FLAT CHAT WRAP
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.
FLAT CHAT WRAP
On ABC radio Afternoons with James Valentine
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 strata and everything to do with it. As usual, it's a lively segment, so we thought you might like a taste of what you get on the radio.
Jimmy is on with James on Tuesday afternoon, June the 3rd at 2pm. Why not send them a text on 0467 922 702 or call on 1300 222 702 and ask a curly question of your own.
And you can hear more of James (without Jimmy) on ABC Afternoons.
____________________________________________________
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 mail@flatchat.com.au.
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.
Sue Williams
Hi, I haven't been on the Flat Chat podcast for a couple of weeks, so I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce this week's pod.
As many of you may already know, every second Tuesday, Jimmy goes on ABC Radio 702 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 strata and everything to do with it. As usual, it's a lively segment, so we thought you might like a taste of what you get on afternoons.
I'm Sue Williams, and I write for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the AFR, and Domain on Property, and this is the Flat Chat Wrap.
James
Jimmy Thomson from flatchat.com.au is with us to talk about strata, living in flats, townhouses, and units, and any of the joys or problems of those. Very good afternoon, Mr. Thomson.
Jimmy
Good afternoon, James. How are you?
James
Look, I'm very well. Lovely to have you along. Balconies. Interesting kind of thing. I think ours, I think you're not allowed, you're disencouraged from hanging the beach towel over the balcony.
Jimmy
That's a hanging offence.
James
But I sort of, I always feel like, I quite like the beach towel.
Jimmy
Oh, I hate it.
It's sort of, well, I find it sort of, it's often colourful, and it says, oh, those people have been to the beach. I kind of like that.
Jimmy
Well, I don't go to the beach.
James
Right. So you're resentful.
Jimmy
I resent them.
James
You're resentful. How dare you go and frolic.
Jimmy
Yeah, exactly. And the worst, I think, is the bamboo. I was just talking to your producer, Jen. People put bamboo up if they've got a glass-fronted balcony. They put bamboo up to give themselves privacy.
James
Oh, they grow bamboo?
Jimmy
No, they just get, go to a large hardware store, like Bunnings, and get sheets of bamboo and stick it up there.
James
Oh, bamboo sort of curtain. Yeah. Or something.
Jimmy
On the edge of the balcony to give themselves privacy. So is this between adjacent balconies, not on the front, looking out to the street? I've seen it on the front.
I've seen it on the front of a building that was dealing with combustible cladding. I thought, yeah, there's a, they've got a barbecue, they've got the bamboo, they've got the cladding. All they need is somebody to light a match and off they go.
James
Off it goes. So is what's allowed on the balcony, would that be up to every individual strata?
Jimmy
Some strata schemes are very happy to have laundry drying on the balcony because it makes sense. And others would throw you out the building for doing it. We've had a case on the FlatChat forum where somebody had bought one of these veggie pod things, which is a, it's like about the size of a barbecue.
James
Yeah.
Jimmy
And you've got pots, deep pots, and you can grow vegetables.
James
And it has a, it has a... It's got a mesh top.
Jimmy
Mesh top that protects it from insects and birds. And they've been told, get that off the balcony. It is not in keeping with the look of the building.
James
And I, so that somebody has decided that. So this is what I mean, is it usually...
Jimmy
There was a committee meeting about it. Where apparently some very, I can't describe the person the way that it was described to me, but somebody who was very sure of themselves, spoke at great length and with great force about how it would destroy property prices and bring, and be a fire hazard and all these things.
James
But that's what I mean, is it then usually somebody on the committee or somebody in the building will have a particular view or does it have to be detailed? Do they now have to do a bylaw that says, and things banned on the balcony includes veggie pots?
Jimmy
Well, this is the interesting thing for me that the bylaw they have says it has to be in keeping with the look of the building, or you can’t have something that isn’t in keeping with the look of the building. And my view is if you’ve got a modern apartment block, what is in keeping with the look of the building?
Yeah. I mean, some old fashioned apartment blocks have pot plants across the balustrade and hanging plants and even little bird feeders and things which are also discouraged. And I think, well, what is, and surely depending on where you are and the age of the building and the kind of community it is, that determines what’s in keeping, not some arbitrary decision that anything we can see.
James
But that's, I mean, I would have thought it would have to be reasonably specific, you can have plants on the balcony or you can't have plants on the balcony.
Jimmy
Yeah, and I think this is something that's going, if you remember the great dog pet debate, where the bylaw got trashed because they said you cannot have pets under any circumstances. And the law said, well, there is then no reason that you can have pets, therefore it is unreasonable.
James
So I think, yeah, you know, you know what I mean.
Jimmy
And that sounds to me like people can say, well, I've got, I'm a young modern person and this is a young person's building or a relatively new building. And we are, you know, we are hip and we're groovy and tell you what, growing your own plants is a very now thing to do.
James
We're going to have a Negroni cocktail bar on ours. That's what we've decided to do and people will be invited up every night. If you've got questions, not just about balconies, but about anything to do with Strata, you can call me now.
We've got, you know, story issues you want to raise, things you're trying to solve, perhaps in your building or things that you're celebrating that are really great. You know, maybe you've got solutions. We had this problem and we, this is what we did.
Call me direct on 1300 222 702 or you can text me to 0467 922 702. Stephanie asks, read the bamboo on balconies. I've always wondered why they're allowed to build with clear glass on balconies on busy roads.
Of course, the occupants want to get some, of course, the occupants want to get some privacy.
Jimmy
Put glass, put film behind the glass would be my answer. Don't make it reflective, then you'll have mirrors and you'll be like that building in London that melted a Jaguar.
James
Yeah, but if there's glass on there, if it's a balcony, if it was just open, then you would be visible. There's no privacy then, is there? So if there's a glass in balcony.
Jimmy
Yeah. Well, you've got a certain amount of privacy, but because they build these things to a standard, everybody gets the same thing. Then the people on the top floors, they wouldn't make any difference to them at all.
And it's actually quite nice to be able to look down through the glass. But if you are on the first floor or even lower, where people can walk past and joking. In fact, we had somebody write to us just last week or the week before saying, what can I do about people walking past to get into their apartments and then seeing me in the lift and saying, oh, I see you're watching Succession on TV.
James
Yeah, exactly. Well, I think this week we could do a session which would be the etiquette of apartment living. For example, preserving each other's anonymity and respecting that in that kind of notion.
I think it's a really important thing. Don't look into other people's. If you live in the building, don't look in. Don't look in, Jimmy. I don't care how hard it is. Don't look in. If you do, don't comment.
Jimmy
All right. Don't comment is just pretend that you haven't looked in.
James
That's right. That's the polite thing to do. Your salsa practice is going well.
Jimmy
Wow. Those are interesting pajamas. That's right. Don't do that. Lynne, what do you want to know?
Lynne
Hi, I'm new to a committee in our building and I understand all committee members must have mandatory training. I'm wondering who checks that committees have done the training?
Jimmy
Okay. First of all, this does not come in until October this year. So you've got a few months to go to find out.
There are various options. Everybody thinks that the Fair Trading should do the training. In fact, Amanda Farmer, who is an eminent Strata person, Strata lawyer, did a survey of her people and they came back and said, basically, they think either the government or the Strata scheme should pay for the training.
And most people thought that the training should be some sort of online thing.
James
So, and who checks?
Jimmy
Nobody will check. Yeah. I can guarantee this.
James
But this is, it hasn't come in yet and we don't know what the training is yet, right?
Jimmy
That's correct.
James
And so what might happen in October is I'll go, okay, it's now official. Yeah. We'll get back to you with what the training is.
Jimmy
Something like that.
James
Or do you think on October 1, they'll be saying this will be the training? Here's the website.
Jimmy
And the website will say, here are the people who will provide training. Here are the people who, here's a website where you can do like you do for your driving test, just get a few basic things. Some people think that there should be for office bearers a much higher level of training.
James
Wouldn't there be, would there be something in, if at some point it was shown that all members are all office bearers hadn't done the training, you know, the minutes are null and void or something like that, or is there that sort of thing?
Jimmy
They're very reluctant to do that kind of thing. But they will say, look, if you haven't done the training and this is required training and you are an office bearer, you have to step down.
James
Yeah. But as you say, if no one's checking. Well, yeah.
Jimmy
But you might find, well, how do you check? I mean, it's one of these things that they try to encourage people to do the right thing by telling them what the right thing is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
James
Yeah, there'll be a squad breaking into annual general meeting. Yes, okay. Right.
We're your treasurer, up against the wall.
Jimmy
Here are five questions and you get three wrong, you're out. Lynne, does it worry you, the training, or do you think it's a good idea?
Lynne
No, it doesn't worry me, but I've sort of tried to get myself up to speed with what is expected. And the legislation I understood was passed in February this year.
Jimmy
It was.
Lynne
And it states that it is mandatory.
Jimmy
Yes.
Lynne
Which means you must do it.
Jimmy
Yes.
Lynne
And I sort of saw on, is it FCA, Strata Communities Association, on their website, they're offering training online.
Jimmy
Right. Right. They used to.
I didn't know they'd reactivated that. They used to do it. But their training is-
Lynne
That's what made me think you had to do it now. You know, because they're being offered.
Jimmy
No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, maybe they want, it's there for people who want to get ahead of the game. Which makes sense.
James
It's also, why not do a course? We'll tell you what you need to know. Yeah.
Jimmy
I mean, you need to know this now as well as after October.
James
That's right. It's a good idea to have educated yourself on what's required. Lynn, all the best. And thanks so much. Good on you for being on the committee. Big round of applause for anybody on the committee. Bravo.
Harry. Welcome to Flat Chat with Jimmy Thomson. What do you want to know?
Harry
Yeah. I wanted to find out, like, the Strata in those high-rise buildings are so high because they've got elevators that got to be repaired quite often. They've got pools.
They got gyms. They got all these things. And you're paying like $2,200.
It's a big hole in your pocket. And then on top of that, you got costs like council rates, which is like $400 a quarter. Whereas at my house, I'm paying $500 a quarter for a whole house.
But there's 500 units in my daughter's apartment, and they're paying $400 a quarter for council rates, which is a ripoff.
James
Henry, is your house got a pool? No. Is your house got a gym?
Harry
No, but it's 400 square meters. I can put all that stuff in, and I'm not going to— I know.
James
But my point, Harry, is, you know, if you had a pool and a gym, it'd be costing you $2,000 a quarter.
Harry
But that's too high because you got all these—you got—they're building all these high-rise buildings, and on top of that, you got these fire levies, which are hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to do a fire, to come and change the batteries in every single unit, to check that the lights are on.
James
These guys are— And so, Harry, I'm not quite following you. Are you saying—because, frankly, $2,200 a quarter doesn't sound too bad for me for gyms and pools. But are you saying you think overall there's some sort of ripoff going on here?
Harry
It's a big ripoff because you're—there's a big hole—the kids are buying a unit for $708 to $1 million, but then on top of that, they got this big hole in their pocket for the rest of their lives to pay these strata levies. Like, my insurance on my house is $1,000, but the insurance on all these things—the pool, the gym, the building, the car park, the elevators, all these—the fire levy, all these costs—
Jimmy
Can I just jump in?
James
Can I just—I get your sort of point. Again, I'd say if you're insuring your whole house for $1,000, that sounds very cheap. Well done.
But also, the other thing I often say to people with strata is, have you painted a house recently? You know, it's going to cost you $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 when you go to paint a house. It's pretty much the same, is my sort of view.
But Jimmy?
Jimmy
I was going to say, I think there are ripoffs in strata, especially in new buildings. I think the things like embedded networks where the people who've bought the apartment find out that they're actually paying for stuff that developers should have paid for.
But having said that, all the figures are there for anyone who is about to buy an apartment. All the figures are there. They will get a very good idea of how much they have to pay.
James
You go in with your eyes open.
Jimmy
Yeah, exactly. It's all there.
James
And often, you know, it's—I don't find it that much. You know, I've owned houses. I own an apartment. The house cost me $20,000 a year in maintenance and this, that, and the other. So, you know, by the time it's—I haven't found it a lot different. But Harry, thank you for—it's a very good rant, Harry. We do that often on Monday. So, yeah, call back. We'd love to get you on then.
Gordon, what did you want to bring up?
Gordon
Oh, g'day, James. Hi, Jimmy.
Just going back to your balconies and the balcony design, we had—oh, we've got a mid-70s apartment block of 24. And we had six months to get our balcony balustrades up to compliance, up to code, because they were way too low. So, we all had to come up with $35,000 in six months because our insurance company wouldn't renew our policy unless the building was up to code.
So, we're kind of—
Jimmy
Can I ask how you brought it up to height?
Gordon
We—how we brought it up to height? We had to get a completely new balustrade, like a completely redesigned balustrade, because it had horizontal planks, which meant kids could climb up and fall over. And when you stood there, it was pretty low. It came up to your waist.
Jimmy
That's—yeah.
But we had three choices in that new—excuse me—the new design, regardless of the aesthetic to the building. And that was a glass balustrade, a bar balustrade, you know, just your open kind of like prison bar bars, and kind of a horizontal aluminium with a gap of only about a centimetre in between each horizontal, and then a whole hob. And basically, they rebuilt our balconies.
But we had to come up—but we were told that the New South Wales government is going through all old apartment blocks and trying to get everybody up to code as—in relation to the balustrade height.
Jimmy
I'm not sure about that. I mean, that sounds like one of these scare stories that goes around every so often. It's going to be your council. It's going to be your local council. They are in charge of development applications and approvals and things like that.
And what happens is when somebody in your building wants to make a significant change in a renovation, then the council will come in and say, ah, by the way, your balconies are not up to code. And that's when that tends to happen. It may well be that the state government does want everybody's buildings to be up to code.
But I tell you what, they've got a bigger problem with fire. With buildings not being up to fire code.
James
Well, that's what—there's fire code, there's window code, there's balcony code.
Jimmy
And that was my understanding as well.
James
There's not a team of inspectors going around every building, right?
Jimmy
No, they can't do that. I mean, they don't have the time or the money to do that. But if for some reason they turn up in your building, they may all go, oh, I'm sorry. And does that mean that the person that applied for the DA can't get the DA?
James
Like, you can't. You can't. Yeah, that's true.
Jimmy
They can't approve a DA on a building that's not up to code.
James
Yeah. That sort of thing.
Jimmy
That kind of thing. But that causes a certain amount of friction within the building because you get everybody else in the building who's suddenly having to spend 35k on their balcony going, did you really need that sunroom? Yeah, that's right.
Gordon, thanks for that. And thanks for raising that. Jimmy Thomson's with us.
We're talking Strata. So if you've got questions, comments, things you're trying to understand, just call us on 1300 222 702. Hello, Sue.
Sue
Oh, hi. I live in a city apartment building that has a car lift. And I live on the floor—
James
Just explain what that is for those of us who haven't encountered that.
What is it? So you drive into one floor and then there are parking spots on that level, which is where I live, and everyone else's parking spots, they drive their car into a large vehicle lift and they get moved down into their level of parking inside their car, inside the lift. Yeah, right.
Okay. So it takes—and then they get in a lift, a person lift to get out of there, right? And then they get a person lift to get out to their apartment.
I suppose it's not a bad way. It stays having all the roads going down and the driveways and things.
Jimmy
You haven't heard the whole story yet, James.
James
I'm just getting a picture of it. I'm guessing where this is going. Go on, Sue.
Sue
I'm on the fortunate floor where you drive in, so I don't use the car lift. But it's very frustrating because every workman who comes in to either do work for the body corporate or for individual apartment park on the floor where my parking spot is.
So I often get home and find that access to my parking spot is impinged by large workman's trucks that are just parked on the common property or, you know, these huge trucks in a car parking space.
So they're massively overhanging it and it's quite tight. So it's impossible to get to your spot. I'm wondering, can the body corporate just let people park on common property or is there some restriction that you have to park within designated parking areas, spots within the common property?
Jimmy
Basically, most buildings will have a bylaw saying that you cannot park on common property without the written permission of the committee or the owner's corporation, which is represented by the committee.
So what your first problem would be or your first point of contact would be go back to the committee and say, can you do something about these tradesman's vehicles being parked on common property, designate an area or tell them that they must not park, and then that can be passed on to the owners because it's not the committee who are bringing a lot of the tradies in. It will be individual owners and it will be up to the owners to make sure that they are not parked in the wrong place.
Now, there are other bits of strata law that say if you bring someone into the building as a visitor, you are responsible for their behavior. So it can be part of the agreement to allow, let's say in a renovation, which is when you're going to get trucks in there for a long time, that they say one of the conditions of allowing this renovation is that you do not allow your tradespeople to block other people's cars.
Sue, has the car lift broken down at any point?
Sue
The car lift has broken down, and in fact, that's very frustrating for those of us.
James
So the car lift will be broken down, then the tradie who's fixing it parks in your car spot.
I mean, that's just a nightmare for everyone.
Sue
The car lift breaking down has two sides to it because there's people whose cars are locked in, and there's people whose cars are locked out.
James
Yes, yes, yes. Was that when you said you haven't heard the end of the story?
Jimmy
Yes, exactly.
James
That's right. Sounds like a good idea. Just got to work all the time.
Sue, thanks for that interesting aspect. Digby? Hello. Yeah, what do you want to bring up?
Digby
We live in a community estate, and I'd like to know if the committee estate has a finite lifespan to it, or do we have to endure it for the rest of our lives?
Jimmy
Well, I would say, look, the lifespan is until the vast majority and a super majority of people in the building decide that they don't want it, and they want to have a different system. Obviously, you're finding some frustrations with your community system there.
James
Can you clarify what a community estate is, Digby?
Digby
So there was a new estate put in. There's about 150 home building lots. So we all have our own individual homes, but they created a community estate as part of the agreement between the local council and the developer.
And so the community estate looks after all common property areas like you would in a high-rise building, except we live on a building block.
James
But is it strata?
Jimmy
It's a version of strata title, community title. And it's often so that they can put another building, another apartment block in an area, and they share things like driveways and water services and things like that. So there has to be something that works for everybody in the existing buildings and the new buildings.
But there does create conflict when basically the new buildings outvote the old buildings, for instance. Right, right. But, Digby, so you're looking to find out, can you change these things? Could you withdraw from the community estate?
Digby
Yeah, or can the arrangement be ended at some period in time?
Jimmy
I think I'm guessing here, and you would have to talk to a lawyer, a strata lawyer, but I'm guessing you can probably do it at some point, but it would not be easy and probably wouldn't be economical either. Yeah. Digby, interesting question.
Thanks for raising it. We're going to go straight pretty much to the news for the interest rates when that's ready. Just a quick one.
Listener
Our 28-year-old son is about to settle on an apartment. He'll have no interest in going to strata meetings, neither should he. Can we attend on his behalf?
Jimmy
Yes. Oh, so you can nominate someone? For a strata committee, no, but for the AGM or general meetings, he can nominate them as a proxy.
Listener
Right.
Jimmy
And they can go there and they can vote and they can speak.
Listener
Right, okay.
Thank you for that. Mr Thomson, thank you so much.
Jimmy
Thank you. It's flown past.
James
As always, because it's so fascinating. It's so riveting.
Jimmy
I can hear the sound of people ripping down their bamboo.
James
Exactly. Jimmy Thomson, you're looking for flatchat.com.au if you want to see lots of Jimmy's work on this area.
Sue Williams
Well, that was interesting. I don't think I could live in a building with a car lift. I think I'd rather not have a car.
Jimmy and I will be back as usual next week, and you can hear him on the ABC with James on Tuesday afternoon, June the 3rd at 2pm. Why not send them a text on 0467 922 702 or call on 1300 222 702 and ask a curly question of your own. Put Jimmy in his place.
Thanks for listening. Bye.
Jimmy
Thanks for listening to the Flat Chat Wrap podcast. You'll find links to the stories and other references on our website, flatchat.com.au. If you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to this podcast completely free on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcatcher. Just search for Flat Chat Wrap with a W, click on subscribe, and you'll get this podcast every week without even trying.
Thanks again. Talk to you again next week.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.