Podcast: Trouble with the Hub is TLI – too little info

Are you feeling under-exposed and ill-informed?  That may be because the much-vaunted NSW strata data Hub doesn’t tell anyone who doesn’t already know stuff very much about your apartment blocks at all.

We take a look at the information available on the Hub to non-residents (not much) and residents (not much more) and what’s in the “coming soon” section (ditto).

Which prompts the question – if having strata information on the Hub is a good idea, why isn’t there more of it.  What’s so sensitive about some of the info we aren’t getting? Shouldn’t there be an option to provide greater detail, if the strata scheme wants to?

Sometimes in life, less is more – but, usually, less is just less.

---

LISTEN HERE

---

Also this week we dig down into the Building and Design Practitioners Act (whoo-hoo!) to explore why simple renovation jobs are suddenly costing two or three times the original asking price.

And we ask why you have to be an expert data miner, digging through layer after layer of building laws, to discover the genesis of the word “exempt” beyond the tail-chasing, tautological, circular meanings you first encounter.

And for those of you who are not in NSW, we are spreading our wings and bringing in a strata expert from interstate.

Also, we take a moment to wonder how many ways our artificial intelligence transcription service can get the words “Flat Chat Wrap” completely wrong. All that and more in this week’s podcast. Enjoy!

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast (or reading the transcript), please share it with your friends using the social media buttons on this page.

TRANSCRIPT IN FULL

Jimmy  00:00

Well after last week’s marathon flood chat wrap [I left this in deliberately – JT], we’re going to go for a slightly shorter version this week, partly because you’re heading off to the UK.

Sue  00:10

Yes, that’s right. Yes, I leave tomorrow.

Jimmy  00:13

I was just telling somebody about the transcription service we use for these podcasts, Otter AI, which is really good. Except it’s completely incapable of getting the words Flat Chat Wrap. It gives us, flat check rip,  flat pack rope. But by the time we have tidied it all up, of course it appears as it should.

Sue  00:44

Yeah, fabulous Rafa, what would we do without her? (Well, this, is the answer. She’s still on a well-earned break so the transcript could make a lot less sense this week).

Jimmy  00:48

Indeed. Now today, we’re going to talk about what is on the New South Wales strata hub information website thing, and what isn’t? We’re going to talk about problems with the design and building practitioners act. And we’re going to briefly mention a new correspondent coming on to the Flat Chat website. He’s from Queensland, which is really exciting.

Sue  01:12

Fantastic.

Jimmy  01:13

All right, well, we’d better get on with it. I’m Jimmy Thomson, I write the flight check (sic) column for the Australian Financial Review.

Sue  01:20

And I’m Sue Williams and I write about property for Domain.

Jimmy  01:23

And this is the flat chat wrap.

[MUSIC]

Jimmy

Sue, you suggested that I should have called us the flight route check and see what Otter did with it.

Sue  01:48

Anyway, maybe it’s your accent, maybe that’s what the AI can’t understand.

Jimmy  01:52

They gotta get used to it. And there must be other Scottish people, other Scottish Australians using Otter. But it is really good. Okay, the data hub, the big information portal for strata owners and residents in New South Wales came in with a big fanfare. And not a little controversy about what it’s got on it, but mostly about what it doesn’t have on it. So Sue, what would a person who is not an owner in a strata find if they went looking for information on the strata hub?

Sue  02:26

Yep, let’s see the number of lots in a Strata community and the date the strata scheme was registered. So maybe so they’d be able to know whether it was a new building or whether it was on board or whether it was out of warranty.  And a map showing where the building is. And coming soon, they’ll have access to the date of the last AGM. Yeah, and also the number of storeys above ground for apartment buildings. And whether it’s residential, commercial, or maybe retirement or over 50s scheme. And if the strata scheme is part of a larger community or precinct scheme, all right, like something like Jackson’s landing, where there’s lots and lots of buildings, all in one strata scheme. And if you’re a non resident of the strata scheme? And by the way, I did a check for our building. And it’s listed as having 170 Lots. So it’s obviously including the carpark so that’s totally misleading. Yeah. I mean, so there’s a fix, you could put in straight away? Yes, Minister Dominello. If you’re listening, divide it up into apartments and car parks and storage lots or residential and non residential lots so that people know oh, I’ve actually I don’t have 170 neighbours, I’ve only got 130. Yeah, or if you’re in a small boutique building, and, you know, it’s kind of quite rich, and there’s four car parks to each apartment. You know, that’s very misleading.  You know, it’ll tell you what is misleading. Where its significance is, if you’ve got a building, let’s say with 90 apartments, and 30 parking lots that goes over the 100 limit. Is that a big building? So you know, if it’s down is 120. Lots, and it’s actually not a big building, because there’s a different set of strata laws for big buildings and smaller buildings. So there’s the first flaw right away, get the number of lots, right, please. Now, what is available to residents or owners in the building but that is not available to the general public? Yep, they’ll have an email address for the secretary and chairperson and contacts for the strata manager and building manager, if there is a building manager, and also things like the date of issue for the latest annual fire safety statement, right. And whether the strata scheme has formed a strata renewal committee…

Jimmy  04:44

That’s for if they’re going to sell the thing to the developer

Sue  04:48

And the date it was established if they did, yeah, right.

Jimmy  04:50

But that information would not be available to your average person who’s just sniffing around the internet looking for a bit more information.

Sue  05:00

Which is curious, isn’t it really, because if you were thinking of buying an apartment in a building, you’d kind of look at the strata hub for some basic information. And you kind of want to know about the fire safety statement, because, you know, if if a building didn’t have the up to date, fire safety staff, if there was going to be a big new renewal coming up, you’d want to know, because there might be a special levy in the offing. I know that the strata managers fought this tooth and nail to prevent the name of the strata manager coming up on the general information, the open part of the hub. I think that’s so important. Just in extreme terms, if you’re in a building, and there’s a building nearby, where there’s a lot of noise coming from that building, and the people in the building are not paying attention to that not doing anything about it. Who do you complain to? You know, you can’t get the Secretary’s address, you can’t get the chair’s address or the email address. Fair enough. That’s a privacy issue possibly, you’re not going to get anywhere by putting a letter in the body corporate letterbox, which is always stuffed full of pizza adverts anyway. And so you go, well, who’s the strata manager, and we were trying to find out the strata manager of a big building in Woolloomooloo the other day could find no trace, we’re actually having to go through strata managers, and say, Are you the strata manager for this building? It’s ridiculous. And the strata managers, apparently don’t want to be listed on the hub, because they worry about other strata managers, saying, Oh, this, this is a building that we don’t manage. And these are our rivals. So we’re going to go in there and pitch for their business.  That’s crazy.

Jimmy  06:48

Well, it’s pathetic. I mean,  if you don’t trust your own management service, well, you’re in the wrong business, really.

Sue  06:55

And also, we’ve had things in the past where neighbouring buildings have noticed cracking in other buildings, and they’ve wanted to get in touch with the strata manager to let them know, just in case they didn’t know … you know, they might have a particular view of a building that people within the building don’t really have. And if they’re successful, they get in touch with the strata manager, the strata manager tells the SC , and they can do something about it.  But otherwise, it’s really hard. Yeah, you know, you’re leafleting, people in their letter boxes. And if they’re not looking at what you’re saying, and, you know, a lot of people don’t want junk mail. And they might think it’s just junk mail.  And a lot of them are tenants, and they don’t really want to get involved anyway. Sure. So it’s very difficult. You kind of think there’s no real really good argument for not putting a strata managers email address on the hub. Yep. Just to say “this building is managed by this strata manager”. What is the problem with that? The strata managers say, well, we work to the rule, you know, the, the instructions of the committee.  But they also have a responsibility as public officers. So yeah, I think it’s pathetic. The other thing, this is currently this has come up because it’s being discussed on the flat chat forum. Things that could be on there. I mean, I think the name of the strata manager available to everybody should be on there. Things that could be on there. Things like, Do you have a pet bylaw? Yeah, that would be really handy, wouldn’t it? Yeah. As for new people coming in, or even existing residents, people thinking of buying in a building? You know? So you know, all it has to say is tick a box. Do you have a restrictive pets by law or an open pets by law? Everybody will have a pet by law?  I would think they should, I suppose. Yeah.

Jimmy  08:43

And the other thing, and this is very specific to New South Wales, is, do you have a short term letting bylaw? Do you restrict short term letting?

Sue  08:55

That’s something that a lot of people might be looking for … a building that they could move into and run short term let’s or looking for a building that doesn’t, or that restricts short term let So you sayso I could let out my apartment. I could get somebody to come in and have the second bedroom or something.

Jimmy  09:09

There’s no building in New South Wales that doesn’t have short term letting because because of the way that the law is structured, but it some of it is quite restricted. You’re looking at me, you’ve given me a look of surprise. Obviously, with me saying there is no building that doesn’t have short term letting. Well, I’m sure there are buildings in New South Wales where all of the owners have decided individually that they’re never going to let their apartments on Airbnb or stays or whatever. But the way the law stands at the moment, you can bring in a bylaw to say that we don’t want short term lighting in our building in Greater Sydney. Only in Greater Sydney and it does not apply to full time residents.  Yu can still do that. But also, you can go away for six months and put your apartment on Airbnb, even if there’s a bylaw that says we do not want Airbnb (and I say Airbnb as a generic term). We do not want short term letting in our building, but that does not apply to people who live in the building. So you can, and I’ve had this argument with New South Wales Fair Trading, who didn’t understand how I could possibly have any objection to this. And I said, so somebody could spend four nights a week in their apartment and move out at the weekend and give it over to Short Term Letting. I shouldn’t be saying this, because I’ll be putting ideas in people’s heads. And then say, well, look, I’m here for four out of seven nights. So that is obviously my principal place of residence. So I can let it out for the other three nights and Fair Trading said, yeah, what’s your problem? And the other thing is that you could go and do your world tour that you’ve been planning, and finance it by having people coming in living in your apartment while you’re gone. Yep, that’s what I’m doing. I’m off. When  you’re in the UK, I’m gonna put the apartment on Airbnb. No, I’m not honest. I’m not. But you know, that’s a huge hole. But even then, it would be good for people who are just checking out apartment blocks to go, “alright, so this, this apartment block has a restrictive Airbnb or short term letting bylaw.”

Sue  11:31

Yep. No, I think you’re right. I think that would be great to put on as well,

Jimmy  11:36

Just as a general principle, if you are collecting information, I’m talking to Fair Trading here and the Customer Services Department of New South Wales Government, if you are collecting information for people’s benefit for the residents benefit for for your community’s benefit? Isn’t it a good idea to make it available to them? I mean, I do get the thing about chairs and secretaries not wanting to have their personal information or contact details available.

Sue  12:11

Yeah. But it is pretty easy to set up a generic email address for the building. Isn’t it really?

Jimmy  12:16

Absolutely.

Sue  12:17

Someone you know if someone can look at it every, or every day, or every week or something and just check and see if there’s been any emails for the building? Yes, I think that would be pretty easy to

Jimmy  12:29

I don’t like to get emails from, let’s say, a secretary or the treasurer that just have the person’s name as their email address. I don’t want that. If I’m getting an email from the committee. I want it to come from the committee. I don’t want it to come from Barry or Mary or whatever. Because I know, immediately, I can put it straight into the junk folder if it doesn’t have a name on it. Haha, that was a joke.  So I think the there’s a lot of things that could be on the hub. Maybe the government could facilitate as an experiment, allowing strata schemes to put more information on the hub if they wanted to.

Sue  13:14

Yeah, that’s a good idea. Because good buildings would want to put more information up there because it makes them look more attractive, because they’re well-run, and see what’s going on, would be great to go on the hub.

Jimmy  13:25

And it says we’ve got X number of lots, and some of them are carparks. And, you know, we’ve got X number of floors above the ground. Well, great. That’s good to know, but should have something that says, oh, and we actively pursue complaints about noise. And we have a garden regeneration programme under underway, which is going to improve the look of the area around the building. And you go, oh that’s interesting … that’s the kind of thing that makes you think, I really want to know more about this building. And it makes you think these people have actually got their shit together.

Sue  14:02

Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

Jimmy  14:04

All right. Moving on, when we come back, we’re going to talk about the design and building practitioners act. That’s after this.

[MUSIC]

Jimmy 14:18

I was gonna do something very cruel there and say to Sue, could you just explain the design and building practitioners Act to our listeners.  This is a law that was brought in as part of the whole suite of law changes brought in by or for David Chandler, the New South Wales building Commissioner. And basically what it says is, if you have significant work done in your building, you got to get it signed off by a qualified person.  But it’s causing a lot of problems. Well, let’s look at the problems that it’s solving.  First of all, it simply means that the work is going to be up to scratch when it’s done. Or at the very least, there’s somebody who’s taking responsibility for it. Where, you know, if you get especially in a small building and somebody says, Oh, we need to fix the balustrade on the stair there, and and somebody on the committee says, my uncle Tony is really good with balustrades. He’s got drills and everything. 

Sue

Yeah, yeah, I think you’re right, that’s gonna be cheap. And let’s get it done. And then it will be fixed. And it won’t be a problem

Jimmy  15:22

. So you know, that’s an extreme situation. But David Chandler himself has said, there’s a lot of old buildings around that have had work done on them. And some of the work has been done to a very high professional standard. And some of it hasn’t. And some of the work that hasn’t been done to professional standard has been done by non professional people. So it’s very difficult to go back and say, that job wasn’t done properly, get that person back again, to do it again, or do it right or get someone else. And the problem is, well, there’s two problems. One is that there’s a shortage of qualified people. And we’ve had complaints on the forum of people saying, We’ve got this, this guy is a really good is a qualified builder. He’s got all these insurances and things, and he wants to do this job and we want to do the job, he doesn’t have the right certification. And we’re gonna have to find somebody who does just to come in and approve the work that he’s already planning to do, which not only is a time constraint is an extra expense. You know, this isn’t provided by the government, you got to go and find an expert or consultant and pay them. And in some cases, it’s it’s doubling the cost of the job.

Sue  16:44

That’s difficult. But is there any way around that really, I mean, you’ve got to make sure the work is done properly, and you’ve got to make sure it’s certified. Maybe it’s just the cost you have to wear really?

Jimmy  16:54

Well, there’s an interesting discussion on the Flat Chat Forum at the moment about all this, and somebody got a letter from some government department that’s actually relevant to this, saying, oh, anything under $5,000 of work is exempt. Oh, okay. That’s pretty good. That’s pretty good.

Sue  17:14

And then they said, Well, where does it say?

Jimmy  17:17

Where does it say this? And look,  I was digging through it on the weekend. And I’m pretty good at tracking these things down. Somebody on the website has discovered the Act. So basically, there’s a there’s a Building Control Act, I can’t remember what it’s called, you’ll you’ll find it on the Forum. If you go and have a look, it says that work, domestic work under $5,000 is exempt, right? And that word “exempt” is the one you have to track all the way through the different acts and the different policies and things so that when you find something that says “you don’t need this for exempt work,” which is kinda like, isn’t that a tautology, anyway? It’s not because the word exempt defines is defined way back in another piece of the law.

Sue  18:08

That’scrazy. Yeah, person who drafted it, then?

Jimmy  18:10

Well, you know, it would have been nice if the person who said “exempt” and put in brackets, alsio said here’s a link to the definition of exempt. Because you look at these definitions, and it says, an “exempt work is work that is exempt”, kinda. It’s not quite as bad as that. But it’s almost. , I think the government doesn’t really want us digging through the various acts and laws and things and making our own interpretations of what the law is because that’s a dangerous thing. Actually, I got to tell this little story. Somebody wrote to me the other day and complained about their strata manager, having given them legal advice that was inaccurate. And they took that to another lawyer and the lawyer said, yeah, that they shouldn’t be giving legal advice, because that’s against the law. And you could get fined and spend time in prison or whatever. And then the person said, so what’s your advice on this? (SMALL VOICE) I don’t have any advice. I don’t know a lawyer. I’m not a lawyer. And I’ve actually added a thing to the bottom of the website saying, This is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, talk to a lawyer, which had been there for years and years and had dropped off at one point. It’s back on. All right.  Now, before we go, I think this is quite exciting news. We kind of deal with stuff from Queensland. It’s a very different world up there. It’s the body corporate thing. It’s different systems. Some of it’s very similar. Some of it is similar enough to make it confusing when you find things that are not the same. So as of the next week or so, we’re going to have a gentleman called Chris irons, who used to be the body corporate commissioner in Queensland. Yeah, he’s a very experienced lawyer, he’s a great communicator. And he has his own consultancy called Strata Solve. So you can go to them. And what he tries to do, he says, is to resolve issues before they happen. So that people like owners and body corporates can go to him and say, look, we’ve got this issue coming up, and it’s gonna cause a huge fight, and he will sit everybody down and tell them what the law is, and tell them tactically how they should approach this. So we’ll be hearing from Chris soon. I’m hoping to get him on a podcast sometime soon. And I think that’s quite exciting, because we’ve always kind of nibbling around the edges of Queensland, and there’s a lot going on there.

Sue  20:56

Fantastic. That’s great. I mean, so many Sydneysiders are moving to Queensland now. Yeah, I was just doing a story the other day for Domain about the numbers of people who have now moved to the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast really, as a result, the move was already happening, but it’s been accelerated by the pandemic, right. And it’s still continuing even after, hopefully most of the pandemic has gone was because …

Jimmy  21:18

the infrastructure for working from home or working remotely, has improved, dramatically because for years and years and years, industries were resisting it because they don’t they think if they can’t see you working, then you’re not working.

Sue  21:33

And also, there’s a lot more jobs in the regions now. And people just kind of looked at their lifestyle during the pandemic and think, Well, you know, maybe I’ll act now and go and live near a beach.

Jimmy  21:44

working in your pyjamas is underrated. I mean, obviously, folks, we’re not in our pyjamas right now, Sue is in a business suit and I’m wearing my kilt. Okay, thanks very much for listening. And thanks, Sue, for coming along in the middle of packing for your big adventure overseas.

Sue  22:08

I’ll be packing an hour before I leave, I’m sure.

Jimmy  22:11

And I for one we might get get a chat with Sue when she gets to the UK and gets a handle on what’s happening in apartment living there. I just got the death stare. You’ll certainly be hearing from me soon. Thanks again for listening and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.