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We start this week’s podcast by looking back at the previous episode which has broken all our records for regular downloads.
It’s not surprising really, given that it was a chat with ABC TV Four Corners investigative reporter Linton Besser about how and why he pulled together the Strata Trap report.
At more than 450 downloads after only a week, this one will run and run, as they say in showbiz.
This week we look at another of strata’s big problems – defects – through the eyes of Acting Building Commissioner Matt Press. What’s happening with defects now that Building Commissioner David Chandler has retired?
One thing that hasn’t changed is the Building Commission’s tendency to use initials, acronyms and fancy techie terminology.
So, just in case you are wondering, the “LDI” referred to means Latent Defects Insurance or it could be DLI (Decennial Liability Insurance).
Either way, it’s a 10-year insurance against defects that the better developers are able to take out. Maybe they could call it Defects Insurance. Too on the nose?
Apart from that, Matt Press assures us that even though David Chandler has gone and Project Intervene has been absorbed into the Building Commission’s complaints process, the good work in making sure apartment owners get what they paid for continues unabated.
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
We’re rolling the Wrap out a little early this week because it’s connected to the hottest topic in strata right now.
Linton Besser, the reporter who brought you the Four Corners report The Strata Trap on Monday, has come on to the podcast to answer our questions about what he’s found in the strata industry, not only in NSW, but across Australia.
What questions? How about what piqued his interest in the story that led to the exposure of strata management firm Netstrata and the resignation of its General Manager Stephen Brell as President of Strata Community Association (SCA-NSW)?
Linton admits he almost ignored the story when the first email landed in his in-tray. But when another came in a few days later, he thought he might start digging.
That led to the 7.30 report on Netstrata and that sparked a tsunami of tips and complaints that led, in turn, to the Four Corners episode.
The podcast is a wide-ranging chat about the culture of the strata business – not just in NSW – that leads to big strata management companies believing they can act with impunity while apartment owners are left “incoherent with rage”.
Everyone from complacent politicians to apathetic media operators cops it in this fascinating chat, but he does think some strata managers are suffering too and believes, despite it all, that there is a solution.
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
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Are your cooking and heating appliances giving your kids asthma? This week in the Flat Chat Wrap, Sue talks about a story she’s been chasing where families have found that switching from gas to electricity for their heating and cooking appliances has seen their kids’ asthma disappear.
As we head for net zero emissions and electricity becomes the affordable power source of choice, you might want to start checking your pots and pans to see if they work on induction stoves.
Before that, with Spring definitely in the air, we’re turning down the heat in the podcast this week as we examine why the majority of tenants – especially younger ones – are in favour of the Victorian government’s incoming regulations about insualting homes being introduced nationwide – and why two-thirds of landlords are against them.
Then there’s a question of what to do in strata when a number of owners want one thing and an exactly equal number don’t.
And when we say “equal”, we mean that the unit entitlements on one side add up to precisely the same figure on the other.
As this story plucked straight from the Flat Chat Forum explains, it has led to a strata stand-off in one small Sydney block.
And finally we look at how an ailing RSL club has been turned into not just one of the coolest venues in a booming Sydney suburb, but one of the hottest properties on the apartments scene.
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
There’s been considerable speculation about NSW Strata Commissioner John Minns this week after the revelation on an ABC news report that he has retained a significant holding in a property management company, albeit through a family trust.
Is it a serious problem for the man tasked with overseeing strata management (among other things), especially in the wake of the Netstrata scandal?
Or is it just an unfortunate embarrassment at a time when NSW Fair Trading has launched new legislation intended to boost transparency and combat conflicts of interest? We give that question a good kickaround in the playground.
We also look at the new legislation in Victoria which imposes a 7.5 per cent levy on short-term holiday rentals and allows apartment blocks and local councils to curb Airbnb and the like. (We can’t help having a good chortle at Airbnb’s typically left-field response).
And we have a serious disagreement on whether the reduction in student visas is going to help ease the housing crisis or is just a response to the dog-whistle politics of racist right-wingers.
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
In this week’s podcast, we look at why a problem in a company title block .would have been much easier to resolve had the apartment been in a strata building.
The story in the Sydney Morning Herald is about a 71-year-old woman who has had to move out of her home because of damp caused by faulty water pipes in common property.
We explain why that problem could have been much more easily resolved had it been in strata.
We also touch on the recent albeit modest recruitment drive in the Strata Commission, and the areas where the profits from selling apartment are outstripping the gains from flipping houses.
And finally, Jimmy asks whatever happened to Strata Commissioner John Minns’ brilliant idea to have a two-stage First AGM for new strata buildings so that strata committees have time to examine the contracts and reject those that are designed to rip them off.
NB: This was recorded and posted before accusations aired on the ABC that John Minns had not told the government that a family trust had retained substantial shares in a property management company called IPG. We'll cover that in this week's podcast.____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
So the NSW Fair Trading Minister has revealed his law changes in the wake of the Netstrata scandal and they are, as one strata insider put it, like being slapped on the wrist with limp spaghetti.
With the news hot off the printer, Jimmy jumped in with both feet to claim this is a pretty poor response to the revelation that apartment owners are being misled and ripped off by some of the people whose job it is to look after them.
Admittedly, this was recorded before he got the response from Fair Trading that you can read here. Maybe it will all make more sense once everyone has calmed down but for now Jimmy is ropable, which if nothing else makes the podcast more entertaining.
Also in the pod this week, the “wellness” benefits of buying the most expensive home in Australia.
And the areas in your state and across Australia where you are least likely to find apartments that are designed with the health of their residents in mind (according to Dr Sarah Foster of RMIT University in Melbourne).
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
Having been to more conferences that they’ve had Ubereats deliveries – and with drawers full of lanyards to prove it – Jimmy and Sue headed off to the Gold Coast last week to the Strata Impact conference full of hope that this wouldn’t either be another whinge-fest (not least because JT was MC).
In fact, it turned out to be absolutely fascinating with all sorts of interesting research from why the wrong apartments are built in the wrong places, to why new buildings are infested with mould and, along the way, how to deal with disruptive committee members using tried and tested psychology.
Both of us were impressed by presentations on amazing whizz-bang technology that allows you to get a 3D, virtual reality, fully detailed and inspectable images of your apartment block for about the same as it costs to have a bloke in a hard hat wander round with a clipboard.
You can read more about the conference here but it’s worth a listen to discover what got Jimmy and Sue excited about our strata future, and alarmed about how things are now, in almost equal measure.
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
Three serious stories straight off the website have caught our attention this week – but there’s a bit of fun too.
The first two reports are changes planned in NSW laws to make life more secure and a bit easier for renters.
Premier Chris Minns announced last weekend that the government is going to stop no-fault evictions – where landlord move tenants out of their properties because that’s the easiest way of pushing rents up beyond what might be considered reasonable.
At the same time the government in going to bring in transferable electronic rental bonds for tenants who are on the move (willingly or otherwise).
When finances are tight, and moving home is costly anyway, people can’t afford to have a chunk of money tied up in their old bod when they are having to pay their new one. You’ll find both stories HERE.
Then there’s the question of the strata scheme that was fined $235,000 for breaches of Workplace Health and Safety regs. Does the fact that it was non-residential mean we won’t be affected?
Or are we liable for WHS if there are Airbnbs in our blocks – or even if we are just working from home?
And finally, we launch Hug Your Strata Manager Day and you can do that HERE. That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
Oh, dear. Not another swipe at strata managers, please! Yes, OK, it’s a well-trodden path but, to be fair, the baddies have made themselves easy targets for the past few months.
As for the goodies, we’d say, as we often do, that they are in the majority. And how frustrating must it be to try to earn an honest buck and provide a good service to your customers, knowing that your rivals are getting ahead by playing fast and loose with the rules and regulations?
And it’s with that in mind that we venture into the strata naughty corner this week, to discuss two pieces of information, both of which we hope will encourage the many honest and decent strata managers to keep doing what they’re doing.
One topic is news that a well-known strata manager, who had been sacked several times but then promoted by NCAT into an all-powerful compulsory role, has now been struck off.
Yes, you read it right. On a total of six occasions, his contract was not renewed or he was even replaced with a statutory manager, but then appointed to exactly that role, taking over from the strata committee and owners corp in another strata scheme.
And we have unearthed the amazing, deep-dive parameters of the $300k investigation into Netstrata which looks like it’s going to leave no stone unturned.
Now, to be scrupulously fair, the independent inquiry could discover the whole problem was little more than a misunderstanding about who was paying how much to whom for what (“what” being insurance premiums and fees to contractors).
It’s as deep a dive into a company’s structure, business practises and culture as you will ever see, so we hope you’ll forgive us for spending a little longer in the naughty corner than usual.
That‘s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
In this week’s podcast we look at NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler and how he’s ramping up his efforts to get his message across before he retires next month.
And that message is, basically, if you are buying off the plan right now and you don’t go with a developer who has an iCirt gold star rating, you’ve only got yourself to blame when it all goes pear-shaped.
We take a look at Sue's story about people buying property, not only with the help of Mum and Dad, but with investment from extended family and even friends through a kind of crowdfunding.
And we look at some real-life issues that occurred when family members based their deals on trust but then, years later, fell out. Ouch!
Finally we explore some quirky tales from the Flat Chat Forum, including strata managers who are trying to get round the three-year limit on contracts, the AGM election that never happened (so there is now no committee) and the strata management contract that says they get the frequent flyer points from payments by credit card.
All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
It’s a bit of a catch-up in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap and a look to the immediate future, too.
We’ll be getting abreast of the news that NSW is planning to tighten regulations on strata managers in the state – a move that was announced a couple of weeks ago when Sue was off air.
What will this so-called crackdown mean? Will really bad strata managers lose their licences? Not very likely, we say, and for a number of valid reasons.
We’ll also be looking at a story that appeared this week in which “unelected bureaucrats and boffins” were accused of hampering the development of much-needed new apartments.
And in between we’ll be talking about a trend we are calling “luxureduction’ where low-cost homes for poor people are being threatened by luxury dwellings that will house a fraction of the number of people they displace.
Sue's alarming report on this growing trend is currently slated to appear in the Sydney Morning Herald this weekend.Big issues, all three, and heaps of grist to our podcast mill.
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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
In this week’s podcast we ask leading strata lawyer David Sachs to run the rule over some of the questions in our Forum.
For instance, can the owners corporation charge Airbnb hosts the difference if insurers increase premiums because there are short-term holiday lets in the block?
Is it okay to have a paper only AGM with the committee elected by pre-meeting electronic votes?
Who pays the costs when a renovator has to get a retrospective by-law for works done without permission?
Which law – anti-discrimination or building codes – takes precedence when an owner wants a chairlift installed in a common property stairwell?
Can an ordinary owner take a strata manager to the tribunal for failure to fulfill their responsibilities?
What can an owner do if their motion for the AGM is left off the agenda when it is published?
There are answers to all those questions and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
This week on the Flat Chat Wrap we get a glimpse behind the scenes as NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler is a guest at a “town hall” meeting for members of his team.
In it David outlines some of the Building Commission’s achievements over the past five years, including the creation of a “defects library” so that certifiers, owners corporations and eventually universities can access the same information about defects, employing the same definitions, so that everyone is on the same page when it comes to claims and remediation.
He also outlines his plans for post-retirement – he’s not leaving, just winding back a little – celebrates the fact that a team from another state has been looking closely at how the NSW BC works, and relates how inspectors from flammable cladding Project Remediate discovered serious defects in a newish building and got them fixed by the developer without needing to go to court and at no cost to the owners.
Just to clarify, David is introduced by Elizabeth Stewart, associate director of Building Compliance, and the other voices you will hear are Assistant Commissioners Tom Carney and Matthew Press. And the Yolande to whom he refers is Yolande Nyss who built and leads the Project Intervene section which helps strata schemes navigate defect rectification with their developers.
All that and more in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
The tax office is coming after double-dipping landlords who claim all sorts of things they shouldn't, or just claim for stuff the wrong way.
And what about levies? It turns out some are tax deductible and others aren't. But which?
By the way, in the podcast we say 86 percent of owners who use tax agents get their returns wrong, in fact the ATO says the majority of investors make mistakes in their tax returns despite 86 percent of them using tax agents. Oops! Big difference.
Moving on, we also look at how the NSW state government is pumping millions into the Building Commission - turning it into an effective CSI-Strata as they track down dodgy developers before they can do too much harm.
Turns out it's a case of "round up the usual suspects" as they said in Casablanca (the movie, not the city).
And finally, we look at if or when you can record strata committee meetings, and whether or not you should.
That's all in this week's Flat Chat Wrap.____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
A slightly shorter but more pointed podcast this week as Sue reports on plans to demolish two affordable-rent apartment blocks and replace them with one luxury block with fewer, but presumably high-end apartments.
It's another potential blow to the supply of affordable housing in desirable areas. City of Sydney have said “no” so the developers have appealed to the Land and Environment Court (LEC)– which held a kerbside hearing outside the site, the other day.
Apparently there are half a dozen other blocks of affordable homes in the Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay area – all marked for gentrification, and we’ve just heard it’s happening in Bondi too.
Now we know why there aren’t enough materials or skilled workers to build enough affordable apartment blocks – they’re all working on luxury pads for the privileged few while reducing the number of available homes.
Meanwhile Jimmy has taken serious umbrage at a report in the SMH Domain section which is a typical “neighbours from Hell” yarn. Which is all very well, but it’s not even here in Oz and, he says, gives a completely false (and predictably biased) impression of living in apartments.
And finally, on her way back from the LEC hearing, Sue chanced upon a vivid example of how hard it is to find somewhere affordable to rent in Sydney.
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
This week we take a swing at polarising polititicians who are hoping to fire up the Nimbys against medium-density housing.
They know it's what the state needs, they know it will help resolve the housing crisis, they don't have a viable solution, but hey, if it means they can get a few more votes in marginal constituencies, to Hell with the homeless.
Then we go back to the future with Company Title. Are apartment blocks where owners set their own rules and have nothing to do with strata law the answer for the strataphobic?
Even today there are company title blocks that can ban pets, Airbnbs and even kids. What's the catch? We have a look.
And finally a new development of micro-apartments with shared common areas and compact living areas is already oversubscribed. Sue gives the concept the thumbs up, Jimmy likes a bit more space. You can see inside one in a clip from the Today show HERE
That's all in this weeks' Flat Chat Wrap____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
The Podcast takes a musical twist this week when we discuss the ear-bending plight of residents of four apartment blocks in the Sydney suburb of Meadowbank who have been subject to an opera singer practising his scales for 90 minutes every Sunday.
How bad can it be? The perp is clearly talented and may even think he’s doing his neighbours a favour by standing on his balcony belting out his do-re-mis, but really?
Oddly enough, music-loving Jimmy thinks hitting the high notes for a non-consenting audience is a bit of a low blow while self-confessed tin-ear Sue thinks it’s all in the ear of the beholder.
You can judge for yourself when we play a clip in the podcast or follow the links in the accompanying story HERE – and you can even vote on whether to call “encore” or shout “shut up!”.
Also in the Wrap this week, we look at why apartment rents are rising faster than houses’.
And while everyone else is focussed on the suburbs that are being pressured to allow more apartment blocks to be built, we take a swing through the councils that will be allowed to buck the trend in a review of NSW government policy.
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
This week’s podcast is mostly devoted to embedded networks, what they are, why they can be good or bad, and what you can do to make them work for your strata scheme.
To that end, we chat to Joseph Arena of Embedded Networks Arena, a company that will analyse your embedded network contracts – e.g. for energy and hot water systems – and tell you how you can get a better deal.
This was recorded via Zoom so the audio may not be up to our usual standards but if you listen to the end of the segment, you will hear about a terrific offer for Flat Chat readers and listeners. You can read all about Embedded Network Arena on its website HERE.
Another link you might want to follow is to Amanda Farmer’s audio summary of the case she discussed in her live podcast last week. It’s an interesting case where the committee in a resort scheme pushed through a special levy and a by-law that would have benefitted a minority of strata owners to the detriment of the majority. You can find out what happened at NCAT, both in audio and print, HERE.
And the Forum is abuzz (sorry) with discussions about a townhouse resident who put a beehive in their garden, conveniently away from their own back door, but annoyingly close to their neighbour’s.
That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.
SPECIAL OFFER: Embedded Network Arena is offering Flat Chat followers a 10% discount off their standard ‘Embedded Network Review Reports’. they provide a comprehensive embedded network contract review & utility cost benchmarking for electricity, hot water, gas & other embedded utilities. To take advantage of this special offer, contact them HERE and use the Discount Code “Flat Chat Offer 2024”.____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
The only story in strata in the past week has been the decision by Building Commissioner David Chandler to hang up his hard hat and retire in August.
So we thought the time was right to look at what he has achieved, the challenges he's faced - like being encourage by his then Minister to have a sit-down with a very dodgy developer - and the legacy he leaves behind for his successor.
He says his challenge for the last few months of his tenure is to get the message out there that there are more protections for consumers than there ever have been.
And you can see his point - people who haven't lived in strata before have zero interest in the stuff we discuss here.
But there is a strong message and it's worth spreading. He and we just need more people to listen.____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. -
This second part of Lawyer In The Hotseat opens with an apology for promising a discussion on ebikes in last week's podcast, forgetting that it's actually in this, the second part (promise).
Otherwise our discussion with strata lawyer David Bannerman covers renovation by-laws and the value of by-laws that would stand up if challenged at a Tribunal but send out a signal about what is unacceptable even if it's legal.
We also look at strata managers acting unilaterally, the controversial Building Design Practitioner's Act and how it adds a lot to the cost of home renovations.
We look at who's responsible for repairing and replacing bathrooms in older blocks - especially when they have never been renovated.
And, yes, we discuss eBike and scooter batteries, especially in older less fire-resistant unit blocks.
And finally, for all the questions we couldn't get to, we point listeners to the very slick Bannermans Lawyers website.
That's all in this week's Flat Chat Wrap.
,____________________________________________________
Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to [email protected].
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites. - もっと表示する
