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. Please subscribe by clicking on one of the icons below, to take you to your favourite podcaster.
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We’re back. Or at least, one of us is for real, but the other one is fake, thanks to an Artificial Intelligence app. This week I fed two articles from the Flat Chat website into an AI app called Jellypod. I chose the one about NSW Premier Chris Minns’ visit to the Netstrata offices and the other about the NSW Fair Trading minister’s announcement that the Productivity Commissioner has been tasked…
It’s a problem with any bureaucracy, anywhere in the world – and it’s also the reason strong figures in politics prevail – doing the right thing the “right way” takes a lot longer than just getting stuff done when it’s most needed. The principle of “it’s easier to apologise than it is to get permission” gets things moving but it also leaves the door wide open for knee-jerk, half-baked solutions.…
Don’t be put off by a tinkle or two of classical music at the start of this week’s podcast. It’s just a small acknowledgement of the fact that we are in Warsaw, where Polish-born piano master composer Frederic Chopin was raised. What do Warsaw and Gdansk have to do with apartments? Heaps as it turns out. Having been flattened by the Nazis during the Warsaw uprising of 1944, the city was completely…
This week we’ve taken the podcast overseas as we’re recording on a cruise ship off the coast of Norway. But it gives us an opportunity to look at one of the vexed questions of living in strata in Australia. You may not know this but there is already one city in Australia that has rent controls. Do they work? Do they keep rents low or just set a benchmark for rent hikes at every opportunity. We…
Last week Sue dropped a bomb into a discussion about new strata laws in NSW, one of which will invalidate by-laws that block sustainability changes because they would alter the look of the building. Does this mean the end of by-laws that forbid drying laundry on balconies? Surely not using a tumble dryer and instead using the wind and sun is a sustainability issue? And, if it is, doesn't that…
If you've been hiding under your bed - and who isn't tempted these days? - you may not have heard that NSW is about to see a second tranche of strata law reforms become a reality on July 1. What are the new laws and what do they mean? We invited Robert Anderson, President of SCA-NSW, the state's professional body for strata managers and service providers, on to the podcast to explain some of them.…
Imagine if you could build apartments in half the time at 15 per cent less cost and a guarantee of no waterproofing, fire safety or structural defects. ‘Tell ’im he must be dreamin’,” say strata’s Darryl Kerrigans. Apartment blocks take longer to build than ever, cost more, and fire and waterproofing are still endemic defects across the industry. Enter Wayne Larson of PT Blink who is already…
As many of you may already know, every second Tuesday, JimmyT goes on ABC Radio with James Valentine on his Afternoon show to chat about apartments. Last week, Jimmy and James took calls from listeners about what you can and can't put on balconies, compulsory training for strata committees, tradies who block car spaces, and car lifts that break down. They also heard from one gentleman who hates…
In this second part of Lawyer in the Hot Seat, recorded last week, strata legal eagle David Bannerman fields questions from Flat Chat's Jimmy Thomson about a range of issues, starting with what is vexatious litigant and how do you deal with them? Then there's the matter of disputes between neighbours and whether or not the strata committee should get involved - and what they can and should do if…
In what has become an annual event here on Flat Chat, this week we were invited on to a webinar run by leading strata lawyer (and Flat Chat sponsor) David Bannerman for the Q&A session that we call Lawyer in the Hot Seat. In it we discuss such diverse issues as Lithium battery safety, a Vegepod balcony plant system that's been banned becasue it's not in keeping with the look of the building, the…