings only so don’t just turn up or the fur will fly.
Transcript in full.
Jimmy 00:00
Bad landlords and skinny buildings; that's what we're going to be talking about today. That new building in Sydney, they’re describing it as a sky-scratcher, because it's too thin to be called a skyscraper.
Sue 00:17
Hmm, interesting!
Jimmy 00:19
I think they're splitting hairs there. They are our main topics of conversation and a move to have a blacklist of bad landlords. I’m Jimmy Thomson; I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.
Sue 00:32
And I'm Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain with the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age.
Jimmy 00:37
And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.
[MUSIC]
Sue, you've been talking to somebody about a blacklist for landlords?
Sue 00:58
Yes. They had a really bad experience renting property, and they're actually also a landlord themselves, so they know what they're talking about. They had a bad experience; lots of things went wrong. Repairs, problems, and the landlord's mother used to visit their home without giving notice and all that kind of thing. They went to Fair Trading, then they went to NCAT and got an order against their landlord. They feel that there are lots of lousy landlords out there, and they deserve to be highlighted so that when you go to rent an apartment or a house, you actually know…
Jimmy 01:36
What their track record is.
Sue 01:39
Yeah. Whether they have good tenant references; whether they've had rulings against them in NCAT in the past. Whether they've got a bad reputation or whether they're a great landlord.
Jimmy 01:49
Well, a blacklist is not going to list people who are great landlords, so that's a kind of separate thing, isn't it?
Sue 01:56
Sure, okay. I think you’re splitting hairs, now Jimmy!
Jimmy 02:00
We've got a blacklist for tenants, right?
Sue 02:02
Yes, that's right, and that's a privately-run blacklist. I think that's quite difficult; it's very hard to get off of once you're on there.
Jimmy 02:09
Yeah.
Sue 02:10
There should be an equivalent for bad landlords.
Jimmy 02:13
So, you get on the tenant’s blacklist by defaulting on your rent; damaging property. First of all,
Feb 1, 2021
Podcast: Unit prices stall and ropey reno regs
Hi, did you miss us? We took a little break last month but we are back with our new, improved Flat Chat Wrap podcast.
We – Sue Williams and JimmyT – are now working on the basis that less is more. We are still going to talk about the apartment living issues of the day, large and small, to keep you informed and amused.
But we’re going to put a clock on it so while our thoughts may occasionally wander down the odd tangent, our chat will never meander.
We’re aiming for somewhere between 20 and 25 minutes per episode which is just long enough for a decent coffee break or a short commute.
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Do let us know what you think and please, by all means, feel free to suggest topics we could discuss. It’s always good to get fresh ideas.
This week we talk about the growing disparity between the median prices of apartments compared to houses and why this is happening. And you can also read more about that HERE.
Jimmy will be talking about the window-sized hole he found in strata renovation regulations and how Fair Trading dodged the opportunity to fix it. You can also read more about that HERE.
And Sue explores the world of community and neighbourhood Facebook pages while Jimmy dreams of a Mexican restaurant called Three Chihuahuas.
On with the show (we did say it was going to be short and sweet).
Transcript in Full
Jimmy 00:00
And we're back. And in case you thought you dropped into the podcast halfway through, we're back from a little break we took over the holidays, to give you the Flat Chat Wrap again. Hello, Sue.
Sue 00:11
Hi, Jimmy, nice to be back!
Jimmy 00:13
Happy New Year.
Sue 00:13
And the same to you.
Jimmy 00:15
Today we're going to be talking about a flaw I found in the New South Wales strata regulations, and you've got something about apartment sales?
Sue 00:26
That's right. There's a huge report on apartment and house prices this week by Domain.
Jimmy 00:33
And there's a new piece of hardware being used for the Flat Chat Wrap now; it's a clock. We're gonna try and keep it tight. People seem to like podcasts that last less than half an hour, so we'll keep it tight, keep it snappy, keep it going. Keep it light, keep it funny, keep it short, keep it sweet. I'm Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review and edit the Flat Chat website.
Sue 01:02
And I'm Sue Williams, a property writer with Domain.
Jimmy 01:05
And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.
Growing gap in house and unit prices
Jimmy
Sue, there's been a big report about the difference between apartment prices and house prices.
Sue 01:28
The latest Domain house report came out last week, and it showed house prices surging remarkably all around the country, but unit prices either rising a little bit or even falling in some areas. The gap between house prices and unit prices has now reached a record 66%. So, the median house price is 66% more than the median unit price, which is the biggest gap they’ve ever had.
Jimmy 01:57
Why is this happening?
Sue 01:58
Dr. Nicola Powell, the research analyst with Domain, says it's for a number of reasons. Investor activity is down, and investors mostly buy apartments. Because rents are down and the number of tenants are down as well, because we don't have overseas students coming in. We don't have people migrating here and they usually go and live in apartments as well. People are moving to regional areas and coastal areas, because they want more space. Or, they're moving out of apartments, because they want more space in a house as well. And they want to be able to work from home, so they need a study.
Jimmy 02:34
There's a COVID effect, and there's people working from home.
Sue 02:39
Big COVID effect, yeah. There was a really big move towards apartments, but it seems that COVID has kind of slowed that down,
Jan 11, 2021
Podcast: Which apartment tribe do you belong to?
Do you know what your strata-living tribe is? Are you economically engaged, young and jobless or under-employed, battlers, established owners, downsizers or even public housing tenants?
Professor Bill Randolph of UNSW department of the Built Environment was recently interviewed for an extensive feature in the Sydney Morning Herald in which he discussed a survey that reveals the reality of who is living in apartments in Sydney, rather than who is presented on the glossy sales brochures.
We are not all, it seems, middle-aged middle-class couples sipping chardonnay on our harbour view balconies. Far from it.
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Even less likely are we grey-haired newbies who’ve retired and downsized, or been in the same apartments for decades.
These tribes do exist, for sure, but not in the numbers promotional material would have us believe.
It’s a deliberately shorter (and we hope, sweeter) podcast this week as we dig into the question of who really lives in apartments and why.
Awful apartments
And there was another SMH article that caught our eye in the past week or so; a treatise by architecture writer Elizabeth Farrelly about how awful it is to live in a shitty apartment in a crap building in a crowded area of the city.
Hey, Liz, we could have told you, if you’d only asked. But, seriously, she makes some very valid points, mainly that too many buildings and apartments are designed for sale to people who have no idea what they’re getting into, or to investors whose only thought is the bottom line.
To add economic insult to infrastructure injury, they are often managed by cabals of connected professionals whose main purpose seems to be to find ways of extracting more money from renters and owners rather than charging reasonable fees for making their lives more liveable.
All of which led to a discussion on this week’s podcast about expectation and experience.
Basically, if you have moved from a grossly overcrowded one-bedder in a building with no facilities, are you going to complain about living in a fairly squeezy two-bedder in a block where the lift occasionally breaks down?
25 floors, no lifts
As an extreme example, we cite this block in Chongquing, China, which has 25 floors but no lifts. However, as we explain, it’s not as challenging for penthouse residents as it sounds.
The key to all this is money. If you have enough of it, you can make choices. If you don’t, you have to choose which compromises you are going to make, whether they be between location, size, facilities or liveability.
That’s why it make sense to rent when you first set up home, than help pour money into the developer feeding trough by pursuing this national obsession with owning property regardless of who built it and how well or badly it’s managed.
Finally, we manage to mention the Infinity building in Green Square without mentioning the reason we are mentioning them … it has won The Urban Developer’s Development of the Year – High Density Residential award.
There’s all that and more, including a question for regular podcasters: do you like to hear other voices on the pod or would you rather just hear Sue and JimmyT in shorter podcasts (or a bit of both?). Let us know on mail@flat-chat.com.au.
Non-podders can catch up with our ramblings in the transcript below.
Transcript in full
Jimmy 00:00
Do you know which apartment tribe you're a member of?
Sue 00:03
I think I'm part of the tribe, ‘economically-engaged.’
Jimmy 00:06
Okay, you're not ‘established-owner or downsizer?’
Sue 00:12
Well, I guess I could be ‘established-owner’, but they’re kind of over 65. I’m not over 65. A long way off, Jimmy.
Jimmy 00:21
I am! I'm part of both of those things; both of those tribes. There was a big article in The Sydney Morning Herald recently and we're going to be talking about that today. I'm Jimmy Thomson.
Sue 00:32
And I'm Sue Williams.
Jan 4, 2021
Podcast: What a great year … for pets and renters
This week’s podcast may be the first of 2021 but 2020 doesn’t get away that easily.
Last year will be remembered in global politics as the year of Brexit, Trump, the Covid-19 Pandemic, and the Trump-rump. Democracy in the USA is hanging by a thread but it will survive.
Talking about democracy, on a much more local level, we look back at the battle over “no-pets” by-laws and how it tore apart two apartment blocks, and made NCAT look pretty foolish too.
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Inevitably, we examine the entrails of holiday lets like Airbnb. In NSW, in particular, the slow drip feed of legislation to control the hitherto unfettered spread of holiday lets was a lesson in what happens when politicians make half-baked decisions that they neither fully support nor the consequences of which they fully appreciate.
Meanwhile, Airbnb’s flacks continue their policy of answering only the questions they wish you’d asked rather than those for which we require answers.
Sadly, it seems, Stayz aren’t much better these days, especially when it comes to manipulating statistics. It makes you wonder how dumb our politicians have to be to fall for all this claptrap.
Collateral damage
It would be nice if someone just came out and said “we desperately need tourist dollars and apartment residents – especially renters – are just collateral damage in the ongoing battle for bucks. Please go and live in a crappy area where no one wants to go and give us some peace.”
We also look at the effect of the pandemic across Australia and realise that it’s all intricately intertwined. Covid-19 lockdowns and lock-outs forced a lot of holiday letting hosts out of the market – which was great news for renters – but then compelled people to holiday nearer to home, which saw holiday lets come roaring back when locals who could travel replaced all the foreign visitors who were not allowed to come here.
Oh, and the lockdowns persuaded lots of apartment owners to get pets, which takes us back to the first item.
Defects
Then there was the continuing story of apartment block defects and the powers finally granted to Building Commissioner David Chandler to put the blowtorch to the belly of dodgy developers. We won’t see the results of his handiwork for years, when apartment blocks stop falling over.
And we talk about changes to the legislations of various states plus build-to-rent, the new (old) way of renting. One landlord, no strata committee, great facilities, long leases and no bond.
See, something good did come out of 2020 after all.
Transcript in full
Jimmy 00:00
2020 was a pretty horrific year across Australia, and you'd think the only story in town was COVID-19, but we're looking back at the whole year, purely through the prism of strata. There's a lot to talk about. We'll try and get it all into this episode. I'm Jimmy Thomson.
Sue 00:21
And I'm Sue Williams.
Jimmy 00:22
And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.
Jimmy
2020, Sue?
Sue 00:40
It was a huge year, wasn't it, in lots of ways?
Jimmy 00:42
Glad to see the back of it.
Sue 00:43
Yes, absolutely. Let's hope the next one is a good one.
Jimmy 00:47
COVID 19; it affected just about every aspect of Australian life, but there was other stuff going on, especially in strata. What was the big story that stuck out for you in 2020?
Sue 01:01
I think it must be pets. I mean, that's COVID-related as well, because lots of people got pets because of COVID.
They were stuck in lockdown, so they wanted some company and we had that incredible decision by the Appeals Court, to uphold one owner’s claim that a blanket ban on pets was unconscionable. Therefore now, in essence, all apartment buildings in New South Wales have to allow pets. Nobody can impose a blanket ban,
Jimmy 01:30
They can impose restrictions on what they do in common property, but that was huge. I don't know if it undermined or supported the whole Tribunal...
Dec 28, 2020
Podcast: Fun and games as the Wrap takes off
OK, stop, relax, breathe. We’re not taking a break these holidays so much as easing our collective foot off the gas
We thought that, rather than drag someone out of their post-Christmas coma to be interviewed on the Flat Chat Wrap podcast, we’d give you a chance to reprise some of our most listened-to episodes of the past year, some of which you might have missed or want to hear again.
In fact there are two “normal” episodes that stand out as our most downloaded. Episode 91 – Crackdown on Dud Developers and Episode 87 – Comedy, coffee and a new way of renting .
In Ep 87, we first discussed build-to-rent apartments, had a chat with the owner of a café in an apartment block, and announced the completion of our Pod-Com “Hyperbole Towers” (which you can hear again by clicking on the link below).
Pets, pets and pets
In Episode 91, we spoke to Karen Stiles, Executive Officer of the Owners Corporation Network, about the impact Building Commissioner David Chandler is going to have on new apartment builds in NSW.
Given this week’s news that another major developer has gone bust, he certainly has his work cut out.
Apart from those podcasts, anything with “pets” in the title rated well, no doubt due at least in part to the shenanigans that saw NSW “no-pets” by-laws revoked, reprieved and then re-revoked. These included Episode 89, Episode 92, Episode 95 and Episode 96.
But these podcasts and the rest aren’t not all only about pets – there’s plenty of other stuff going on in strata for us to get our teeth into in these and other episodes.
Neglected
For the record, our most neglected podcast – at least since we trebled our listeners by moving platforms from our previous hosts, the podcast equivalent of witness protection – was Podcast 68: Six months of Sundays, classic movies, perfect pods.
Maybe it’s because when it went out in April, this episode didn’t have it’s full title attached. Or maybe it was the content – how to survive lockdowns with a smile. It may be interesting to listen back to hear how we thought we’d fare as the pandemic spread.
Sue Williams and I (JimmyT) will be back next week with a full and fresh episode as we review the year in strata across Australia.
By the way, I have changed the podcast archive link on our front page to Google Podcasts as Apple iTunes doesn't seem to offer more than 10 old episodes. Let me know if you have an issue with any of that.
But, meanwhile, sit back and enjoy (again) Australia’s first podcom (podcast sitcom), Hyperbole Towers and listen to its benighted committee, forced to meet on Zoom with all the back-stabbing, power plays and nefarious goings on that you’d expect.
And, once again, thanks to our special guest Todd McKenney for adding some stardust to the show.
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And for those of you who don't yet pod - and it's as easy as clicking on play, above - here's the script in full. You're missing half the fun but enjoy anyway.
Hyperbole Towers - The Script
Scene 1: the cafe
FADE IN:
NARRATOR
It's 12 minutes past six PM on a post-lockdown evening and Charlie Lee, chair of the Hyperbole Towers strata committee, is wondering where the rest of its members are.
SFX: Mobile phone ringing
ALFIE
(In phone) Hullo. Building Manager Alfie here... I'm sorry I'm in the middle of a meeting.
CHARLIE
No, you're not.
ALFIE
(In phone) I most certainly am... oh... hello, Madame Chairperson... I am in the meeting. Where are you?
CHARLIE
I'm in the cafe. At the meeting. Where are you? And where is everybody else?
ALFIE
(In phone) We are meeting online, Madame Chair. As required.
CHARLIE
Required?
ALFIE
(In phone) Our new by-law. Remember we had to pass one so we could have meetings on Zoom or Skype?
CHARLIE
During the lockdown? How could I forget? Four hours of mindless arguments punctuated by three resignations,
Dec 22, 2020
Podcast: Want chips with that (plus radio spot)?
With Christmas rapidly approaching and Covid-19 closing in on us again, we thought about not doing a full podcast this week.
A quick intro and replay of Jimmy’s most recent stint on the James Valentine’s afternoons on ABC Radio 702, and that ws going to be it.
But once we got chatting, all sorts of topic came up, such as, what is this obsession with toilet roll every time there’s a hint of trouble on the horizon?
Why do some people “need” to have 10 times as much as they could possibly use outside of a combination of the apocalypse and a seriously bad curry.
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And why does that outweigh other people’s reasonable hope that they'll find a couple of rolls still for sale on the shelf when they pop into the supermarket?
Are we turning into Trumpians, with their "me first, stuff you!" attitudes?
And talking about those who lack a highly developed sense of community, we hop into the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers who use their belief in conspiracy theories about microchips in the vaccine and how only old people get Covid-19, to justify not wearing masks on trains and buses in the midst of a pandemic surge.
As Jimmy writes in an upcoming column in the Financial Review, there’s no vaccine to prevent or cure stupidity.
But, the worrying thing is, the theories might be stupid but some of the people who believe them clearly aren't.
We discuss a friend of Sue’s who is an intelligent and articulate woman but who says she probably won’t take the vaccine when it gets here because of fears that it contains a chip created by Bill Gates that will be able to track and monitor us wherever we go.
Jimmy likes the idea of this chip and says it could be used the same way as with missing pets, to check who you are and where you belong if you ever go missing (like after a Christmas or New Year’s Eve Party).
All this is in the podcast and the transcript.
What’s not in the transcript is the session on the James Valentine show but that’s worth a listen, if only for the question about whether or not visiting dogs now have to be allowed in apartment blocks now that by-laws banning pets are defunct?
If you haven’t listened before, just turn up your speakers, connect your earpods or plug in your headphones, and click on play near the top of this story. It’s the most fun you’ll have in strata without breaching any by-laws.
The transcript
Jimmy 00:00
It's kind of hard to stay positive at the moment, isn't it?
Sue 00:03
Yeah, I think COVID has come back and kind of depressed us all.
Jimmy 00:07
With a vengeance, and a lot of our friends who were planning to go away for Christmas and New Year are stuck at home.
Sue 00:14
Yep.
Jimmy 00:15
We'll just have to entertain them.
Sue 00:17
Yeah, and I think there's a lot of that going on; the ‘new orphans’ are being entertained by friends who've actually bought food and have food, whereas they’ve got empty cupboards.
Jimmy 00:26
But I was in the supermarket the other day, and, empty toilet roll shelves! They were filling them up again, so obviously, they're ready for it this time, but what is this strange obsession with…
Sue 00:39
It's good news for my local newsagent. I don't know if you've seen it, but it’s packed with toilet rolls, and hand sanitizer because I think it arrived all a bit too late for the last one.
Jimmy 00:51
So, he's had it in a cupboard somewhere, or a warehouse?
Sue 00:53
No, not at all; it’s completely taken over the shop. All the newspapers and magazines and cards and lollies are all kind of around the edge, because he's got so much stock. He's obviously got nowhere else to put it. Hopefully, this will be good news for him at least, because I do feel sorry for him. He's obviously incredibly over-ordered. It's so sad every time you go in here.
Jimmy 01:17
Anyway, we will try and keep your spirits up. I'm Jimmy Thomson.
Sue 01:30
Dec 15, 2020
Podcast: Reno regrets and free strata legal advice
It’s very much a tale of two slices of strata in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast.
To begin with, you can listen to two over-privileged, entitled professionals (us) whingeing about what went wrong … and right … when we decided to renovate both bathrooms in our flat at once.
BOTH bathrooms? “When I was a lad we had a pothole in the road, and used gravel for toilet paper …” says one of Monty Python’s Yorkshiremen.
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Regular readers of this website will have been following our reno (mis)adventures on this website for the past few weeks so we thought it was time to reveal all our triumphs and failures on the pod.
From the too-flimsy door that started it all to the crack that appeared in a newly plastered wall, the whole catastrophe is there for your schadenfreude listening pleasure.
Free legal advice
And quickly moving from entitled renovators to hard-pressed strata residents facing more urgent issues not of their own making, we have belatedly discovered a completely free strata legal service for NSW, based in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Marrickville.
Lawyer Justin Abi-Daher joined us on the pod to answer questions about the service like:
How long has Marrickville Legal Centre been covering strata?Who is on their strata team and what are their areas of expertise?What is the most common issue or issues that are brought to them?What do they do when both sides of a dispute asking for help?What is the extent of their involvement? E.g. would they ever represent a client at a tribunal or in a mediation?What is the most common piece of advice they give strata residents once they were in the midst of a dispute.To what extent do they find themselves having to explain residents' basic rights and responsibilities?Is there one piece of strata knowledge that surprises people more than any other?
Finally we ask this not-for-profit hero to explain how they get their funding and why they need more so badly right now.
You can read more about Marrickville Legal Centre HERE and look at their website HERE. And remember, their strata service isn’t just for Marrickville – it’s for the whole of NSW.
If you’re not into podcasts – and really, you’re missing half the fun – you can read a transcript of the pod below.
Transcription
Here. slightly later than usual, is this week's podcast transcribed in full.
Jimmy 00:00
We've got a Christmas gift for our readers and listeners this week; free legal advice.
Sue 00:06
That's a good gift.
Jimmy 00:07
Some people will say, ‘well, you give legal advice all the time,’ but we don't really, because we're not allowed to. We just kind of point people in the right direction. Later on, we're going to be talking to somebody from Marrickville Legal Center and they do offer free legal advice for strata owners and residents, specifically resident owners, rather than investors and tenants.
Sue 00:31
Sounds like a good Christmas gift.
Jimmy 00:33
I think it is. Before that, we're going to be talking about our bathroom renovation, because that's been keeping people entertained for the last few weeks on the website. I'm Jimmy Thomson.
Sue 00:45
And I'm Sue Williams.
Jimmy 00:46
And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.
MUSIC
Bathroom update
Jimmy
How this bathroom thing started, was trying to fix my bathroom door.
Sue 01:07
That's right, because your bathroom door was a bit too thin.
Jimmy 01:13
Yes, and it’s the guest bathroom, so privacy was at a minimum.
Sue 01:16
And tell us how that worked out, Jimmy?
Jimmy 01:19
Well, the bathroom door is untouched and, in the meantime, we've renovated two bathrooms.
Sue 01:26
This is like $45,000 later. The one thing that we wanted, is still not yet done.
Jimmy 01:33
I said I wanted the bathroom door fixed. You said ‘hey, if you're going to have the bathroom door fixed, why don't you just renovate your whole bathroom?’
Dec 7, 2020
Podcast: Mascot in court and how to clinch a deal
In this week’s podcast we catch up with what’s happening at Mascot Towers as owners in the ill-starred building prepare for their day in court.
Specifically, they will be pursuing legal action against the developers of the apartment block next door, construction of which, they claim, undermined the foundations of their block.
Meanwhile they are facing tens of millions of dollars in defect rectification bills to the point where the repairs may cost more than the block is worth.
And the people next door say they have pictures of cracks in the Mascot building before they'd so much as turned a sod.
Then we talk to Scott Aggett a vastly experience real estate agent and ace negotiator with his company Hello Haus on some of the highly developed tactics that have seen him buy and sell 27 properties just for himself.
Scott is a hired gun for people who think they can get the property they want for less, but aren’t sure how to do it. His biggest success? Saving a buyer $800,000 off the purchase of an apartment in London.
It’s a fascinating interview which includes an insight into the classic error single women make when they are negotiating property sales or purchasers
Listen Here
As usual these days, our podcast is available as a transcript, interpreted by a computer, then made sense of by a human.
Transcript in full
Jimmy 00:00
I was talking to a lawyer the other day, about a building with a large rooftop. The Owners Corporation claim that there's efflorescence (that’s salt coming up from underneath the tiles), ruining the tiles on the rooftop and he said they'd spent something in the region of $260,000 on various experts, and lawyers’ fees to take this case against the developer. He said then the developer turned up with their expert witnesses and said that the efflorescence was coming from cheaply-made planter boxes on the rooftop. So, the developer said, “okay, my bad. I'll give you $9,000 for new planter boxes.”
Sue 00:48
Oh, my god. Did the developer put those planter boxes up there, then?
Jimmy 00:52
Yes, they put them up there. Presumably, they're saying “okay, yeah, we shouldn't have put such cheap planter boxes, so yeah, we'll replace them. Off you go.”
Sue 01:01
Oh, my god. Is the damage still there?
Jimmy 01:04
The efflorescence… You can scrub it off the surface, but those salts (if you don't cure the problem), keep coming up through the tiles. So, if there is no problem underneath the tiles, then it's going be okay.
Sue 01:20
Why didn’t they say that before? Why didn't the other side's expert witness ever even look at that?
Jimmy 01:25
You wonder. We're going be talking about defects and court cases, because you've been following up on the Mascot Towers’ story. And we're going to meet somebody who makes a living from negotiating property prices down. I'm Jimmy Thomson.
Sue 01:42
And I'm Sue Williams.
Jimmy 1:43
And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.
[MUSIC]
Jimmy
Mascot Towers, Sue; you've done a story for the Sydney Morning Herald, Domain?
Sue 02:04
That’s right. I think we were all wondering what happened to Mascot Towers, because it's been 18 months now, since all those owners were evacuated from the tower and you kind of wonder what's happening. I hadn't heard anything for a while, so I put in a few calls. It turns out that they're having their day in court, next week, on the 11th of December. The case is finally getting to the Supreme Court, after all this time. It's the owners of Mascot Tower versus the developers of Peak Towers, which is the building next door. You’d probably remember; they were evacuated because the building was starting to sink, and they said it was because the developers of the building (which is just adjacent to it), had been tunneling down for this…
Jimmy 2:50
Digging down for a carpark.
Sue 2:51
That's right, for a basement carpark and had tapped into the underground water table...
Dec 1, 2020
Podcast: Crazy questions, architects with answers
We turn back the clock – but just a little – for this week’s podcast when we look at the weirdest and wackiest questions asked and problems presented on the Flat Chat Forum in recent months.
And we have a long chat with Kathlyn Loseby, President of the NSW chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects as well as COO of Crone Architects.
She’ll be talking about the importance of good architecture – and what architects can bring to a building that no other professional can.
Listen Here
First up, though, it’s our cavalcade of chaos starting with a strata manager who won’t let an owner even nominate for election to the committee because the resident has taken a complaint against the owners corp to Fair Trading and NCAT.
Then there’s the owner who put a video camera on common property outside his front door without permission. When the owners corp complained, he attached it to a peephole inside his front door – which is still common property.
We recently had so…
Nov 24, 2020
Podcast 101: Pets and some post-Covid plusses
With most of the worst of the pandemic behind us here in Australia – or, at least, the first and hopefully the last wave of infections – we thought we’d take a few moments in the podcast to discuss positives that have emerged from the months of lockdown and working from home.
Apparently, according to a Zoom conference that Sue sat in on (and that’s a great leap forward, right there), technology has advance by five years in the past five months, including having your apartment block’s or office’s lift knowing you are leaving before you’ve even opened your door.
Quantum computing and robot-run farms are also making headway and there are even advances in electrically powered air taxis, although Jimmy reckons the biggest advance would be developing technologies to make sure they don’t crash into each other.
Listen here
Jimmy’s thoughts on how the pandemic has improved our lives are more prosaic – he likes having to book his gym sessions, as it means he’s less li…
Nov 17, 2020
Podcast 100: Upside of a stairlift stand-off
There are two major strands to this week’s podcast.
The first stems from a question raised in the Flat Chat Forum, about an apartment owner who wants to install a stairlift – one of those seats that trundles up a staircase – in a narrow common property stairwell.
It's for his elderly mother, so you have some sympathy, as you'd have for the other owners who had to squeeze past the rail every day.
Listen Here
Now the plusses and (many) minuses of this proposal are thrashed out in the Forum but here in the podcast, we have come up with a cunning plan.
Depending on the structure of the block, owners might be able to install a small passenger lift on the outside of the building for between $100k and $150k. Ouch, I hear you say. $150k?
But get this, the value of EACH apartment that benefitted from the lift might easily go up by about the same amount.
So say you had six apartments (excluding the ground floor units) who each contributed $25k – about the cost of a bathroom reno…
Nov 16, 2020
Fun and occasional fury as our podcast hits 100 eps
We’ve scored a century! This week sees us post the 100th episode of the Flat Chat Wrap – and that's only counting properly produced and distributed episodes.
We would have held a giant dance party to celebrate but, hey, what with Covid-19 and social distancing and all, we might limit it to a chocolate croissant with our morning coffee.
Now, before we go any further with the self-congratulation, this week’s podcast, available here, is mostly about how you can turn an inaccessible old walk-up apartment block into a level-entry “gem”.
And we hear from Karen Stiles of the Owners Corporation Network about plans for a new register of apartment blocks, including their main contact details. Hmmm. All you secret, anonymous, uncontactable chairs and secretaries take note.
But getting back to our 100 episodes, it’s interesting to note how much the pod has changed. The major developments have been the addition of Sue Williams to the regular pod crew, and the inclusion of week…
Nov 10, 2020
Podcast 99: Long-term rental will tempt tenants
This week we returned to a topic we raised in the last podcast, namely build-to-rent and specifically the new Liv Indigo building at Sydney Olympic Park.
They held an open day last weekend and we went down to have a look and chat to … well, anyone who was interested in talking to us.
You can hear the results of that in the podcast (or read the transcript at the end) but this build-to-rent block does seem to be a game-changer, although it’s not for everyone.
[Powerpress]
Why not? Well, it’s between 10 to 30 percent more expensive to rent there, for a start, although a lot of that can be offset by having no power bills, having whitegoods provided as well as saving on gym memberships and suchlike.
But the most important thing is that tenants are the main game, not an afterthought. It still amazes and bothers me that tenants are treated as second-class citizens in some strata schemes, considering they make up more than 50 per cent of apartment residents, across the board.
S…
Nov 3, 2020
Podcast 98: A tale of two very different rentals
We are looking at two very different kinds of rentals this week. The first is build-to-rent apartments (which is definitely NOT affordable housing, regardless of what anyone else might tell you).
The other is short-term holiday rentals which are routinely and often erroneously called Airbnb. That's the generic term but, in fact, we will be talking to Stayz, their biggest rivals in Australia.
Listen Here
Build-to-rent is a new concept for Australia – the first in the country is having it’s inaugural “open house” this weekend – and it sees a developer build apartments specifically to let them out.
None of them are sold to individual owners; they are all owned by the same entity so strata law doesn’t come into it (although residential tenancy laws definitely do).
As a result of the block being run in a sole owner-manager structure, the rules can be established for everyone and if your neighbours don’t like them or consistently break them, they can presumably be a…
Oct 27, 2020
Podcast 97: Renovation – best-laid plans (and tiles)
It’s renovations all the way in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap as we chat about a Forum post asking what can be done about a disastrous and unauthorised renovation, now that the owner is planning to sell, bodgy renos included.
That’s one end of the spectrum where a major and mostly illegal renovation has been allowed to continue without so much as a “by your leave” let alone a by-law.
At the other end of the reno rainbow, an old chum has called up to ask about the work she wants to do in her flat where the committee has had the plans for weeks but have only now decided they need to have a general meeting to approve them.
Not only that but they want another 17 days to give notice to owners while she has tradies all set with their Makitas revved up and ready to go. Do they really need a general meeting (she doesn’t need any by-laws)? And if so, how could it have been avoided?
Listen here
And finally we talk to our own project manager for our bathroom renos, Chris Triantis of…
Oct 20, 2020
Podcast 96: Pets, rents and new age steam trains
People who don't care about pets in apartments shouldn't switch off just yet, regardless of how bored you are with the whole issue.
It has implications for everyone in apartments, whether you have pets or not, as you may discover when your upstairs neighbour starts stomping around on their new, cheap timber floor.
Letting ourselves off the leash this week, we also explore why Sydney's rents are going down a lot in some areas but up even more in others.
Listen Here
And we look at the fuel of the future and ask why we aren't pumping money itnto its development right now.
But first we ask strata lawyer David Sachs of Sachs Gerace Lawyers, what are the far-reaching consequences of the Appeals Court decision last week in the case between Jo Cooper and the Owners Corporation of the Horizon building in Sydney - that have nothing to do with pets.
Basically speaking, the NSW Court of Appeal ruled that Owners Corporations can't pass by-laws about what an owner does or has in their apartmen…
Oct 13, 2020
Podcast 95: pet ban block, websites and a new book
The big strata news of this week stopped us in our tracks. The NSW Court of Appeals has overturned a decision by the strata tribunal (NCAT) which, earlier this year, ruled that strata schemes could create "no pets" by-laws.
Just to be clear, NCAT last year twice ruled that no-pet by-laws were illegal, then the NCAT Appeals Board overturned those decisions, then the Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, overturned the Appeals Board decision.
So now, in short, NSW strata schemes can't ban pets.
The podcast was all set, edited and ready to go when the news came in so we plugged the mike back in, cranked up the recording software and had a chat about what this means to pets and by-laws in general in NSW and elswhere in Australia.
You can also read an extensive commentary and find a link to the full news story HERE.
After that, we go back to our original podcast which is on totally different subjects - websites and web designers. This chat was partly inspired by revamps of…
Oct 6, 2020
Podcast 94: Tax shock and giving loans some credit
It’s a bit of a Budget special on Flat Chat this week, if only because we are talking about money.
Specifically we are discussing the personal taxes that you probably didn’t even know you are supposed to pay when your strata scheme starts making a profit.
And we'll discuss where to get dough when your strata schemes needs a lot of it in a hurry.
To which end, we have a chat with Paul Morton, CEO of our long-time sponsors Lannock Finance.
Along the way we’ll touch on
why the Australian Tax Office would rather treat you as an individual than a member of a corporationhow it can cost more in real terms to pay cash up front rather than get a loanwhy footballers aren't working as hard as they once didwhat happens when the instructor knows your name in the gym and how potential purchasers are viewing properties in these viral days.
You can hear all that by clicking on the play button below.
Listening is by far the best way to enjoy the pod, but if you aren’t a podder, you c…
Sep 29, 2020
Podcast: Now you can read it as well as listen
This week's podcast is all about wheel-clamping, email privacy and the amazing legacy of the Sydney Olympics athletes' village.
But one of the biggest pieces of news this week is about the podcast itself or, more to the point, these show notes.
As we approach our 100th edition, and following numerous requests from readers who don't listen to podcasts, we have finally discovered a program that will use Artificial Intelligence to transcribe the audio into text.
Now, AI can only do so much with variations of Australian, Scottish and English accents, so it does require a bit of work to knock it into shape.
Then there are the interruptions, half-formed thoughts, digressions and repetitions - not to mention umms, aaahs and other verbal punctuations - that you don't realise form part of your everyday speech until you see them laid out before you on a page.
We've done our best to filter out the intrusions but I hope you get the sense of the discussions and the flavour of the podcast in t…
Sep 21, 2020
Podcast: Renos, pets and kids in uncrowded houses
It’s another big week on the podcast front with a lot of serious – and not so serious – issues to discuss.
First up we look at this story about how the radical renovation of unused storage space in a Bondi block has allowed the owners to upgrade the whole 1930s building with new electrics, plumbing, roof, balconies and terraces.
This, we learn, is what the other side of the “forced sale” laws allowed – a majority of owners to make the most of their collective assets and give their 90-year-old building a whole new lease of life.
Ban the pet ban
Then we chat to UNSW Associate Professor Dr Cathy Sherry – one of our eminent thinkers in the realm of strata law – about why she wrote an op-ed in the Sydney Morning Herald recently, supporting moves to ban by-laws that ban pets.
It’s a wide-ranging discussion that goes from the fundamentals of liberal democracy to negative gearing, via Feudalism, Utilitarianism, assistance animals, company title, build-to-rent and Airbnb.…
Sep 15, 2020
Podcast 91: Crackdown on dud developers hits home
We have one of our longest ever Flat Chat Wrap podcasts this week, but it’s all good so brace yourselves, pace yourselves and buckle up for some interesting material from our multitude of guests (well, three, to be exact).
First there is the redoubtable Karen Stiles who is the Executive Officer at the Owners Corporation Network (OCN) and, as such, has a seat at the table for some of the most critical discussions being made about NSW strata in decades.
Karen has come on to the podcast to explain how Building Commissioner David Chandler has the power (and is using it) to enter newly completed blocks that are still under warranty and then order the builders or developers to fix the defects.
One developer has already heard the hard word and is considering their options, while another has "surrender tackled" and is just getting on with fixing things
And what if they refuse? The Commissioner's plan to stop future defects will see problem developers identified early by calculating an…
Sep 8, 2020
Podcast: Email privacy & Afternoons radio with JV
This week’s podcast takes a look at an area of strata life where strata managers could be breaking the law … because apartment-owning clients want them to.
We’re talking about email addresses which, if they are part of your strata scheme’s records, should be available for inspection to all owners.
But many owners – and a fair few tenants – don’t want their email addresses to be available to their neighbours or other owners.
Why? Is it a case of simply not wanting to know what’s going on, so we don’t have to make difficult choices?
Block nuisances
Is it about not being hassled by the obsessive serial emailers who just won’t let up once they get their teeth into a topic?
As JimmyT says, it’s very easy to block nuisance email addresses. So is this more about strata committees not wanting anyone but themselves to be able to contact owners en masse, in case an alternative view of issues is too widely canvassed?
By the way, when your strata manager or secreta…
Sep 1, 2020
Podcast: Pet laws, Airbnb fears and political fashion
We have a bumper edition of the Flat Chat Wrap podcast for you this week with a ton of material and some new voices too.
You might want to ration your listening - for some people there are two commutes worth of pod in this episode.
First off, we catch up with the amendment to the NSW strata Act that we flagged briefly last week, which would ban any apartment block from having a by-law that said pets weren’t allowed.
How this came about is detailed in this story but, in a nutshell, there was a proposal floated in the Upper House to amend the strata Act so that changes to common property that would have a beneficial effect on sustainability wouldn’t require the normal 75 percent approval of a special resolution.
Instead, a simple majority of owners at a general meeting could decide, for instance, to put solar panels on the roof, batteries in the basement and electric car chargers in the car park.
It’s a good idea. Environmental recalcitrants can find a million bogus reasons…
Aug 25, 2020
Podcast: mind your Ps as we call for your Qs
It’s a case of too many Ps on the pod this week when we discuss your participation, the Hyperbole Towers podcom, pet petitions and payment for strata committee members.
Let’s get to participation first. We want to hear your voices, literally, so send us a question or a suggestion for a discussion topic as an audio file – record it on your smartphone – and we’ll try to include it in the podcast and respond to it too.
The format should be something like: “This is Jimmy from Darlinghurst and I was wondering …” Then you’ll get your 15 seconds of fame – sorry, 15 minutes would be way too much – and you might even get the answer to a question that’s been bugging you.
Promoting the Podcom
The second P is a little self-indulgent in that it’s a clip from the Hyperbole Towers Podcom.
Now, at time of writing, more that 310 people have listened to the Podcom in the first six days that it’s been “live”. Now, if that doesn’t sound like much, consider this;…
Aug 18, 2020
Podcast: Comedy, coffee and a new way of renting
Were going flat out to lift the gloom in this week in the Flat Chat Wrap.
First we go behind the scenes of the much heralded and long-awaited (by JimmyT, anyway) Podcom – podcast sitcom – which we are now calling Hyperbole Towers.
Why “Hyperbole?” Because every new apartment block has some sort of exaggerated name, although not always creating the image the developers might hope for.
For instance, we think The Babylon, for all its gardens, might conjure up slightly sleazier images, especially in the minds of fans of the TV series Babylon Berlin, if not Kenneth Aunger’s scandalous Hollywood Babylon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5eorwxcIuU
Anyway, Hyperbole Towers is a much tamer affair, although it’s more Number 96 than Fawlty Towers. You can find out more about it and listen to the episode right here.
Bean me up
Then we continue the “kick back and relax” theme with a visit to Frankie’s Beans coffee bar and café in Darlinghurst where Fern tells us what it…
Aug 17, 2020
Hyperbole Towers – an audio strata sitcom
It’s here! The long-awaited podcom (podcast sitcom) set in a dysfunctional apartment block’s strata committee is live and ready for your ears.
The premise of this audio comedy, Hyperbole Towers, is as simple as it’s believable. The strata scheme has, thanks to a stuff-up by the secretary, accidentally changed its by-laws so that they MUST hold their meetings on Zoom (rather than CAN do so).
Add in characters who work from home in their underwear, use “you’re breaking up” as their fall-back get-out-of-jail card and get involved in the usual committee power struggles, and you have a potent recipe for some serious fun.
The Cast and crew (minus one) rehearse Hyperbole Towers
The Hyperbole Towers characters are:
Charlie, the long-suffering chairwomanAlfie the manipulative and scheming building managerBrooke the hopeless secretarySteve, the committee treasurer who sees everything in terms of moneyWendy a do-gooder who is also a nasty gossip and a racist Joe a class warri…
Aug 11, 2020
Podcast: Defect deterrent and travelling wistfully
We cover a lot of ground in this week’s podcast … and by “a lot of ground” we mean pretty much the whole planet.
First, we take a look a the recent 60 Minutes report which examined the progress being made by NSW building commissioner David Chandler in trying to make sure no one in the future suffers the same heart-breaking disasters as the residents of Mascot Tower.
It’s a surprisingly well put together report - commercial TV usually doesn’t do too well on complex issue like strata defects.
And it reveals a nasty piece of legal jiggery-pokery that seems to be geared towards nothing less than making sure the Mascot owners couldn’t claim against the people they believe are responsible for their current plight.
And what is that plight? If you haven’t been paying attention, last year the residents of Mascot Tower had to be evacuated when the building started to crack and literally started sinking into the ground.
It now looks like March next year before they can g…
Aug 4, 2020
Podcast: Zoom into your chance to be on the pod
This week we get tangled up in the wiring as we examine the effect of Zoom meetings and electronic voting on the democratic processes of strata committees ... and the House of Lords.
The chat was sparked by this forum post which alleges all sorts of skullduggery – okay, maybe not skullduggery but it suggests that a Zoom-based AGM was used to push through an excessively expensive window replacement contract.
And it seems like some people may be taking advantage of the pandemic to sneak things past people who aren’t tech savvy and/or who have other things on their minds ... like how to avoid the virus and feed their families, maybe?
By the way, in the pod cast, I say the meeting was an ordinary general meeting – in fact, it was a Zoom AGM. Danger, danger!
Brush with a painter
I was going to make a joke about painting over the cracks but that would do our guest this week an injustice. Paul Williams, general manager of Dukes Paint, joined us online to talk about paint in al…
Jul 28, 2020
Podcast 84: Missing bricks and strata’s missing links
This week’s podcast is inspired by a question on our Forum asking what to do about two office-bearers who have taken bricks out of common property walls so as to install integrated bookshelves … with the predictable effect that has on noise insulation, not to mention fire safety.
You can read the original post and responses here. All of which leads to a discussion about the dumb (and inconsiderate) things people do when they haven’t got the message that they don’t own the four walls around their flat – just whatever’s inside them.
Strata Answers
Moving on, we talk to a couple of people who have made it their business to explain the facts of strata life to owners and tenants, especially those tied up in dysfunctional strata committees, or waging trench warfare against them.
Our loyal sponsors StrataAnswers – Tonja Gibson and John Hutchison – explain what it’s like to walk into the no-man’s-land between warring factions in a strata dispute.
They try to take the…
Jul 21, 2020
Podcast 83: Joke dad, garden secrets and pass-the-Corona party
It’s another showbag of conflict, calm and coronavirus craziness on the Flat Chat Wrap podcast this week.
First, inspired by a question from our Forum, we discuss what you can do when someone who shouldn’t even be at a strata committee meeting – his daughter is the lot owner – bullies the other members.
Our suggested remedies range from using existing rules – non-members shouldn’t speak unless the committee votes to allow it - to standing orders that empower the secretary to “name” disruptive elements.
As a last resort, you could consider employing security guards or even calling the police.
Secret Garden secrets
In a more restful mode, we talk to gardening guru and landscaper extraordinaire Matt Cantwell about what you can and should do with plants on the balcony.
Matt is a passionate proselytiser for the power of plant life, and he really makes you feel your life is lacking if you don’t have some greenery around you.
We took the opportunity to find out ho…
Jul 14, 2020
Podcast 82: Dogs, design and Donald Trump
If you are up to your eyes in paint, tiles and taps – or even better, just looking through the brochures as you prepare the domestic make-over you can’t put off any longer – you could do worse than listen to this week’s podcast.
We’ve Zoomed in on interior designer Stephanie Bungard to discover the easiest and most effective way to make your apartment look fresh and inviting.
For instance, do you know what colours are popular these days because they are calming?
And if you’re looking to freshen up the place for rent or sale – or just to make it a nicer space to live in – how you can supplement the paint job with new tapware in the kitchen and bathroom.
Design questions
In an enlightening and entertaining chat, Steff answers such questions as:
What are the latest trends in apartment interior design?What’s the easiest way to make a small space look bigger?In a renovation, where should you spend more – kitchen or bathroom?Feature walls – in or out?Sliding doors…
Jul 6, 2020
Podcast 81 – Negative equity & positive plans
In this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast we encounter the best and worst in apartment living, from negative equity in off-the plan purchases, to multiple tenants causing parking chaos in a block that simply doesn’t know how to enforce their own by-laws.
In between, as some positive relief, we chat to an architect who won four gongs at the recent NSW Architects award, including for a revolutionary high-end high-rises, as well as an equally ground-breaking boarding house.
Off-the-plan pain
But first the issue of people who paid a deposits on off-the-plan apartments a couple of years ago, and have watched property values shrink and in some cases their jobs disappear because of the pandemic, just as their new flat is ready for occupancy.
This item was inspired by this interview with ABC NewsRadio’s Sandy Aloisi – and you can hear a snatch of it on the podcast – which was in turn inspired by this story in the AFR.
As Jimmy and Sue discuss, it’s not just a matter of walking awa…
Jun 30, 2020
Podcast 80 – Shape of strata blocks to come
In this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast, in the run-up to the Australian architectural awards, we talk about some of the innovative apartment block designs that made it the short-list.
For a start, there’s the Verve towers in Newcastle which offer more corner units because it’s two slim towers rather than one solid one.
Judging by the above picture, it’s two slices rather than two fingers (as Jimmy suggests in the podcast), but the fact that it costs more to build is offset by the ability of the developer to charge more for each flat.
Then there are “new age” boarding houses which, because they aren’t really apartments, can be as small as 24 sqm.
And there are apartments with built-in designer furniture - which leads to a discussion about an embarrassing bed.
Strata Loans
Then we talk to Paul Morton, CEO of Lannock Strata Finance, one of our long-term sponsors whose company is one of the few sources of strata loans in the country.
Usually when we do interviews we sen…
Jun 23, 2020
Podcast 79 – bad pads, fams and James Valentine
It’s a bumper edition of the Flat Chat Wrap this week, boosted by an extract from JimmyT’s guest spot on James Valentine’s Afternoons on ABC radio.
But first Jimmy and Sue revisit the worst apartments they have ever seen, inspired by stories of the block in Auburn, Sydney, that prompted Building Commissioner David Chandler to seek and get the most comprehensive changes to building and planning laws the state has seen for generations.
But for Jimmy and Sue, it all brings back memories of apartments with full-sized bars where the kitchen used to be, the special “disabled” apartment couldn’t let wheelchairs through its doors and the air con system that blew the smoke from one flat into the next.
James Valentine
Then we get a taste of Jimmy’s guest spot on James Valentine’s Afternoons (you can hear the whole Monday June 22 session here).
Among the topics discussed were Jimmy’s PodCom (podcast sitcom), voting for and against pets in company title, how much you shoul…
Jun 16, 2020
Podcast 78 – Affordable flats, WhatsApp to the rescue & dining redefined
After what has felt like several weeks of doom and gloom, we are looking on the bright side in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast.
First of all we chat about Sue’s story in Domain about a new mixed development where affordable rentals will be mixed in with full-price apartments … and you will never know who’s paying full fare and who isn’t.
The apartments will be identical so there will be no discrimination … unlike other efforts where the affordable units had a different front door from the other flats in the same building.
App chat
Then we talk to Brent Clark, best known for WattBlock a company that helps apartment buildings with energy saving, solar feasibility studies, NABERS ratings and electric vehicle charging reports.
But that’s not why Brent is on the Pod – maybe next time – he’s Zoomed in to tell us about the WhatsApp community in his block in Chatswood, Sydney, which has blossomed from a casual social tool to an essential piece of community infrastru…
Jun 9, 2020
Podcast 77 – cowboys, counselling and comedy
There are just two main discussions in this week’s podcast but the topics are both hugely significant in very different ways.
In the first we look at the new powers given to NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler to deal with cowboys in the building industry (hence the cowboy music at the top of the podcast).
In the second we hear from relationship counsellor and psychologist Amanda Gordon about how to deal with the pressures of being cooped up with your partner in an apartment during this pandemic (and the second wave if there is one).
Duty of care
David Chandler, the NSW Building Commissioner, has finally seen State parliament pass the laws he needs to start sorting the sheep from the goats in the building industry.
And part of the way that will work is that any signs of clustering of bad operators – architects, engineers, certifiers, developers and builders - with poor track records in apartment buildings will draw the attention of his team of compliance investigators.
U…
Jun 2, 2020
Podcast 76: Pet bans, live crabs and gov-love for holiday rentals
There’s plenty of variety in this week’s forum, from pets to concieges, and from tourism promotions to a survey that suggests lower-income individuals and families do it toughest in apartment blocks.
The Podcast opens with an examination of the Tribunal Appeals Panel’s ruling that strata blocks can have “no-pets” by-laws after all.
The verdicts issued last week were the results of two appeals against previous decisions by the NSW Civil Administrative Tribunal that by-laws banning pets outright were harsh and discriminatory.
Not so, says the Appeals Panel, and its findings have implications far beyond keeping pets in apartments.
Most significantly, they reinforce the right of owners to create rules that some people won’t like (but the majority do).
More than a doorman
Then we talk to Deb Francis of A Class Concierges about how her team members have been handling the challenges of coronavirus and the lockdowns on strata communities, as well as the day-to-day dealing wit…
May 26, 2020
Podcast 75 – The future is right on our doorsteps
We seem to be so caught up in the day-to-day of avoiding or dealing with the coronavirus, so it’s refreshing to know that some people are thinking of a future way beyond that.
In this week’s podcast, Sue Williams revisits a story about an ambitious vision for a brand new city planned for the area near the new airport at Badgerys Creek.
If the architects and planners have their way, it will be self-sustaining in energy and water and will even grow enough food to export to other areas.
Is it a pipe dream? The architects have been building communities in the deserts of the Gulf states so they know a bit about making the most of a hostile environment.
But, asks Jimmy, how does that stack up against the cheap, cheerless and quick-fix options favoured by our politicians?
Owners unite ... by Zoom
Also in this podcast, we talk to Karen Stiles, the energetic executive officer of the Owners Corporation Network about how that key organisation is coping with the challenge of building a…
May 19, 2020
Podcast 74: Bully for you – how aggressive should strata lawyers be?
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 ebook
On 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 g…
May 12, 2020
Podcast 73 – stressed pets, property prices … plus James Valentine
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…
May 5, 2020
Podcast 72 – Move it … while the politicians lose it
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 report
Before we get down to that, this week’s podcast takes a look at a report issued last week in which the NSW govern…
Apr 28, 2020
Podcast 71 – Redesigning flats for work and a legal view of solo meetings
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 who…
Apr 21, 2020
Podcast 70 – renos and what to wear when working from home
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…
Apr 14, 2020
Podcast 69 – fostering pets, falling rents, failing tradies and TV flats
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 a…
Apr 7, 2020
Podcast 68: Six months of Sundays, classic movies, perfect pods
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 losses
At 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…
Mar 31, 2020
Podcast 67: Airbnb bugged, gym junkies fret … and fun
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…
Mar 24, 2020
Podcast 66 – Locked down and loaded up with medical misinformation
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 quar…
Mar 17, 2020
Podcast 64: New rent laws but same old story with point-scoring pollies
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 tenan…
Mar 10, 2020
Podcast 63: Cowboy builders, coronavirus and … toilet rolls
JimmyT and Sue discuss his long chat with the building commissioner, what you can do to avoid coronavirus in your apartment block and how Sue learned about the great Australian toilet roll panic, all over the newspapers ... in India.
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.
Mar 3, 2020
Podcast 62: Free strata managers, fire stupidity, locked-out landlord
In this week’s Flat Chat Wrap, JimmyT and Sue Williams discusses the possibility of having free, or non-profit strata managers.
Would it work, who would use the service and wouldn’t rich owners in boutique blocks just rort the system if it was done on the basis of the size of the building?
Also they talk about the 100-year-old converted mansion where the owners ripped out a faulty alarm system and never got round to replacing it.
And there’s the question of a tenant who has replaced the original handle on his rented apartment with an electronic key pad, which not only keeps the landlord locked out, but isn’t fire compliant.
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.
Feb 25, 2020
Podcast 61 – Electric cars and rogue parking with James Valentine
Roughly once a month JimmyT drops into the ABC radio studios for a chat with James Valentine about strata and all the myriad related subjects
This month they start off talking about charging electric cars in strata schemes but pretty soon the calls from JV's listeners start pouring in.
One caller wants to know if the owners in two out of three buildings in the same strata scheme should be responsible for the cabling when the third building gets NBN fibre to the basement, rather than fibre to the node that the other blocks have.
Another caller in a duplex wants to know what to do when their neighbour (and half-owner) wants to render the external walls of their half, but the caller can't afford to match it.
A frustrated member of a committee wants to know if there's anything they can do about owners who wilfully ignore warnings not to park in visitor parking.
Also, who's responsible when goods stored in a garage get damaged by water pouring through in heavy rains?
And is a flat o…
Feb 18, 2020
PODCAST 60 – Retirees rule, Airbnb lose and flooring fights
This week on the Flat Chat Wrap we ask whether retired business people are the best or the worst committee members you can have.
Based on this column, Jimmy and Sue weigh the pros and cons of people who have experience and maturity, with the fact that they may also be used to getting their own way, are a little too keen to hold on to power when they get it, and often block the appointment of younger owners who want to make a contribution.
Early retirees, with business smarts and energy to burn could be exactly what your block needs. Or they could be your worst nightmare.
In another story, we look at how Airbnb has been touted as the answer to housing shortages in bushfire ravaged towns and rural areas.
And we discuss why the global holiday letting company’s recent financial woes could mean they are about to expand, and come back even stronger.
We hear a word of warning about taking owners to the tribunal even when you know you have them bang to rights on by-laws … because the…
Feb 11, 2020
PODCAST 59 – Fire and rain, gym hijackers and paying for repairs
In this week’s podcast, with the East Coast states of Australia only just having survived the bushfires, we are now dealing with torrential rain and floods.
Sue has contacted the big property insurers to discover an astonishing amount of damage claims had been lodged as early as Monday morning after the weekend storms.
And we examine what can go wrong in apartment blocks despite a feeling of being “above it all”.
‘This is when you discover how well your block really has been built,” Jimmy says, with one expert musing that, when you have horizontal rain in these quantities, something is bound to give.
Later in the podcast, Jimmy and Sue discuss under what circumstances it’s okay for personal trainers (PTs) to use common property gyms for their clients.
Inspired by this issue on the Forum, they look at the three basic circumstances under which you might find a PT in your gym. One is fine, another is definitely not on but a third is borderline.
But is a resident PT usi…
Feb 5, 2020
PODCAST 58 – Dogs in pools and nutty neighbours
This week’s podcast topics have come straight off our front page and our Forum.
For instance, how would you feel if an owner started allowing – maybe even encouraging – their dog to swim in the communal swimming pool.
Now, many free-standing home owners allow their pets to swim in their pools. And the pets clearly enjoy it.
But does that mean we should allow dogs into our communal pools? Aren’t there by-laws against that?
Well, check yours but probably no, there won’t be. There might be something about not allowing pets on common property, or keeping dogs on a leash.
But hey, what if the dog is on a leash but in the pool? JimmyT and Sue Williams dive into that one.
Then there is the problem of what to do with persistently, deliberately and aggravatingly annoying neighbours.
A while ago we talked about the deposed committee chair who took his revenge by calling up tradies working in the building and abusing them to the point that they refused to work there again…
Jan 29, 2020
PODCAST 57: Developer database – why bank computers could say “no”
Sue Williams is back in the Flat Chat Wrap co-chair this week as we discuss the proposed Dodgy Developer Database announced by the NSW government last week.
Sue reckons it can only be a good thing to get all that information but is concerned that it might all be too complicated for ordinary owners to understand.
Jimmy points out that he doesn’t think it will ever see the light of day, and even if it does, ordinary people won’t have access to it to begin with, and will eventually only get to see it if they pay.
“Outrageous!” says Sue. “We pay for these things through our taxes.’
In any case, Jimmy says, it will be like the East Coast Fast Train line plan that gets trotted out at every election … a great idea that never gets out of the too-hard basket.
One group of people who Jimmy thinks will be all over the proposed database (if it ever eventuates), apart from the council and state planners for whom it is apparently intended, will be the banks and other mortgage lend…
Jan 21, 2020
PODCAST 56 – Flat-hunting, packing and Swedish Death Cleaning
“It’s like heading down the runway while you are still building the plane” – no, we’re not talking about buying off the plan, but the pressures and perils of creating an Oscar-winning, multi-million-dollar animated Hollywood movie.
We’re taking a slight detour this week into the world of comedy and show-business, in an interview with our good friend Warren Coleman, formerly of the Castanets Club comedy troupe but more recently a writer and co-director on Happy Feet and a writer on Happy Feet 2.
Now, we do get to the question of apartments – specifically, what it’s like to be looking to buy and sell for the first time in 30 years – but we take a few side-roads along the way.
We’ll hear how taking a hit comedy show on a multi-city tour of the USA can be like “hyper-flat-sharing” and we get essential travel tips from Davy Jones, formerly of the Monkees.
But there's also how entering the apartment buying arena for the first time in a long time is a bit like dati…
Jan 14, 2020
PODCAST 55 – Privacy poppycock, powers of attorney and pets in peril
This week in the podcast we revisit the vexed question of whether or not you should be allowed to view other owners’ email addresses.
The SCA (Strata Community Australia – aka, the strata managers) website says this in its FAQ for apartment block neophytes:
How do I obtain the phone number/email address/postal address of members of the committee?
Due to privacy laws you only have the legal right to obtain the postal address of lot owners, which you can request from the strata manager, or if the scheme is self-managed, the committee.
In other words, no email addresses for mere owners. Now, we’ve had this discussion running on the Forum for a while and I, JimmyT, have to admit I got it wrong.
I said that because the strata Act doesn’t require you to provide your email address, then that wasn’t part of the strata roll and was therefore private.
But hang on a minute, the strata Act does require owners to provide their email addresses. And if strata managers and committees ar…
Jan 7, 2020
Podcast 54 – Bushfires, unit blocks and stray cats
This week’s podcast is about the bushfires. For a change, apartments are not portrayed in the media as the worst possible way to live in Australia.
That’s not to say unit blocks are immune from danger and disruption; as the original article points out, you still have to protect them from fire and floating embers.
And can you imagine what would happen if the flames nudged up to a block clad in flammable composite? We’d have our own Grenfell Tower right here.
Thankfully, the reality for most apartment dwellers in country and seaside areas is a lot less dramatic. Our country town apartment blocks tend to be a lot smaller, however, that brings its own problems.
It they’re not high enough to legally require fire sprinklers, you can reasonably assume they don’t have them. And it was internal sprinklers that arguably saved residents in our two major cladding fires – in the Lacrosse and Neo200 blocks in Melbourne – from suffering tragic consequences.
So rural residen…
Dec 3, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap 51 – Email privacy, off-the-plan protections and owner revolts
Privacy, consumer protections and how to engineer radical change in your apartment block are the main topics for discussion in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast.
A heated discussion in the Forum has spilled over into the pod, with JimmyT trying to establish where or not it’s true that the law forbids strata managers from revealing owners’ email addresses in the strata roll (in NSW).
Certainly, that’s what the strata managers say but neither strata law nor privacy laws seem to back that up.
So why would the SCA – the strata managers’ professional body – advise its members not to pass email addresses to owners who are otherwise entitled to view all strata records?
One sophisticated piece of strata management software – Rockend – even has a button you can click to hide email addresses from prying eyes.
Could it be that this is one line of communication that strata managers and other strata professionals want to stay closed.
Consider this, if you live in a block of…
Dec 3, 2019
PODCAST : Email privacy, off-the-plan protection and power grabs
Privacy, consumer protections and how to engineer radical change in your apartment block are the main topics for discussion in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast.
A heated discussion in the Forum has spilled over into the pod, with JimmyT trying to establish where or not it’s true that the law forbids strata managers from revealing owners’ email addresses in the strata roll (in NSW).
Certainly, that’s what the strata managers say but neither strata law nor privacy laws seem to back that up.
So why would the SCA – the strata managers’ professional body – advise its members not to pass email addresses to owners who are otherwise entitled to view all strata records?
One sophisticated piece of strata management software – Rockend – even has a button you can click to hide email addresses from prying eyes.
Could it be that this is one line of communication that strata managers and other strata professionals want to stay closed.
Consider this, if you live in a block of…
Nov 26, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap 50 – AirbnBS blitz, pet bans balked, bad neighours
Amazingly, this is our 50th Flat Chat wrap which means we have been doing this for almost a year.
And yet, the same topics come up, time after time, albeit with the occasional (welcome) twist.
For instance, co-presenter Sue Williams has had enough of Airbnb – or, at least, stories about them. She has a point but when you are dealing with a super-aggressive interloper in the property market, you have to keep tabs on them.
What have they done now? Well, they have launched their campaign against “red tape” that they say will make it harder for ordinary working families to be able to afford seaside holidays?
What red tape are they talking about?
We can only assume it’s the regulations that will make it easier for holiday let guests to escape from fires and easier for the authorities to work out who’s running holiday rentals. Are they such bad things?
Meanwhile, yet another major inner-city apartment block has had its "no-pets" by-law overturned and looks to be heading…
Nov 26, 2019
PODCAST: We hit 50 … Airbnb, pet bans and nasty neighbours
Amazingly, this is our 50th Flat Chat Wrap which means we have been doing this - the podcast thing - for almost a year.
And yet, the same topics come up, time after time, albeit with the occasional (welcome) twist.
For instance, co-presenter Sue Williams has had enough of Airbnb – or, at least, stories about them. She has a point but when you are dealing with a super-aggressive interloper in the property market, you have to keep tabs on them.
What have they done now? Well, they have launched their campaign against “red tape” that they say will make it harder for ordinary working families to be able to afford seaside holidays?
What red tape are they talking about?
We can only assume it’s the regulations that will make it easier for holiday let guests to escape from fires and easier for the authorities to work out who’s running holiday rentals. Are they such bad things?
Meanwhile, yet another major inner-city apartment block has had its "no-pets" by-law overturned a…
Nov 19, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap 49 – Half-million dollar defamation damage
This week’s podcast features JimmyT and Sue Williams examining the half-million dollar turnaround in a strata defamation case, a discussion about who’s the boss in a strata scheme – the committee or the strata manager – and a chat about how we can get a bit too relaxed when we’re planning our holidays from our “lock up and leave” apartment.
The first item refers to the recent Court of Appeals decision in the case of the Manly apartment block chair who earlier this year won $120,000 in damages after alleging he’d been defamed by a tenant in an internal email war.
However, the Appeals Court decided there was no defamation – due to qualified privilege attached to internal discussions in a corporation – and even if there had been, the payout was excessive.
So the $120,000 hit was rescinded and all costs were awarded against the chair. With those costs estimated at $400,000, that’s a half-million reversal for the chair.
All of that led to a discussion about what…
Nov 19, 2019
PODCAST: Defamation, fake minutes and holiday packing disasters
This week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast features JimmyT and Sue Williams examining the half-million dollar turnaround in a strata defamation case, a discussion about who’s the boss in a strata scheme – the committee or the strata manager – and a chat about how we can get a bit too relaxed when we’re planning our holidays from our “lock up and leave” apartments.
The first item refers to the recent Court of Apeals decision in the case of the Manly apartment block chair who won $120,000 in damages after alleging he’s been defamed by a tenant in an internal email war.
However, the Appeals Court decided there was no defamation – due to qualified privilege attached to internal discussions in a corporation – and even if there had been the payout was excessive.
So the $120,000 hit was rescinded and all costs were awarded against the chair. With those costs estimated at $400,000, that’s a half-million reversal for the chair.
All of that led to a discussion about what you…
Nov 12, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap 48 – Flats grow, Government ducks, Airbnb strife
We cover a lot of ground in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap, starting with the surprising news that new apartments are getting bigger while houses are getting smaller. Is it all about downsizing and empty nesters?
Or did we never really need all that space to begin with? You’ll never guess where the largest new apartments are … and Jimmy wonders what a rumpus room really is.
Also in the podcast, we hop into Building Commissioner David Chandler about apartment purchasers and “buyer beware”. Sue (Williams) is furious and Jimmy calls it “victim blaming”.
It seems the government has just parked the whole problem of defects, and cladding for that matter, passing the buck to the people at the bottom who have no choice but to cop it sweet and pay for other people’s mistakes.
At least the future looks brighter for apartment quality … until the government’s mates water down the legislation to cut down on “red tape”.
And finally, we look at what’s going on with…
Nov 12, 2019
PODCAST – Flats get bigger, Government ducks, Airbnb in strife
We cover a lot of ground in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap, starting with the surprising news that new apartments are getting bigger while houses are getting smaller. Is it all about downsizing and empty nesters?
Or did we never really need all that space to begin with? You’ll never guess where the largest new apartments are … and Jimmy wonders what a rumpus room really is.
Also in the podcast, we hop into Building Commissioner David Chandler about apartment purchasers and “buyer beware”. Sue (Williams) is furious and Jimmy calls it “victim blaming”.
It seems the government has just parked the whole problem of defects, and cladding for that matter, passing the buck to the people at the bottom who have no choice but to cop it sweet and pay for other people’s mistakes.
At least the future looks brighter for apartment quality … until the government’s mates water down the legislation to cut down on “red tape”.
And finally, we look at what’s going on with…
Nov 5, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap 47 – terror threats and a baffling unit block raffle
This week, JimmyT and Sue Williams tackle subjects that range from the sinister to the sublimely ridiculous … with some practical advice for investors in between.
Why won’t the government release the lists of the 444 buildings that have flammable cladding on them?
Is it the risk of terrorism, as they say … or is it just potential vandalism … or the effect on property prices?
Jimmy has his own conspiracy theory … and it sounds all too plausible.
Then Sue explains why, when you are buying an investment, you should go for somewhere better than the place you live in.
What!?! How does that work? Why should your tenants live in a better place than you do?
And finally, they discuss the strangest raffle prize ever – a whole apartment block worth $6.4 million in sunny Queensland.
At $10 a pop, it would have to be worth a shot … but then, as Jimmy explains, there could be a downside.
That’s all on this week’s Flat Chat Wrap
Nov 5, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #47 – Terror threats, buying big and a baffling raffle
This week, JimmyT and Sue Williams tackle subjects that range from the sinister to the sublimely ridiculous … with some practical advice for investors in between.
Why won’t the government release the lists of the 444 buildings that have flammable cladding on them?
Is it the risk of terrorism, as they say … or is it just potential vandalism … or the effect on property prices?
Jimmy has his own conspiracy theory … and it sounds all too plausible.
Then Sue explains why, when you are buying an investment, you should go for somewhere better than the place you live in.
What!?! How does that work? Why should your tenants live in a better place than you do?
And finally, they discuss the strangest raffle prize ever – a whole apartment block worth $6.4 million in sunny Queensland.
At $10 a pop, it would have to be worth a shot … but then, as Jimmy explains, there could be a downside.
That’s all on this week’s Flat Chat Wrap:
https://episodes.castos.com/flatchatpod/…
Oct 29, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #46 – cracking down on by-law breachers and bad builders
JimmyT thinks of changing the name of this week's episode to Hard Chat (but won't because he's scared of Tom Gleason) as he's going in hard on two very different targets.
Firstly, he wants by-law breachers to either accept instant fines or face a 50 percent increase, or even more if they decide to challenge it at the Tribunal and lose. Harsh? Not harsh enough, he reckons, for people who play the system so that only the victims and people doing the right thing are the ones that suffer.
Then he thinks it's time the state government went after the developers who set out to build crappy apartment blocks then shut down their off-the-shelf company before they have to fix the many defects left behind by their shoddy work. "Sell their homes to pay for the repairs and put them in jail - that'll encourage the others to do the right thing."
Finally, there's the ruling from Queensland where a magistrates court has overurned a strata commissioner block on an Airbnb ban in a gated community.…
Oct 29, 2019
PODCAST: Getting tough on breachers and builders
JimmyT was thinking of changing the name of this week's episode to Hard Chat as he's going in hard on two very different targets (but won't because he's scared of Tom Gleason).
Firstly, he wants by-law breachers to either accept instant fines or face a 50 percent increase, or even more if they decide to challenge it at the Tribunal and lose. Harsh? Not harsh enough, he reckons, for people who play the system so that only the victims and people doing the right thing are the ones that suffer.
Then he thinks it's time the state government went after the developers who set out to build crappy apartment blocks then shut down their off-the-shelf company before they have to fix the many defects left behind by their shoddy work. "Sell their homes to pay for the repairs and put them in jail - that'll encourage the others to do the right thing."
Finally, there's the ruling from Queensland where a magistrates court has overurned a strata commissioner block on an Airbnb ban in a gated com…
Oct 22, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #45 – Airbnb bubble at bursting point?
It’s a short and (hopefully) sweet Flat Chat Wrap this week with JimmyT flying solo as he looks at the clouds gathering over Airbnb and other holiday letting websites – and one ray of sunshine.
The bright spot is Airbnb’s country pubs promotion which is bringing a bit of rural Australia into our homes … and maybe getting some of us out of the city and into the country. You can see some of the videos HERE.
But the rest of the news is pretty gloomy for Airbnb and the other short-term holiday letting industry.
As related elsewhere on this page, a major Airbnb-related (but not connected) management firm, AndChill, has gone bust with $3.6 million in debts.
Then there’s the squeeze on holiday lets from insurers and the tax office, all exacerbated by the growing push for holiday let registers.
Your home and contents insurance probably doesn’t cover you for damage done by (and to) holiday let guests.
And the ATO is getting names and numbers from the sgencies to tell them who…
Oct 22, 2019
PODCAST: Holiday lets under cloud but country pubs offer light relief
It’s a short and (hopefully) sweet Flat Chat Wrap this week with JimmyT flying solo as he looks at the clouds gathering over Airbnb and other holiday letting websites – and one ray of sunshine.
The bright spot is Airbnb’s country pubs promotion which is bringing a bit of rural Australia into our homes … and maybe getting some of us out of the city and into the country. You can see some of the videos HERE.
But the rest of the news is pretty gloomy for Airbnb and the other short-term holiday letting industry.
As related elsewhere on this page, a major Airbnb-related (but not connected) management firm, AndChill, has gone bust with $3.6 million in debts.
https://episodes.castos.com/flatchatpod/Flat-Chat-45-airbnb-squeeze.mp3
Then there’s the squeeze on holiday lets from insurers and the tax office, all exacerbated by the growing push for holiday let registers.
Your home and contents insurance probably doesn’t cover you for damage done by (and to) holiday let guests.
And…
Oct 15, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #44 – Pet death threat and dodgy votes
In this week’s podcast JimmyT and Sue Williams look again at the issue of the overturning of the pet ban by-law in one of Sydneys biggest and poshest apartment blocks, in the wake of the warning by the committee that any pets brought in before the appeal is heard may have to be “put down”.
Is it a valid threat as there is a window when there is no active by-law? Lawyers at ten paces, we think.
And what if the Appeals Tribunal says, yes, you can have a no-pets by-law … but not that one? Are there now enough angry people in the building to block a new by-law? This one could run and run.
On the subject of votes and “overwhelming majorities”, we discuss scenarios where a 90 percent vote for or against something, can be very deceptive – with one example tuning out to be just 36 percent of owners, rather than the 90 percent claimed.
At what point do Tribunal decision set legal precedents? Not at the basic level, that’s for sure. And do humans have an inalienable…
Oct 15, 2019
PODCAST – Pet warning and dodgy voting stats
SHOW NOTES
In this week’s podcast JimmyT and Sue Williams look again at the issue of the overturning of the pet ban by-law in one of Sydneys biggest and poshest apartment blocks, in the wake of the warning by the committee that any pets brought in before the appeal is heard may have to be “put down”.
Is it a valid threat as there may be a window when there is no active by-law? Lawyers at ten paces, we think.
https://episodes.castos.com/flatchatpod/Flat-Chat-44-pets-bees.mp3
And what if the Appeals Tribunal says, yes, you can have a no-pets by-law … but not that one? Are there now enough angry people in the building to block a new by-law? This one could run and run.
On the subject of votes and “overwhelming majorities”, we discuss scenarios where a 90 percent vote for or against something, can be very deceptive – with one example tuning out to be just 36 percent of owners, rather than the 90 percent claimed.
At what point do Tribunal decision set legal precedents?…
Oct 8, 2019
Dardanelle Towers, Episode 3 – Sniffing Glue
Blame the bank holiday, the Rugby World Cup or the need for a break, but we thought we'd revisit our old friends at the fictional (or is it?) apartment block Dardanelle Towers, where suspicion of vandalism in the car park has fallen on an unlikely culprit.
Parking, terrorism and a health scare dominated the most recent meeting of the Dardanelle Towers executive committee.
The parking issue came to the fore when Bernard, our long-suffering chairman was heading off to work only to discover that the locks on his car had been super-glued. Bernard’s car, a Subaru Forester, was his pride and joy.
He’d had problems in the past with people “accidentally” using his space because it was close to visitor parking, and blocking him in because it was close to the lifts, but this was the first time his car had actually been vandalised.
Suspicion immediately fell on the occupant of 511 who is suing us (or being sued by us) in three different courts on three different issues, one of which is…
Oct 8, 2019
PODCAST: Dardanelle Towers – Episode 3: Sniffing Glue
Blame the bank holiday, the Rugby World Cup or the need for a break, but we thought we'd revisit our old friends at the fictional (or is it?) apartment block Dardanelle Towers, where suspicion of vandalism in the car park has fallen on an unlikely culprit.
https://episodes.castos.com/flatchatpod/Dardanelle-Towers-3.mp3
Parking, terrorism and a health scare dominated the most recent meeting of the Dardanelle Towers strata committee.
The parking issue came to the fore when Bernard, our long-suffering chairman was heading off to work only to discover that the locks on his car had been super-glued. Bernard’s car, a Subaru Forester, was his pride and joy.
He’d had problems in the past with people “accidentally” using his space because it was close to visitor parking, and blocking him in because it was close to the lifts, but this was the first time his car had actually been vandalised.
Suspicion immediately fell on the occupant of 511 who is suing us (or being sued by us)…
Oct 1, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #43 – Airbnb under pump, pet ban lifted and free money
We cover a lot of ground in this week’s chat with journalist and author Sue Williams, including two old favourites – Airbnb and pet bans - and a brand new concept (to us at least) negative interest.
Yes, you know all about negative gearing and you may have even encountered negative equity, but Sue was hearing about negative interest at a Property Summit sponsored by The Australian Financial Review and Commercial Real Estate.
But before we get to that, do you get the feeling that the walls are closing in on Airbnb in Australia? It’s not just the new regulations being considered by the NSW government, now WA has come up with its own plans for holiday letting in the not-so-wild West (which you can read all about HERE).
Which leads us to wonder, what was Victoria thinking when it basically handed over the keys to the high-rise kingdom to holiday letting landlords? It’s not just about tourist dollars, we (okay, I) reckon the Victorian state government actively hates strata resi…
Oct 1, 2019
PODCAST: Airbnb curbs, pet ban by-law bounced and free money
We cover a lot of ground in this week’s chat with journalist and author Sue Williams, including two old favourites – Airbnb and pet bans - and a brand new concept (to us at least) negative interest.
Yes, you know all about negative gearing and you may have even encountered negative equity, but Sue was hearing about negative interest at a Property Summit sponsored by The Australian Financial Review and Commercial Real Estate.
But before we get to that, do you get the feeling that the walls are closing in on Airbnb in Australia? It’s not just the new regulations being considered by the NSW government, now WA has come up with its own plans for holiday letting in the not-so-wild West (which you can read all about HERE).
Which leads us to wonder, what was Victoria thinking when it basically handed over the keys to the high-rise kingdom to holiday letting landlords? It’s not just about tourist dollars, we (okay, I) reckon the Victorian state government actively hates strata resi…
Sep 24, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #42 – Strata chatting, straight out of the box
For years I have been struck by the irony of the connection between communication and community falling asunder at the doors of apartment blocks.
If there was anywhere that not only needed an internal communications system – and probably contained higher than average numbers of people able to grasp the fundamentals – it would be modern apartment blocks.
People have experimented with Facebook pages and dedicated websites – but as soon as the people who set them up get fed up with having to run it, or cop more than their fair share of abuse from the block’s whingers – it all falls apart.
Then, a couple of years ago, along came Stratabox (one of our sponsors).
This week, I went along to co-founder Paul Chevrot’s house so who could explain what Stratabox is, how it works and who’s it for.
Basically, it’s an online platform where you can put all your records, by-laws and basic building information, plus you can have virtual committee meetings, vote on issues, and raise…
Sep 24, 2019
PODCAST: Stratabox and building communities through communication
For years I have been struck by the irony of the connection (or lack thereof) between communication and community and how it seems to fall asunder at the doors of apartment blocks.
If there was anywhere that not only needed an internal communications system – and probably contained higher than average numbers of people able to grasp the fundamentals – it would be modern apartment blocks.
People have experimented with Facebook pages and dedicated websites – but as soon as the people who set them up get fed up with having to run it, or cop more than their fair share of abuse from the block’s whingers – it all falls apart.
Then, a couple of years ago, along came Stratabox (one of our sponsors).
This week, I went along to co-founder Paul Chevrot’s house so who could explain what Stratabox is, how it works and who it's for.
Basically, it’s an online platform where you can put all your records, by-laws and basic building information, plus you can have virtual committee mee…
Sep 17, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #41 – The future of apartments … bees vs locusts
We write and talk a lot about property developers in Flat Chat – not often in positive terms – but we rarely get the chance to hear their side of the story, at least, untainted by promotional spin for some new project or another.
So it was a pleasure to sit down recently with Chris Johnson, CEO of the Urban Taskforce, and get his views on what is happening in the world of apartment development for the Flat Chat Wrap podcast.
Chris is the former State Architect for NSW and Urban Taskforce represents the top developers in the country, so he knows a fair bit about the subject. On top of that, he is as passionate about apartment living as we are – although from a slightly different perspective.
The discussion in this week’s podcast is wide-ranging and occasionally surprising.
We can’t ignore the issue of defects in new buildings, not least because of the damage that has done to public confidence. It could take years to recover but Chirs believes the only way is up – lit…
Sep 17, 2019
PODCAST: The buzz on strata – it’s locusts V bees
Are you a locust or a bee? Those are the divisions appearing between residents in Australia as many of us move from the more acquisitive, self-centred lifestyle typified by the McMansion in the suburbs, to a more communal, sharing way of life that you increasingly find in apartments.
In this week's podcast we talk to Chris Johnson, CEO of the Urban Taskforce, who predicts a more communal way of life as more of us move from houses into apartments.
Chris is the former State Architect for NSW and Urban Taskforce represents the top developers in the country, so he knows a fair bit about the subject. On top of that, he is as passionate about apartment living as we are – although from a slightly different perspective.
The discussion in this week’s podcast is wide-ranging and occasionally surprising.
We can’t ignore the issue of defects in new buildings, not least because of the damage that has done to public confidence. It could take years to recover but Chirs believes the on…
Sep 10, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #40 – the end of parking as we know it
This week the Flat Chat Wrap podders look at the ridiculous cost of parking spaces, the new forms of flat-sharing and we finish off our chat with Jane Hearn about the proposed short-term letting register – and why Airbnb hates it so much.
First up, JimmyT and Sue Williams talk about why parking spaces are no longer at such a premium (despite one that previously sold at auction for $260,000 coming up for sale).
People who live near transport hubs don’t need cars as much as they used to and the flawed economics of paying for a lump of steel to sit in a car space all week, waiting for you to maybe go for a drive, just don’t add up, especially when there are car-sharing services like Go-Get literally on strata owners doorsteps.
We also touch on parking space sharing and an innovative idea being trialled in multi-story car parks in Brisbane, where empty floors are turned into overnight shelters for homeless people, complete with showers, toilets, security and even hairdressers.
An…
Sep 10, 2019
PODCAST: The death of parking and student flats for grown-ups
This week the Flat Chat Wrap podders look at the ridiculous cost of parking spaces, the new forms of flat-sharing and we finish off our chat with Jane Hearn about the proposed short-term letting register – and why Airbnb hates it so much.
First up, JimmyT and Sue Williams talk about why parking spaces are no longer at such a premium (despite one that previously sold at auction for $260,000 coming up for sale).
People who live near transport hubs don’t need cars as much as they used to and the flawed economics of paying for a lump of steel to sit in a car space all week, waiting for you to maybe go for a drive at the weekend, just don’t add up, especially when there are car-sharing services like Go-Get literally on strata residents' doorsteps.
We also touch on parking space sharing and an innovative idea being trialled in multi-story car parks in Brisbane, where empty floors are turned into overnight shelters for homeless people, complete with showers, toilets, security and eve…
Sep 3, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #39 – Loopholes and pitfalls in new Airbnb regs
Just when you thought it was safe to dip your toe into the Airbnb discussion, it turns out the proposed new laws are not what they seem. The 180-day cap on whole-home lets can be extended by your local council, there’s a mysterious 21-night option that doesn’t count against the cap and Airbnb is gearing up to fight really tough fire safety regulations (which are fine by Stayz, by the way). This week’s podcast welcomes Deputy Chair of the Owners Corporation Network Jane Hearn who gives us a fascinating insight into the loopholes and pitfalls lurking in the new short-term holiday letting regulations that are currently up for discussion. It’s an interesting perspective. The government has allowed itself to be corralled into focussing on the social impact of holiday lets – noise and disruption – at the expense of, arguably, more serious issues like the impact on rents, housing availability and the “hollowing” of our cities where prime properties are given over to holiday…
Sep 3, 2019
PODCAST: Loopholes and pitfalls in new holiday letting rules
Just when you thought it was safe to dip your toe into the Airbnb discussion, it turns out the new laws are not what they seem.
The 180-day cap on whole-home lets can be extended by your local council, there’s a mysterious 21-night option that doesn’t count against the cap and Airbnb is gearing up to fight really tough fire safety regulations (which are fine by Stayz, by the way).
In this week’s podcast JimmyT welcomes Vice-Chair of the Owners Corporation Network Jane Hearn who gives us a fascinating insight into the loopholes and pitfalls lurking in the new short-term holiday letting regulations that are currently up for discussion.
It’s an interesting perspective. The government has allowed itself to be corralled into focussing on the social impact of holiday lets – noise and disruption – at the expense of, arguably, more serious issues like the impact on rents, housing availability and the “hollowing” of our cities where prime properties are given over to holiday…
Aug 27, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #38 – Mediation, revolution and crazy planning objections
This week the Flat Chat Wrap podcast is all about conflict and various forms of resolution … including revolution.
First Sue Williams and I take a look at we take a look at mediation and what it actually means. In NSW and Queensland, mediation is an obligatory precursor to asking for an adjudication at your state tribunal.
In Victoria it kind of is too, but isn’t really. It’s called conciliation there, and is more of a recommended option than an obligation. How much it harms your case if you don’t even try to resolve it, is hard to say – depends on who is hearing your case at the tribunal, probably.
For many people involved in disputes, it’s just a box to be ticked off before you put on the boxing gloves and get in the ring for the real fight.
Others turn up, fired up with righteous indignation, clutching a sheaf of by-laws and print-outs from the Flat Chat Forum, only to discover the mediator is more life coach and less umpire than they would like.
In short, unless…
Aug 27, 2019
PODCAST: Mediation, revolution and crazy Nimby objections
This week the Flat Chat Wrap podcast is all about conflict and various forms of resolution … including revolution.
First Sue Williams and I take a look at we take a look at mediation and what it actually means. In NSW and Queensland, mediation is an obligatory precursor to asking for an adjudication at your state tribunal.
In Victoria it kind of is too, but isn’t really. It’s called conciliation there, and is more of a recommended option than an obligation. How much it harms your case if you don’t even try to resolve it, is hard to say – depends on who is hearing your case at the tribunal, probably.
For many people involved in disputes, it’s just a box to be ticked off before you put on the boxing gloves and get in the ring for the real fight.
Others turn up, fired up with righteous indignation, clutching a sheaf of by-laws and print-outs from the Flat Chat Forum, only to discover the mediator is more life coach and less umpire than they would like.
In short, unless…
Aug 20, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #37 – Defects loans, Airbnb rules and sex in the spa
It’s a real mixed bag in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast – finance, Airbnb and sneaky sex.
Sue Williams and I start our dissection of the week’s strata news by looking at the suggestion that people suffering under building defects might get low-interest or even no-interest loans from the government.
We reckon it’s better than nothing but it’s not enough. Anyone who has ever suffered through the agonies of realising you have defects in your building, then having to fight your developer to get them fixed - if you can even find them before they phoenix into a puff of smoke – and then face raising the cash because the only people legally obliged to fix defects, regardless of who’s to blame for them, are the apartment owners.
We reckon, apart from the developers and builders, the people who have contributed most to the problem and benefitted most from it, are our successive governments, Labour and Liberal, who have become addicted to the revenue from building booms…
Aug 20, 2019
PODCAST: Defect loans, Airbnb rules and sneaky sex in the spa
It’s a real mixed bag in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap podcast – finance, Airbnb and sneaky sex.
Sue Williams and I start our dissection of the week’s strata news by looking at the suggestion that people suffering under building defects might get low-interest or even no-interest loans from the government.
We reckon it’s better than nothing but it’s not enough. Anyone who has ever suffered through the agonies of realising you have defects in your building, then having to fight your developer to get them fixed - if you can even find them before they phoenix into a puff of smoke – and then face raising the cash because the only people legally obliged to fix defects, regardless of who’s to blame for them, are the apartment owners.
We reckon, apart from the developers and builders, the people who have contributed most to the problem and benefitted most from it, are our successive governments, Labour and Liberal, who have become addicted to the revenue from building booms…
Aug 13, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #36 – From block parties to hijacked high-rises
It would be fair to say that Flat Chat’s approach to apartment living and strata law over the years has been robustly non-academic. We use often cite anonymous sources and unverified reports to build a picture of all that is wrong with strata living (and many things that are right).
Academic researchers, by contrast, meticulously record numerous interviews, often with clearly identified and authoritative subjects, referencing other studies and reports, to reach carefully considered conclusions.
One such diligent researcher is Dr Hazel Easthope of UNSW who joined us this week for the Flat Chat Wrap podcast to discuss her new book The Politics and Practices of Apartment Living which has just been published by Edgar Elgar in the UK.
In the podcast we discuss why she wrote the book – basically to get a handle on all this rapidly evolving lifestyle and its challenges, and how people are coping with it in different countries – and why she wrote it the way she did.
The book is str…
Aug 13, 2019
PODCAST: From block parties to hijacked high-rises
It would be fair to say that Flat Chat’s approach to apartment living and strata law over the years has been robustly non-academic. We use often cite anonymous sources, anecdotal 'evidence' and unverified reports to build a picture of all that is wrong with strata living (and many things that are right).
Academic researchers, by contrast, meticulously record numerous interviews, often with clearly identified and authoritative subjects, referencing other studies and reports, to reach carefully considered conclusions.
One such diligent researcher is Dr Hazel Easthope of UNSW City Futures department, who joined us this week for the Flat Chat Wrap podcast to discuss her new book The Politics and Practices of Apartment Living which has just been published by Edgar Elgar in the UK.
In the podcast we discuss why she wrote the book – basically to get a handle on all this rapidly evolving lifestyle and its challenges, and how people are coping with it in different countries – and why…
Aug 6, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #35 – Apartments go to the movies … and see more than they should
If you live in apartments for long enough it’s almost impossible not to catch a glimpse into other people’s lives. Most of us look away, hoping that the same courtesy will be afforded to us by anyone inadvertently seeing more than they should.
But sometimes curiosity gets the better of us and an innocent, accidental glance turns into a look that lingers longer that it ought.
OK that's understandable , but then there’s out and out voyeurism, when someone spends way too much time spying on their neighbours.
It’s the latter that forms the theme of Rear Window, a movie that television historian Andrew Mercado and I discuss in the second part of our podcast about fictional apartment blocks in TV and film.
Starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window turned 65 this month, its world premiere having been staged on August 4, 1954. Having watched it (again) last weekend, I can say it still stands the test of time.
Stewart plays a news photo…
Aug 6, 2019
PODCAST: When a look through a window lingers longer than it should
If you live in apartments for long enough, at some point you're bound to catch a glimpse into other people’s lives. Most of us look away, hoping that the same courtesy will be afforded to us by anyone inadvertently seeing more than they should.
But sometimes curiosity gets the better of us and an innocent, accidental glance turns into a look that lingers longer that it ought.
But then there’s out and out voyeurism, when someone spends way too much time spying on their neighbours.
It’s the latter that forms the theme of Rear Window, a movie that television historian Andrew Mercado and I discuss in the second part of our podcast about fictional apartment blocks in TV and film.
Starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window turned 65 this month, its world premiere having been staged on August 4, 1954. Having watched it (again) last weekend, I can say it still stands the test of time.
Stewart plays a news photographer temporarily confined…
Jul 30, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #34 – Tall storeys: TV dramas set in apartment blocks
There’s so much doom and gloom around strata at the moment you feel you’re missing out if your apartment block isn’t on fire, falling down or both.
So we’ve decided to lighten the load in this week’s podcast with a look at TV shows that were set in apartment blocks, especially Australian shows.
And for that, there is no better person to sit at the Flat Chat microphone than producer, critic, writer, broadcaster, media podcaster and now cinema owner Andrew Mercado.
Andrew is a total Number 96 geek, not least because he produced the TV doco Number 96 … The Final Years. So, once we’ve heard about the joys of cinema ownership, that’s where we start our discussion.
It turns out that Number 96 was intended to be a vertical version of the UK’s Coronation St, which was very popular when the series was first devised by David Sale for Network 10 in 1972.
Television history will show that it went way beyond that in terms of its content, characters and shockingly liberal use…
Jul 29, 2019
LISTEN: TV dramas set in apartment blocks
There’s so much doom and gloom around strata at the moment you feel you’re missing out if your apartment block isn’t on fire, falling down or both.
So we’ve decided to lighten the load in this week’s podcast with a look at TV shows and movies that were set in apartment blocks, especially Australian shows.
And for that, there is no better person to sit at the Flat Chat microphone than producer, critic, writer, broadcaster, media podcaster and now cinema owner Andrew Mercado.
Andrew is a total Number 96 geek, not least because he produced the TV doco Number 96 … The Final Years. So, once we’ve heard about the joys of cinema ownership, that’s where we start our discussion.
It turns out that Number 96 was intended to be a vertical version of the UK’s Coronation St, which was very popular when the series was first devised by David Sale for Network 10 in 1972.
Television history will show that it went way beyond that in terms of its content, characters and shockingly l…
Jul 23, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #33 – Commercial tenants, caretakers versus Airbnb, and wandering pot plants
How would you feel if you suddenly had 50 to 100 strangers walking through your lobby every day, clogging up the lifts just when you are trying to get to work or when you come home?
These are the fears raised by residents of two neighbouring buildings on Sydney’s North Shore (and discussed in our podcast) where the very loosely defined approval for commercial development inside a residential building means that, in one instance, what was intended to be a gym looks like it’s going to be an open plan office, while a similar fate awaits what was supposed to be half a dozen separate small business attracting very little foot traffic.
You can read the whole story by following the link to Sue Willams story at the end but it got us talking about whether owners corporations (bodies corporate) have the right to decide what kind of businesses occupy the commercial spaces in their buildings – and should they have that right if they don’t?
Also in the podcast, JimmyT hops into two of hi…
Jul 23, 2019
PODCAST: Space invaders, Airbnb v caretakers and purloined pot plants
How would you feel if you suddenly had 50 to 100 strangers walking through your lobby every day, clogging up the lifts just when you are trying to get to work or when you come home?
These are the fears raised by residents of two neighbouring buildings on Sydney’s North Shore (and discussed in our podcast) where the very loosely defined approval for commercial development inside a residential building means that, in one instance, what was intended to be a gym looks like it’s going to be an open plan office, while a similar fate awaits what was supposed to be half a dozen separate small business attracting very little foot traffic.
You can read the whole story by following the link at the end but it got us talking about whether owners corporations (bodies corporate) have the right to decide what kind of businesses occupy the commercial spaces in their buildings – and should they have that right if they don’t?
Also in the podcast, JimmyT gets on two of his hobby horses in one d…
Jul 20, 2019
Time we had a Tripadvisor for unit block builders?
With defects on the minds of everyone in the apartment world, there’s a whole lot of finger pointing going on.
Developers are saying engineers should be certified, strata owners say developers should be certified, and some people say anyone thinking of buying an apartment should be certified (but not in the same way).
But it makes you wonder, when everything in our lives has some kind of rating, why don’t the people behind the biggest single purchases most of us will ever make have to compete for consumer credibility?
You decide to go on holiday and before you’ve even checked the price of flights, you are scouring Tripadvisor to see how other travellers rate the hotels where you’re thinking of staying.
You need a new kettle and you go to internet comparison sites looking for the fastest, quietest or funkiest appliances which, after all, are only required to boil water.
Whitegoods have star ratings based on their energy usage (or lack thereof). Restaurants, airlines, consum…
Jul 16, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #32 – Time we had a star rating for the best and worst developers and builders
In this week's Podcast, Jimmy Thomson and Sue Williams discuss why it is that we can get ratings and comparisons for just about everything we buy ... except the largest purchase most of us will ever make. And they float the idea of people being given (and losing) a licence to live in strata.
We have a friend called Royce who wouldn’t buy so much as a toothbrush without checking online to see if it was the best design (at the best price) for his specific dental needs. He is so notorious for his exhaustive product checking that our group of friends refers to the process as “Roycing”.
For instance, you say you’re thinking of buying a particular brand of new TV and someone says “Oh, have you Royced it?”
We were reminded about that this week, after my piece in last weekend’s Australian Financial Review about how to avoid buying an apartment with built-in problems, when we realised there is no independent ratings system for apartment blocks, builders or developers.
So in this…
Jul 16, 2019
PODCAST: A star rating system for developers, builders … and residents
We have a friend called Royce who wouldn’t buy so much as a toothbrush without checking online to see if it was the best design (at the best price) for his specific dental needs. He is so notorious for his exhaustive product checking that our group of friends refers to the process as “Roycing”.
For instance, you say you’re thinking of buying a particular brand of new TV and someone says “Oh, have you Royced it?”
We were reminded about that this week, after my piece in last weekend’s Australian Financial Review about how to avoid buying an apartment with built-in problems, when we realised there is no independent ratings system for apartment blocks, builders or developers.
So in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap, journalist and author Sue Williams and I ask why it is that you can go online and get people’s opinions of hotels and resorts on websites like Tripadvisor (and others), but you can’t get any unbiased, independent reviews of developers, builders and even apartmen…
Jul 9, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #31 – Tip of the defects iceberg and why it’s such a massive problem
In this week’s episode of the Flat Chat Wrap we look at the revelation that the Opal and Mascot towers “disasters” are just the tip of a very large apartment block defects iceberg.
Jimmy Thomson and Sue Williams have been writing about apartment block defects – and other, happier apartment-related issues – for more than 15 years.
In this episode of the Flat Chat Wrap, Sue recalls the time more than a decade ago that a feature on defects almost cost her job, when a property writer with a close personal relationship with a developer, saw her expose on apartment block defects and called her friend.
The developer called the editor and threatened to pull all their advertising if the story went ahead. The editor caved in. Sue offered her resignation but it was turned down (although she is now a freelance working mostly for other publications).
That’s just part of the reason that the whole grubby business of building defects, government lack of interest (to the point almos…
Jul 9, 2019
PODCAST: When defect disaster warnings were covered up
In this week’s episode of the Flat Chat Wrap we look at the claims that the Opal and Mascot towers “disasters” are just the tip of a very large apartment block defects iceberg.
This comes as no surprise to JimmyT and Sue Williams, who have been writing about apartment block defects – and other, happier apartment-related issues – for almost two decades, meeting a response that ranged from complete lack of interest to virtual censorship.
In this episode of the Flat Chat Wrap, Sue recalls the time 15 years ago that a hard news feature on defects almost cost her job, when a (then) property writer saw her newspaper expose on apartment block defects and called a developer mate to warn him.
The developer called the editor and threatened to pull all the company's advertising if the story went ahead. The editor caved in. Sue offered her resignation but it was turned down (she is now a freelance writer and author, mostly working for another publication).
That’s just part of the…
Jul 2, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #30 – Three kinds of insurance and a few facts that will shock you
Jimmy Thomson investigates four different kinds of insurance (including Airbnb) and why telling one little white lie about whether or not you were allowed to have short-term letting in your apartment could invalidate your cover.
He's joined by Steve Tchepak, Acting Head of Underwriting at our sponsors CHU Insurance.
Jul 2, 2019
Podcast: Everything you never knew about strata insurance
One of the big questions around the recent Mascot Tower problems was why didn't the building insurance kick in, rather than the state government having to bail the owners corporation out with emergency funding.
The simple answer is that it looked very much like a building defect and that's not covered by ordinary strata insurance. So what is strata insurance - the compulsory one that covers the building and the common property, and is paid for by the Owners Corporation - and what does it cover?
There are a lot of questions and more than a few surprising answers around strata insurance.
Did you know that strata insurance also covers the fixtures and fitings in your apartment?
Do you know what those fixtures and fittings are?
Did you know that you can apply for a payout from strata insurance yourself, even if your strata committee or strata manager refuses to pass on the claim?
Do you know what landlord insurance is, and what it covers?
Why is it that if you go directly to…
Jun 25, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #29 – the great Mascot Tower giveaway … and what it means about cladding
Confronted by images of residents of Mascot Tower evacuating the building, the NSW government has moved relatively swiftlly to plug the accommodation gap with a loan to the Owners Corporation to cover the cost of emergency billets for the owners and renters.
As JimmyT and Sue Williams discuss in this week's podcast, the state government's loan may never have to be paid back, because they think they know what (and who) caused the structural damage and it's eminently possible it wasn't building defects.
And even if it does turn out to be defects - and the block is well out of warranties - the loan may never have to be paid back "at the government's discretion."
Meanwhile we ask, if you can find money to rehouse evacuees (quite rightly), what about all the people facing massive bills to remediate flammable cladding which is only on buildings, risking life and limb, because of the slack attitudes of a procession of governments in this state.
You're happy to take our stamp duty - how ab…
Jun 25, 2019
PODCAST: Mascot Tower sinking but residents kept afloat by loans
This week in the Podcast we look at the Mascot Tower story and the apparently generous offer by Fair Trading to bankroll emergency accommodation for residents.
They are saying it’s a one-off, as they must. If NSW Fair Trading let it be known that they were in the market for payouts to help people with building defects, the queues of the duped and dudded would be longer than the lines for the new iPhone.
The interesting aspect of all this is that Fair Trading are saying that the Mascot Tower may be crumbling but there is every chance that it isn’t defective - it just wasn't designed to have its foundations undermined.
With engineers claiming it is literally sinking, they may have a point. Experts are already looking closely at a building site next door.
Another theory gaining a lot of ground is that other developments in the area haven’t taken into account the relatively high water table – the level of water beneath the surface of the ground – and that has, literally, un…
Jun 18, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #28 – Residents out on the street as another Faulty Tower crumbles
Residents of the 130-plus apartments in the Mascot Tower apartment block in Sydney's South were evacuated over the weekend when cracks in walls and supporting beams suddenly widened. JimmyT and Sue Williams discuss what this means for the residents of this block and all the others built in Sydney to the same standards around the same time. And they come up with a proposal to at least stem the waves of panic and confusion the next time this happens as, they say, it surely will ...
Jun 18, 2019
PODCAST: Mascot Tower crisis brings defects closer to home
For obvious reasons, our podcast this week is about the Mascot Tower crisis. We recorded the podcast before we were aware of the story in today's Financial Review revealing that the developer and builder of the property next door, as well as the local council, were already facing legal action because of disturbance caused by the construction of another residential tower in the adjoining lot.
Anyway, our podcast explores a number of other issues, including what we can do to prevent this from happening again, and what we should do when it inevitably does.
You can listen to the podcast just by clicking the play button. And if you prefer to read, a lightly edited transcript of the podcast is further down the page. Enjoy!
If you want to subscribe to the Flat Chat Wrap and get new episodes as soon as they are posted (it’s completely free!), click on this link for iPHONE and IPAD and this one for Castbox (our favourite Podcatcher). And please leave us a rating … especiall…
Jun 12, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #27 – Ghost towers, cladding costs and power games
This week, JimmyT and Sue Williams discuss the brand new empty flats that investors are "warehousing" - keeping them locked up and unlived in - until the property market improves.
Then there's the new report about the massive costs facing owners in buildings with flammable cladding - and why our state governments need to do more to help owners.
.And finally a look at people who get elected to their strata committees for all the worst reasons.
Please enjoy ... share ... like ... subscribe.
Jun 12, 2019
Podcast: Ghost flats a huge tax break … with added James Valentine
Since our last podcast took us to Russia, we thought we’d stay a lot closer to home with this week’s.
A story in the Australian newspaper caught our eye, concerning growing signs that investors are prepared to mothball their brand-new, off-the-plan apartments.
Rather than put their units on the market when both rents and property prices are in a downward spiral, some investors are locking them up until prospects improve.
How can this make financial sense? Well, it may be a massive and totally legal tax dodge.
If they have zero income, through no rent, and it isn't their home (because no one lives there) then they are going to make maximum bucks on their negative gearing. All their costs like rates and levies can be set against their other income.
Not only that, they may also receive huge tax breaks on various aspects of depreciation, all the time the apartment is sitting gathering value when the market starts to turn.
According to property depreciation experts Washington…
Jun 12, 2019
Reasons why you should – and shouldn’t – get elected to your committee
Do you ever get the urge to stand for election to your strata committee? Are you convinced you could do a better job than the existing members? Do you want to join but keep being frozen out at the AGM?
Our colleague Sue Williams has written a piece for The Sydney Morning Herald’s Domain section on whether or not you should join your strata committee.
The answer to that question, by the way, is yes … and no.
You can read Sue’s piece HERE.
Meanwhile, here are our five reasons you should join your committee … and five reasons you really shouldn’t.
FIVE GOOD REASONS TO JOIN YOUR STRATA COMMITTEE
You want to do your bit for the community.
Yes, we live in an age when being called a “good citizen” is almost an insult, but if strata living is going to work, it has to be more “one for all and all for one”, than every man or woman for themselves.
You have valuable skills to offer
Are you an accountant, interior designer, trained mediator, lawyer, architect, builde…
May 30, 2019
PODCAST: Apartment living in the new Russia … and a $120K email
A big chunk of this week's podcast is taken up with discussing how worried we should be about the defamation case taken by the chairman of a small strata building in Manly (you can read all about it here), and what that means to those of us who like nothing more than firing off angry emails to vent our spleen at the powers that be in our apartment blocks.
But before that, our regular correspondent Sue Williams has just returned from a trip to Russia where apartment living is much more common than here - but is a very different experience.
And off air we were told a story that might explain why President Vladimir Putin is so popular in Russia today.
Back in the days before the fall of the USSR, everybody in Russian cities lived rent free in admittedly tiny apartments provided by the government. People were not allowed to own property as that went against Russian Communist principles.
After the fall in 1991, people were basically given the flat they lived in, to own. But then t…
May 28, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #26 – From Russia with love and the $120k insulting email
Jimmy Thomson and Sue Williams discuss apartment living in the new Russia and the email exchange that cost a Manly tenant $120,000 in a defamation case.
May 21, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #25 – Working out what to do and what you need in your gym
JimmyT and fitness trainer Shannon Cleary discuss what works and what doesn't in apartment block gyms ... and what to do if you don't have one.
May 21, 2019
PODCAST: Working out how to make the most of your unit block gym
Our article this week about the fabulous Parker rental apartment complex in Alexandria, Washington DC, got me thinking about the facilities that are intended to entice us to buy and rent in apartment blocks.
One popular item is a gym – but that word covers a multitude of sins. It could be a fabulous, state-of-the-art facility that would grace any five-star hotel.
Or it could be an airless converted store room with neglected and clapped out equipment that’s occasionally augmented by the “donation” of some cheap and useless gear that someone has bought on late-night TV and immediately regretted doing so.
So I spoke to residential personal trainer and group fitness instructor Shannon Cleary about what equipment every apartment block gym should have.
But it soon became evident that having the latest equipment is not the highest priority.
Space to stretch and work dynamically on free-weights might be more valuable than a bank of treadmills, for instance.
But the main point s…
May 14, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #24: Silly by-laws to orgies – a strata manager speaks
JimmyT talks to Tim Sara, a senior manager at one of Australia's biggest strata management companies - and reveals both the light and dark side of a challenging career.
May 14, 2019
PODCAST: Silly by-laws to sex orgies – a strata manager reveals all
When Flat Chat started about 15 years ago, strata managers were (we thought) public enemy number one. And it’s more than likely the feeling was mutual.
We won’t go into a rehearsal of why that was, suffice it to say that things have changed … a lot.
The industry has become more professional, standards have been raised and the quality of service – and mutual respect between strata managers and you, their clients – has gone up by leaps and bounds.
OK, there are still some rogues out there and Fair Trading is pathetically weak when it comes to the tiny minority that gives the rest of the industry the lingering taint of a bad name.
To date, I don’t think there has ever been a single strata manager who has been “struck off” for being really crap at their job.
But this week, let’s not dwell on the negative when there are so many positives. In the podcast, I have long chat with Tim Sara – one of the senior strata managers with Strata Choice.
Tim talks about the maj…
May 7, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #23 – Airbnb code of conduct, developers go “crowd” and a horse in a townhouse (???)
Jimmy T and Sue Williams explore the latest developments in the strataverse ... and come up with some very odd stories indeed.
May 7, 2019
Podcast: Angst as Airbnb code of conduct flagged
A strange thing happened on the Flat Chat Statcounter a few weeks ago. Statcounter is the software that tells us how many people are reading the website … (more than 4000 a week, if you must know, and still growing)
Anyway, there was a whole bunch of searches from the NSW Department of Energy and the Environment, which sounds as Orwellianly conflicted as a Department of Peace and Arms Sales, to me. But what do I know?
I definitely don’t know why the Department of E and E would even be remotely interested in Flat Chat … certainly to the extent of reading page after page on the website.
I mean, we are as into the environment as anyone, and apartment blocks do use energy (quite a lot, if truth be told). But we wouldn’t be anyone’s first call for advice about either of the Es.
A couple of days later, all was revealed. Former strata minister Matt Kean had been promoted to Minister for Es and, presumably, someone in his new department had been Googling his name to find ou…
Apr 30, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #22 – New Vic laws, fire sprinklers, electric cars, greyhounds in flats and BBQs
There's a revolution in strata law on the way in Victoria. Fire sprinkler systems are mandatory for mid-rise apartment blocks in NSW. And what's the best way to charge electric cars in strata schemes? JimmyT and Sue Williams discuss the issues of the week ...
Apr 30, 2019
Podcast: Why strata law changes are such a painfully long time coming
When it comes to strata law reform, it can be a long time between drinks.
Victoria is just at the end of the public consultation stage of their very substantial reforms to their strata laws and they still have a long way to go. It will be interesting to see how many of the proposed changed in their draft reform Bill actually make it on to the statute book.
We have predicted two years until they see any changes, but it could be less, given that they are notionally updating the existing Act rather than starting from scratch with a new one. More realistically, it could be more.
Take as an example the forgotten law that will have a profound effect on strata living in NSW: the Short Term Holiday Letting law proposals - or the Airbnb laws to name them after the business model that prompted them.
We have just heard on the grapevine that the new short-term letting laws could be proclaimed as early as next month
The development of that new legislation began back in June 2015, prompted…
Apr 24, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #21: Property prices panic and the latest developer rort
With property prices plummeting across our major cities, JimmyT and Sue Williams identify where apartment values are plummeting, where they're holding and where off-the-plan purchasers are being told they can't walk away from new units that are worth less than they agreed to pay for them when the signed the contracts.
Apr 23, 2019
Podcast: Is it time to panic over plummeting property prices?
It’s fair to say that this is probably not the best time to be a property owner. And if you are an investor in multiple units, your woes could be multiplied.
On the other hand, if you are a renter, now could be the time to sign up for a long-term lease at a lower rent … if you can find one
There are so many factors assailing property prices, it’s hard to see a clear way forward. This week in the Flat Chat Wrap, property writer Sue Williams takes us through some of the areas where the market is dropping – and a few where it’s holding its own.
Property values are cyclical – what goes down will, eventually, go back up again - something we tend to forget in extended periods of price rises such as we have just witnessed, especially in Sydney.
And competing arguments just don’t compute. How can there be too many people in our cities when there seems to be an over-supply of properties? How can prices be going down when demand must be going up?
And how can our politician…
Apr 9, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #20 – New minister, good and bad laws, and the pet loophole
JimmyT and Sue Williams ask the big questions about the new strata minister ... like, who is he? Plus the best and worst of Australia's strata laws and what makes an ordinary pet a "support animal".
Apr 9, 2019
Podcast – Buy a $1.2m penthouse on the Minister’s home turf
Fancy a 400 sqm penthouse with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, two parking spaces plus uninterrupted city and parkland views … for only $1.19 million?
Interested? Why wouldn’t you be? This place also as a huge gourmet kitchen, timber floorboards, a massive tiled terrace and a fully fitted home office.
What’s the catch, you ask. Well, this particular penthouse is atop a boutique hotel … in Tamworth.
Now, your next question might well be, why are we looking at bargain basement penthouses in the country music capital of Australia?
And the answer is, Tamworth is where our new strata minister, Kevin Anderson, scoots his boots.
In this week’s podcast, Sue Williams and I ask what the member for this fine country town – and we mean ‘country’ in every sense – is doing looking after the serious needs of the two million people who live in strata in NSW.
Tamworth would only have apartment blocks three storeys high, if at all, we speculated. Turns out we were wrong: they ar…
Apr 2, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #19: Shoes in lobbies and snooping neighbours
Jimmy Thomson and Sue Williams take a wry - and slightly bruised - look at what's attracting mail to the Flat Chat Forum.
Mar 26, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #18 – the joys of apartment living (no, really!)
Jimmy Thomson talks to Sue Williams about why she loves apartment living and would never live in a house.
Mar 26, 2019
Podcast: The joys of apartment living (no … really!)
A while ago I received a complaint from a reader that I had used the phrase “the very best in apartment living”.
‘Very best”, she argued, implied that there was something good about living in a flat, and since this was clearly a stupid and perverse idea, I was being dishonest.
Now, I have to admit that, running a website that sets out to solve people’s problem does have a fairly negative beginning: no problems, no website.
Most of the people who come here, or read the Flat Chat column in the Financial Review, do so because they have questions, doubts or concerns.
That said, I suspect there are people who live in houses who read Flat Chat so they can feel better about their choice of dwelling: “Martha, the roof’s caved in after last night’s storm, but at least we don’t have to pay levies!’
But even coming up with positive solutions has to start with someone, somewhere being disappointed, confused or angry (or all three) about something.
With all that negativity…
Mar 19, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #17 – Promises, promises … what the pollies are offering the strata voters of NSW
Jimmy Thomson and Sue Williams discuss what the various parties are offering strata residents and owners in the run-up to the NSW state election.
Mar 19, 2019
Podcast: What the pollies are promising the strata voters of NSW
It's hard to believe that we'll be voting on Saturday (March 23) for, possibly, the first new government in NSW in eight years. It's also hard to believe that we have a fixed term of four years here in NSW while the Federal Parliament has a maximum of only three years ... if they get that far.
Three years is too short. New Federal governments tend to spend the first year undoing the work of their predecessors, the second pursuing their own agenda and the third getting ready for the next election.
On the other hand, four years seems a bit too long when the wrong people are in power. Right now we face the prospect of a hung parliament with the odious Mark Latham potentially holding or at least contributing to the balance of power in the upper house through his candidature for Pauline Hanson's ("we're not very racist") One Nation.
Four years of Latham? Somebody, somewhere is taking bets on how long it will be before he and Pauline fall out and he, like so many of her elected member…
Mar 12, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #16 – Election fever mounts as the shadow minister speaks
Labor spokesperson for Better Regulations and Innovation (and Fair Trading) Yasmin Catley calls in on the Flat Chat podcast ... and part two of the chat with OCN chair Phil Gall.
Mar 12, 2019
Podcast: Talking to the woman who could be our next strata minister
We were very lucky last weekend to catch up with Labor spokesperson for Better Regulation and Innovation Yasmin Catley who, current polls suggest, is a very real prospect of being NSW’s next Minister for Consumer Affairs (she will ditch the Ministry of Long Names title).
Yasmin has been getting a lot of coverage in Flat Chat recently for one simple reason – she has been talking about strata and things she wants to do to make our lives better.
Better Regulations Minister Matt Kean has, admittedly, been pre-occupied with the Opal building and the cladding issue (not that he’s doing much on that front except scaring people, according to this story).
Mr Kean was also invited to chat with us on the podcast but we didn’t even get a response. He’s a very busy man, not least because if the Liberals lose, his mentor, the premier, will probably be rolled and he’s her numbers man.
For the record, I won’t be voting either Labor or Liberal in the NSW election and at various time…
Mar 6, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #15 – Talking the politics of Airbnb and cladding fears with the OCN
JimmyT talks to OCN chair Phil Gall about how the Owners Corporation Network gets stuff done despite bring underfunded ... and what their cladding seminar offers apartment owners
Mar 5, 2019
Podcast: The link between holiday lets and high rise cladding fires
It used to be that when anyone talked about problems in strata, the perennial topics were the four Ps – pets, parking, parties (the noisy kind) and puffing (the smoke wafting from your neighbour’s balcony into your home).
These days you are more likely to find yourself talking about Airbnb, inflammable cladding and building defects. Why? For the simple reason that there’s a lot of them about.
It still beggars belief that state governments are happy to hand their housing and planning policies over to a bunch of trendoids working in a hi-tech office in San Francisco.
All those years of carefully evolved rules and regulations – the kind that stop your neighbour from turning their home into a business – get tossed out of the window.
Why? Because some slick advertising and highly dubious business practises purport to free you to do as you wish with your property and make a lot of money.
Of course, you haven’t been able to do whatever you wish with your property since the…
Feb 26, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #14 – Three rants and why we’ll never get a Royal Commission
JimmyT rants about Airbnb, defects (and the Opal Tower report) and cladding ... and explains why we'll never get a Royal Commission into the apartment building industry.
Feb 26, 2019
Podcast: Why we’ll never get a Royal Commission into building defects
I was intrigued this week by the announcement by the Federal Labor leadership that they plan to pour some of the money from their proposed “honesty tax” on banks into lawyers to help ordinary people get back what they’ve had chiselled out of them by unscrupulous money people.
What a great idea. Make the baddies pay for people to help their victims. Now, how about a defects tax on developers to do just the same?
OK, developers aren’t making the shed-loads of moolah that the banks are coining – the latter’s profits went UP the day after the Banking Royal Commission issued its damning report – but they are doing OK.
And we are never going to get a Royal Commission into property development for the simple reason that neither side of politics is squeaky clean in that regard, and irrespective of how upright and honest they are now, no Labor or Liberal Coalition leader wants to lift that particular rock to see what’s still wriggling underneath.
Also, in the week in which t…
Feb 19, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #13 – On air with James Valentine and more from Alex Greenwich
Talking off-the-plan purchases and defects - plus your calls - with James Valentine. And why Sydney MP Alex Greenwich thinks Airbnb is bad for Sydney renters, and Mark Latham will be bad for the NSW parliament.
Feb 19, 2019
Podcast: On radio with James Valentine and more from Alex Greenwich
Chatting with James Valentine on air the other day, I was suddenly aware of how immune (or is it inured?) one can become to the idiocies of strata living.
James posed the perfectly reasonable question; if you can take a kettle or a car back to the seller if it proves to be faulty, how come you can't just hand back the keys to an off-the-plan apartment when it turns out not to be up to scratch?
"The walls are cracking. Here's the keys and I'll have my deposit back too, thank-you very much."
It's crazy when you think about it; you spend 20 or 30 times as much as you would on a car, buying an apartment, but the consumer protections are less than if you'd bought a dodgy toaster.
Even with the protections that exist, the chances are that you are going to have to hire lawyers at great expense to get things fixed - and that's if the developer is still around. And there's no guarantee of success.
The government should be taking a look at the whole scandalous system right now, when prope…
Feb 12, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #12 – The ups and downs of apartment living with Sydney MP Alex Greenwich
Talking apartments, Airbnb, pets, the Opal, defects, cladding and all things apartment related with Sydney MP Alex Greenwich
Feb 12, 2019
Podcast: Parliamentary panic behind short-term letting U-turn
This week our podcast is given over to an extended chat with NSW Independent MP for Sydney, Alex Greenwich.
I've come across many politicians in this game. Most have been honest and decent (to a point) and a few have been self-interested and not so much corrupt as corrupted - mainly by party allegiance and personal ambition.
But it's very rare to come across someone who is as clear-sighted, committed and empathic as Alex.
Locally, he's known as the man who took over from Clover Moore when she was forced to chose between being Mayor of Sydney and the city's MP in the NSW parliament.
That he won the by-election comfortably was no surprise but he then increased his majority at the next state election, despite having a chunk of traditionally Liberal voters grafted on to his constituency.
Nationally, he was the face of the same-sex marriage campaign while appearing on the SBS TV series Filthy Rich and Homeless. And as soon as the next state election campaign is done and dusted, he will…
Feb 5, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #11 – Taking your calls on (very) early morning ABC radio
JimmyT gets up at 4am to talk to ABC Radio presenter Rod Quinn (and other insomniacs) about strata living in Australia.
Feb 5, 2019
Podcast: Chatting flats with “mighty” Rod Quinn
In this week's podcast we have kind of hijacked the Rod Quinn "Talking Points" segment for his ABC Overnight show on radio last week - featuring Flat Chat's very own JimmyT talking strata with people from all over Australia,
In may ways, this is a podcast within a podcast, in that we have grabbed the segment with Jimmy in it and slotted it into our format, but you will still hear all the ABC titles and credits so there's no mistaking that this is Rod's show.
Oh, and did we mention that Jimmy got up at 4 am to do this?
What did they talk about at that ungodly hour? Opal cracks, flammable cladding, over-development and certification - all the usual stuff.
But then ABC listeners called in and asked questions like, what can you do when Uber drivers insist on leaving your communal garage door open. It seems these part-time cabbies share a flat with a dozen others. There are so many potential breaches - even in Darwin - you barely know where to start.
And that's just for starters.…
Jan 30, 2019
Podcast: On air with Josh Zepps and Part 2 of the strata disaster
Every so often, I get invited on to a radio or TV show to talk about apartments. This week I've been on Breakfast on ABC 702 with Josh Zepps, (usually hosted by Robbie Buck and Wendy Harmer) and then on Friday I got up at 4am to go on ABC's early morning show with Rod Quinn (which will be featured in next week's podcast).
That was a challenge (apart from being two cups of coffee under par) because we had lots of callers from all over Australia. Next week, I will be on Triple-M in Adelaide to talk about Airbnb.
Back to this podcast, I was on the ABC with Josh to discuss why residents of the Opal Tower had been told to move back into their apartments, whether or not they felt safe. It's an emotive issue and we tend to forget that the driving principle behind why developers are in business is to make money, not necessarily house families. They were paying hotel accommodation for people who could have moved back home - so they pulled the plug.
We also discussed the damage done to…
Jan 16, 2019
Podcast: Inside a strata disaster … a pet ban backfires
I am occasionally asked how come I ever got into writing about apartment living. After all, I'm a published author, have been a reasonabIy successful TV scriptwriter and occasionally still turn my hand to travel writing. Against any and all of those pursuits, writing about flats and by-laws, committees and Airbnb breaches might seem a little ... um ... prosaic.
It's not, by the way - far from it. The French philosopher Albert Camus once wrote that everything he knew about life he learned from the football field (he played in goal for Algeria). Well, much of what I know about people has come from observing the way we behave when we are obliged to live together, under the same roof, sharing many of the same facilities, adapting (or not) to each other's quirks and foibles.
It all began 20 years ago when my partner Sue Williams and I bought an apartment off the plan, encountering dodgy developers, corrupt building managers and incompetent strata managers, all ring-mastered by a s…
Jan 5, 2019
Podcast: The truth about the whole defects disaster
If you think you've heard everything there is to know about the cracks crisis at the Opal Tower in Sydney, and the whole defects disaster in NSW and Australia as a whole, think again. So far, media coverage has barely scratched the surface.
Meanwhile, politicians - in full election mode - are playing the blame game: it's the certifiers, it's the Labor party, all those years ago, it's the Liberals who've done nothing since. But as for looking at the real problems, which are systemic and endemic, don't hold your breath.
JimmyT and Sue Williams explore the cracks and crevices of the whole issue and come up with solutions that are so sensible, they have zero chance of ever being adopted by politicians.
You can hear it all on this week's podcast here:
https://episodes.castos.com/flatchatpod/Flat-Chat-Wrap-8.mp3
Jan 5, 2019
Flat Chat Wrap #8 – The crumbling Opal Tower and the whole defects disaster
JimmyT and Sue Williams ask the questions everyone else is avoiding, and provide the answers people need to hear, about the Opal Tower in Sydney and the whole defects disaster in high-rise apartment blocks in Australia.
Dec 23, 2018
Podcast: The Wrap … all the way from Cambodia
Wrestling with laptops and hotel wi-fi, we finally bring you the second-last Flat Chat wrap podcast of the year.
Was it worth the effort? Only you can be the judge as we discuss levies, a lawyer's grab for disabled parking and Airbnb's backlash against politicians who support a register of holiday lets.
https://episodes.castos.com/flatchatpod/Flat-Chat-Wrap-7.mp3
Dec 23, 2018
Flat Chat Wrap #7 – Are your levies too high
How to work out if your levies are too high, the sensible controls that have led Airbnb to threaten politicians' votes and nominations for our Heroes and Villains of Strata.
Dec 9, 2018
Flat Chat Wrap #6 – Renovations and recalcitrant owners … with James Valentine
Permissions for minor renovations, one owner in four blocking changes and ... of course ... Airbnb come to the fore as Jimmy joins James Valentine on his afternoon show on ABC Radio
Nov 30, 2018
Podcast 5 – parking, pet names & Airbnb hosting
A decades-long parking battle ends up in the Appeals Court, trendy pet names, how to be a better Airbnb host, garage doors and more ... all in our Flat Chat Wrap podcast.
Listen here
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Nov 22, 2018
Flat Chat Wrap #4 – Homeless on common property & build-to-rent in the USA
Homeless people sleeping in common property and - a world away - what it's like to live in a 'build-to-rent' apartment in the USA. The Flat Chat Wrap takes an international twist.
Nov 7, 2018
Podcast: Ep 3 of the Wrap looks at buying and selling
Is this the best time to buy an new apartment or just the worst time to sell? And what you should look out for in offers that seem to be too good to be true. Can bad by-laws be used to bully owners? And what happened to the common property lawn being churned up by illegal parkers?
Sue Williams joins JimmyT for a chinwag about the latest posts on the Flat Chat website.
https://episodes.castos.com/flatchatpod/Flat-Chat-Wrap-3.mp3
Nov 7, 2018
Flat Chat Wrap #3 – best and worst times to buy, bullied by by-laws & lawn parking
Is this the best time to buy an new apartment or just the worst time to sell? And what you should look out for in offers that seem to be too good to be true. Can bad by-laws be used to bully owners? And what happened to the common property lawn being churned up by illegal parkers?
Sue Williams joins JimmyT for a chinwag about the latest posts on the Flat Chat website.
Oct 30, 2018
Roundup and the Wrap podcast – all you need in one place
The roundup this week includes a link to the latest Flat Chat Wrap podcast, which is turning out to be a lot more fun than we thought it would be.
Basically someone looks at the latest stuff on the website and chats to JimmyT about it – for the past two weeks it’s been author, journalist, travel and property writer and Owners Corporation Network founder Sue Williams.
Is it as much fun for you as it is for us? You can hear the podcast on THIS LINK and judge for yourselves.
Meanwhile, we have been getting record numbers of readers on the website – which means even more question to the Flat Chat Forum than ever.
For instance, what do you do when you have a developer who still holds 39 per cent of the vote is taking revenge on owners for exercising their legal rights (by following strata law) and then blocks all the motions put up by the owners to improve their scheme?
It’s nasty, it’s spiteful and he’s making his enemies suffer. But there’s still a lot they can do to…
Oct 30, 2018
Flat Chat Wrap #2 – Noise, electric cars, budget tourism and canning committee members
We're back with another Flat Chat Wrap. Sue Williams joins Jimmy Thomson for a chat about noise, electric cars, shoestring tourism (and its affect on communities) and how to get rid of a nuisance committee member.
Oct 28, 2018
Jimmy and James discuss the new bans on no-pets by-laws
We're back in the ABC studios to discuss 'no-pet' by-laws, among other things, and to take your calls.
You can listen to the episode HERE.
Oct 28, 2018
The end of no-pet by-laws on ABC radio
Jimmy joins James Valentine for a chat about Tribunal decisions to rescind by-laws that ban pets ... and take your calls
Oct 23, 2018
The Wrap – Now you can listen to Flat Chat too
The best of this week's Flat Chat is now available as a Podcast.
Join JimmyT and journalist Sue Williams as they dissect the week's posts, questions, advice and answers. is a serious - if light-hearted look at the latest posts, questions, answers , advice and comments on Flat Chat.
Forget the crazy tales from Dardanelle Towers, the funny voices (please!) and the jolly music. This is the start of something big.
Please have a listen and let us know what you think - Flat Chat and The Wrap are for you, so tell us how we can make it better. Just log in and add a comment below. And if you like it - or know someone you think would - please share.
You don't even have to log in to listen - just click here.
Oct 23, 2018
Flat Chat Wrap #1 – pet bans, bad by-laws, crazy neighbours and Airbnb laws
A chat about all the most interesting, strangest and most controversial items on on Flat Chat this week. In Episode 1, Jimmy discusses pet bans, undoing bad by-laws, crazy neighbours and Airbnb laws with author and journalist Sue Williams.
Oct 13, 2018
Dardanelle Towers – Episode 2 – Gimme Shelter
The global trade war hits Dardanelle Towers, and the committee members are looking for somewhere to hide.
Sep 25, 2018
Dardanelle Towers: Episode 1 – The Naked Truth
We recently discovered what seem to be reports from an apartment block with more than its fair share of idiosyncratic characters. Is this place real, or a figment of someone's imagination? Perhaps you know these people. Maybe it's your building. Maybe it’s you …
Part 1: The Naked Truth
Public nudity was on the agenda at the Dardanelle Towers Executive Committee meeting last week.
It started with a note from Mrs Alexander – somewhat unkindly known around the building as “the all-seeing eye” – who claimed to the new female tenants in 304 had been sunbathing naked by the swimming pool.
Dr Macdonald whose apartment overlooks the pool confirmed as much, to tuts and mutters from the other members of the committee, but he wasn’t complaining.
“What’s the fuss?” he asked, winding up for one of his verbose observations. “We’re in greater danger of being hit by Mrs Alexander falling off her balcony as she leans over trying to get another offending glimpse than we…
Aug 8, 2018
Jimmy and James on kids playing, window rebels … and barbecues
In JimmyT's (almost) regular spot on James Valentine's Afternoons on ABC 702, they field questions from listeners ... and have a quick chat about Jimmy's new book.
Jul 12, 2018
First impressions: Fines for unpaid levies and reno delays
Jimmy treats James to his (unimpressive) Sean Connery impressions before the switchboard lights up with your calls
Apr 16, 2018
It’s Byron Airbn-Bay as holiday town “gutted” by online lets
A newspaper interview by our good mate Mark Dapin reveals that online holiday letting is "gutting" Byron Bay.
Meanwhile the State government snuggles up to Airbnb with a plan to give every pensioner $100 the first time they let a room to a visitor on the global internet platform.
This prompted a call from ABC radio and Josh Szeps (filling in for James Valentine). Let me know when they start giving $100 to every neighbour whose sleep is disturbed by Airbnb party animals next door. Until then, here's the radio interview.
Apr 12, 2018
Floating floors and renos
Who's responsible when a neighbour floods your timber floor - insurers can't agree. And then there's the vexed question of compensation for tenants during major renovations ... and more on the latest Flat Chat spot on James Valentine's Afternoons on ABC radio.
Mar 6, 2018
Madecomfy spruiks Airbnb profits on ABC radio
Property investors - especially in strata buildings – should switch to holiday rentals instead of long-term tenancies if they want to maximise their profits, says the founder of a company that manages Airbnb-style properties on behalf of landlords.
According to MadeComfy co-founder Sabrina Bethunin, a report her company commissioned shows says that short term holiday letting rates are now on a par with hotel room rates.
In case you haven’t heard of them before, Madecomfy provides a complete management service, from handing over keys to changing bed linen and cleaning the house or apartment. This is for Airbnb and other internet letting hosts who don’t want to have to deal with their guests directly – an arms-length, never-meet-the-tourists arrangement that Airbnb calls ‘sharing’.
You can here an interview with Ms Bethunin on ABC News Radio here.
Feb 16, 2018
Talking Kings Cross on ABC radio Breakfast
With the first section of my crime novel Perfect Criminals set in Kings Cross, Wendy Harmer and Robbie Buck asked me if the Cross was changing and if it was for the better or worse ... with at least one Potts Pointer pitching in on the phone.
Feb 8, 2018
New novel … and the old garden land-grab trick
Nov 29, 2017
Jon Faine skewers Airbnb as ‘parasites and predators’
Finally, the mainstream media is not buying the Airbnb BS. Have a listen to the the $30 billion global letting agency's talking head Brent Thomas squirm as ABC Melbourne's Jon Faine nails them on their failure to pay tax in Australia.
"If I was the Premier, I would refuse to meet you," has to be the quote of the year.
LISTEN TO IT HERE
Meanwhile, in the Flat Chat column currently running online in the AFR I refer to having "previous convictions". If you want to read the whole charge sheet, laying out my research, findings and opinions on Airbnb, start HERE.
It's interesting that other branches of the media are becoming a bit sceptical of Airbnb's dubious and relentlessly repeated message that they are all about ordinary people letting rooms in their homes (while they are fighting tooth and nail to force apartment blocks to accept short-term lets of whole apartments, their main source of income).
Now News Ltd journalists are faithfully trotting out any statistics from Airbnb-paid…
Oct 30, 2017
Off to Vietnam … with a confession
Does Jimmy really hate Airbnb. No, he says - in fact, he has a confession to make about his trip to Vietnam.
And you can read about plans for his next trip next year, right HERE
Sep 14, 2017
Should my strata committee speak for me?
We chat about the heated exchanges on the Flat Chat Forum regarding whether or not your committee should discuss anything except what's going on in the building - and we find another listener whose neighbour has dug a cellar under her unit. Honest!
Jul 31, 2017
James Valentine – Airbnb discussion document
The government releases its discussion document on short-term holiday letting. JimmyT and James V discuss
Jun 21, 2017
Inflammable cladding
Jimmy, James and callers discuss inflammable cladding - who pays and why it's scarier than you thought.
May 21, 2017
Holiday letting
The government seems to have backtracked on short-term letting - Jimmy tells James Valentine why he's the only person who spotted the shift in attitudes.
May 9, 2017
Roundup: Radio chat finds flaw in holiday let logic
If you are as tired of reading about Airbnb as I am of writing about them you won’t get past the end of this sentence.
However, this week I was on the James Valentine show on ABC radio doing my usual Q&A on apartment living and we needed to talk about the recent Government decision NOT to give the Coure report on holiday letting its unqualified support.
Predictably, we had no sooner finished taking a call – from a listener whose tenants had illegally sub-let their apartment on Airbnb with disastrous results - than we got a text from a listener.
You can hear the Flat Chat spot on
Afternoons with James Valentine HERE.
Whoever they were, they certainly had the official Airbnb party line off pat. Badly behaved guests would be given bad ratings on the website, said the text. Also, it continued, the majority of apartment owners want the right to do what they want with their homes.
Ignoring the highly dubious effect of voluntary “ratings”, I have two problems with that l…
Apr 17, 2017
Last word on new short-term letting laws
Actually, that heading is a bit misleading, if not wildly hopeful. The NSW government is due any day to table its response to the Coure inquiry into holiday letting, the most prominent manifestation of which is Airbnb.
This morning Radio National ran a track about the proposed laws in which yours truly was quoted extensively. Click on that link to listen.
But of course this will not be the last word on the issue. Far from it. Parliament will have to discuss it and MPS will vote on it and, if recent history is anything to go by, Airbnb will pump millions into the advertising market to shore up their image of a friendly hug-fest that helps nice people to do nice things.
I saw a poster in the station the other day claiming that Airbnb helped some woman to pay her strata fees. Nice for her - but who pays for the extra wear and tear from all the woman's visitors who neither know nor care about by-laws and building rules?
Grrrr!
Anyway, in the absence of a recent turn on James…
Mar 27, 2017
Roundup: Monstered by tradies with trucks
I was in at the ABC doing my strata spot with James Valentine the other day and the question of monster trucks and the increasing squeeze in apartment block car parks came up.
We wrote about that here a few weeks ago but it makes you think that Australia’s love affair with large 4WDs and the fact that half of us will be living in apartments in the next 10 years will reach some sort of crisis point soon.
A friend of mine lives in a town house complex where two tradies use their garages as workshops and for storage and use visitor parking permanently for their utes.
Recently her mother visited, parked in visitor parking and came back to her vehicle to find an obscene note plastered on her windscreen telling her that if she parked on “my” space again, her car would be trashed.
Do these people not get it or do they know exactly what they’re doing but have decided the by-laws are stupid and they obviously shouldn’t apply to them.
It’s times like this you wish there really w…
Mar 11, 2017
StrataKops and Airbnb
You’re always hesitant in this game to claim that you have a regular slot, anywhere, doing anything. Or you should be - it's usually a guaranteed precursor to getting the hook.
But I guess after almost 10 years of guesting on James Valentine’s Afternoons on ABC radio, I can say that, yes, I do get an occasional 25 minutes of radio fame.
So, for those of you who miss it, I am now posting podcasts or, as those of us who can remember when radios had valves call them, "recordings" of these and other radio spots.
I’m on with James again at 2.00pm on Monday, March 13. But if you can’t wait till then, click in the link above to hear last month’s episode when we discussed new strata laws, proxy farming, StrataKops and Airbnb (yawn).
And, of course, took a few calls from listeners and tried not to panic when they asked tricky questions.
Enjoy. And if you have any technical issues hearing this, email us and we'll try to help (but we're not promising anything).