Podcast: Political pleas and battle for the soul of Bondi

It’s a longer than usual podcast this week so strap yourselves in. Firstly we look at the Owners Corporation Network’s (OCN) 10-point manifesto which they have announced leading up to next year’s NSW state election.

It’s part wish-list and part statement of intent and you can read it in detail here. What we discuss is why those demands are there and what it might mean if they are taken up by the next state government (whoever that might be).

Then we dive into the foaming waters of Bondi Beach where, according to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald, locals are concerned that it’s losing its egalitarian charm and in danger of becoming another Yuppified concrete and glass suburb.

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LISTEN HERE

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Meanwhile in another yarn, the local Waverley council has, somewhat typically, said that developers should consider the spiritual, cultural and historical and climate aspects of the neighbourhood before they start throwing up (pun intended) cheap and cheerless unit blocks.

Developers, in the form of the Urban Taskforce, have equally predictably said life is hard enough without adding more obstacles to their business.

Here at the Flat Chat Wrap have a solution which only requires some compromise and lateral thinking – so it is pretty much guaranteed never to get off the ground.

In any case, don’t say it out loud, but the biggest threat to Bondi is Airbnb and it’s ilk. Just wait till those A380s are back in the air again and the area once again has more baristas than barristers, and you’ll know all about it.

And finally, we have built an extension to the podcast, in the form of the third and last part of David Bannerman’s Lawyer in the Hotseat webinar.

That all adds up to an hour of chat, so pace yourselves. But remember the football World Cup is only a week away so some time management may be required.

Before you go, in the next week or so we will be experimenting with ads at the beginning and end of each podcast (but not in the middle). 

The podcast takes up a lot of time to record, edit and transcribe so if we can get a little financial assistance with that, it would be great.

However, if you hate the ads and they make you want to turn off the pod, please let us know and we can decide if it’s worth the hassle.

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TRANSCRIPT IN FULL

NB: This is a combination of two transcripts so the timings for the latter section – Part 3 of the Lawyer in the Hotseat webinar – will be off in terms of the audio. If you want to locate a specific section of audio, take about 25 minutes off the listed timing in that section and you’ll be close to the mark.

Jimmy  00:00

I was on a panel at the SCA New South Wales owners day.

Sue  00:06

Oh, that’s the strata Community Association.

Jimmy  00:07

Yeah

Sue  00:08

Which is the strata managers thing.

Jimmy  00:10

Yep. And it’s our first time in ages have been at one of their events and, and certainly the first time I’ve participated in an owner’s section, because for a while they were making fairly aggressive efforts to recruit people who should have been joining OCN. And in fact they were publicising themselves as being the voice of owners in strata,

Sue  00:38

okay. And that’s kind of a bit hard, isn’t it? Because they’re actually the voice of strata manager?   So it’s okay for them to have an owner’s chapter, isn’t it.

Jimmy  00:48

Advising owners and stuff and education and stuff like that? But as I, as I said, many, many, many times, if you’re in a dispute between a strata manager and an owner, and you go to the strata managers organisation, who are they going to support? And if you’re a strata manager, it’s part of that organisation, and they support the strata owner, you’re going to be a bit miffed.

Sue  01:10

For sure.

Jimmy  01:12

So anyway, I went to this thing, and I don’t want to criticise them because they, you know, there was about 60 or 70 people there.

Sue  01:19

And the turnout because it was in the afternoon wasn’t it wasn’t an evening thing.

Jimmy  01:22

  But they did it in Macquarie Bank, and they laid on this lavish lunch for everybody all this fantastic food.   we looked really good. Not that I partook. But I was on a panel with Steven Brell, who’s the president of the New South Wales chapter of SCA. And Joseph Bannerman, our good friend David Bannerman ‘s brother, who’s also a lawyer. And, you know, I felt really awkward sitting up there in one of these high stools. And like, I thought I was going to need help to get down. But, and they started with the best intentions, you know, and the asked us for questions that we could put, and although the first question was kind of like, how good are we? Because they’ve got this new code of conduct? And that was a question they asked me, but there were a couple of women in the front row, who just wanted to talk about the problem with their strata scheme.

Sue  02:22

That’s always a difficulty, isn’t it with those kinds of meetings, but I know we’ve had OCN meetings in the past where you’ve had somebody do exactly the same thing as well. And you, you really need to have a very firm moderator in there to sort of absolutely director discussion and say, Okay, let’s, let’s turn this into a much more general discussion about your issue.

Jimmy  02:42

And to Steven Brell’s credit, he said, let’s move on, and come and talk to me. After the meeting. I will be around. And let’s talk over here, he said, and I’ll see what I can do to help. But they just kept coming back to the same thing.

Sue  02:58

Did you have a moderator as well?

Jimmy  03:00

We did. The Moderator was a really nice guy. I can’t remember his name I met him several times before is probably if he’s listening, he’s probably deeply offended already. And gave a terrific welcome. And everything was fine. I think I kind of threw things off kilter a bit right at the beginning, because he asked Joseph Bannerman a question but before he could go on to the next question that he had planned, I said, “Can I ask a question here? And ask for a clarification on a point.” And I think at that point, it all started to go …

Sue  03:27

So it was your fault. Really?

Jimmy  03:30

  Right. There were hands raised in the audience immediately. And, and I mean, I sat there listening to Stephen and listen to Joseph. They’re the experts, you know. And I thought, you know, I can contribute the owners’ point of view, kind of thing. I think it’s the longest I’ve ever been silent in public.

Sue  03:51

That would’ve been fun to watch.

Jimmy  03:53

Yes, absolutely. I’m sure you would have appreciated it. Anyway, talking about non silence in public. Today, we’re going to talk about the OCN, the owners Corporation Network’s manifesto for the next election that they’ve issued. And I think they’ve ever done that before.

Sue

Have they not, this is new? Great.

Jimmy

And we’re going to talk about the growing stoush in Waverly about building apartments and the battle between the NIMBYs and the developers and the people who just want to visit there and relax and enjoy all the cafes and restaurants and the people who live there.

Sue

And the people who live there. Yes.

Jimmy

And we will have the final part of the lawyer in the hot seat webinar that we’ve been running for the past couple of weeks with Strata lawyer David Bannerman. I’m Jimmy Thomson, I write the flat check column for the Australian Financial Review.

Sue  04:52

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

Jimmy  04:55

And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.

[MUSIC]

Jimmy

So the OCN has finally decided it needs or wants to be a political force.

Sue  05:16

Well, I guess that’s the only way to make headway, isn’t it, really?

Jimmy  05:20

Yes. And I think in my newsletter preamble, the other day, I referred back to the time that I was asked to be the figurehead of the strata party briefly, but you know that there was an opportunity, then it probably still exists now. For them to get preferences. You know, the, if the shooters and fishers who aren’t I don’t know if there’s a million shooters and fishers in New South Wales, but there’s certainly a million strata residents. If the shooters and fishers can have a couple of people in Parliament, then surely, strata residents could have somebody as well.

Sue  05:56

  although there are some MPs who actually are strata residents and speak out in favour of strata. But they have a much bigger agenda.,

Jimmy  06:04

 it’s that single focus thing. I mean, it’s not like the shooters and fishers don’t get involved in anything else they do with their unique perspective on life … and death. So let’s run through the manifesto. I’m calling it the manifesto; OCN isn’t, but they’re saying the first thing they want is the government to appoint a senior minister to look after strata. And I think after the debacle of the last Fair Trading minister, has always been a thing with Fair Trading, that they’ve put Junior ministers in their training wheel ministries and hoped that they would find their feet and work effectively. And we’ve been spoiled, really, because we had Victor Dominello with Anthony Roberts, who brought in the strata law changes. We had Victor Dominello. We had Matt Kean. We had Kevin Anderson, and there was a couple –  Stuart Ayres and Matthew Mason Cox. Well, they had briefly, but so they’re the exceptions. But you know, those four names. In the Liberal Coalition side, they were pretty effective. They got stuff done. It was Kevin Anderson that got David Chandler recruited.

Sue  07:27

Yes,   So you’re saying that we don’t need a senior minister?

Jimmy  07:32

No, I’m saying we do. I think the Eleni Petinaos situation shows that you cannot just throw this at somebody and expect them to hit the ground running. And it’s quite clear, I think, from the way that went down. I don’t think she had been following the development and strata. Like, you know, when she’s telling the building commissioner to go and meet developers that who he’s put stop work orders on,  you think that’s not? That’s not where we’ve been heading?.

Sue  08:05

And I mean, that the second point is they wanted dedicated specialist department to serve strata interests. I mean, that kind of goes with the first point, doesn’t it? Really?  

Jimmy  08:14

I mean, we’ve always said that strata should have its own designated ministry and not be part of Fair Trading. I have to say that David Chandler at the thing we were at the other day, he said that if strata had not been part of Fair Trading and connected into customer service, then they would never have got their star rating thing for developers up.

Sue  08:40

I don’t know how, but it could work closely with Fair Trading.

Jimmy  08:44

Absolutely. I mean, that you can’t… at the moment, we’ve got a situation where you got Fair Trading, who will not discuss anything to do with the tribunal – NCAT –  and you’ve got NCAT who won’t discuss anything that’s from strata because they say, Oh, you got to talk to Fair Trading?. So maybe, you know, keeping keeping it tight, but keeping it separate? Would be a good thing.

Number three, they want a comprehensive sector wide education programme. Yes. The problem is for people who are new to strata, that’s these are the people who need really need education. And as I said, at the meeting the other day, people when they’ve just moved into an apartment for the first time, what they don’t do is say, where can I get to a meeting to explain everything that I need to know.

Sue  09:34

But then again, prospective purchasers sometimes, you know, a lot of people are a bit nervous about start of the going in it for the first time, so they might actually appreciate a bit of education. I think it really is an afternoon course or something if it wasn’t too long, just three hours. That’s a good investment in their future if they’re just uncertain about what strata living might be like.

Jimmy  09:53

I reckon that every new there used to be a booklet they handed out to I think every person who’s just bought an apartment, whether they’ve been an apartment before or not, should get a document that says, Be aware. First of all, generally living in apartments, these are the kinds of rules and responsibilities. And then another page that says specifically, this apartment block, for instance, pursues noise complaints, and manages its parking diligently so that they know that, generally speaking, they have rights and responsibilities, but also specifically in that block, there are things they have to pay attention to, that would solve so many disputes before they even start. I mean, I do recall somebody writing once online in the Herald saying, I am a tenant, and I look at the strata bylaws, decide which ones I’m prepared to keep and ignore the rest. And somebody wrote back. Good luck with your next tendency, I would start looking for it now. Okay, where are we at now?

Sue  11:02

So number four, I think they’re asking the government to start funding the OCN to empower consumer reputation representation and the provision of data and insert sites.   that is, that should be number one, I think.   Because the the government funds, things like the tenants union, good for tenants, but it just doesn’t fund the Owners Corporation Network

Jimmy  11:25

I think they give you, kick in occasional grants and things like that..

Sue  11:29

Occasionally,   Government in Sydney City, but there’s no kind of long term reliable income stream.

Jimmy  11:33

And I think you’re right, and that should be a priority. I wonder if Labour I think possibly labour politicians will be looking at this and going, Oh, we can campaign on that. And that in that in that? Yep. Item number five a plan for net zero emissions? I mean, I’m not entirely sure how they would get that. But I think campaigning, were one of the things they want is the government to to give more support for the installation of electric car charging, retrospectively?   And solar power. So these are obvious ways are going to help that general thrust towards net zero.

Sue  12:20

Because they want all new buildings from 2030. Built to be net zero as well. And then all buildings to be operating with net zero emissions by 2050.   that seems reasonable, doesn’t it? It’s quite a long way away. 25 years? Over 25 years.  

Jimmy  12:37

Okay. And number seven is ensure emergency preparedness. Oh, sorry. We mentioned electrical vehicles. Vehicles. Yes.   sure. By the way, all this stuff is on the Flat Chat website. You can read the whole thing, unedited, and undiluted on a website. That’s there.

Sue  12:56

So number seven is ensure emergency preparedness.   So having been through the pandemic, we know we should be better prepared for future emergencies and disasters, floods and fires.   so they’re asking for a tailored was resilience and emergency planning guidelines support for structure owners?   yep. That’s very recent.

Jimmy  13:15

The next one is update legislation to protect consumers. I mean, there’s been a bit done in that already, but basically, kind of just scratched the surface. Because there are a lot of people still building apartments that you wonder how good the quality is for these people, and they don’t have a star rating. And they probably have 1000 excuses that they tell owners or maybe owners don’t even know, to look for a star rating the iCIRT thing. So   update the legislation so that the default is that the consumer is protected, not that they have to go seeking protection.

Sue  13:50

And then number nine, ensure all new buildings are defect free. And number 10 is to resolve all major defects in existing buildings. So that’s basically those two issues. They’re advocating for the continued, and in some cases, expanded work of the building Commissioner.

Jimmy  14:05

  And I think the the existing building thing, that’s his next focus is going to be buildings that are within the six year warranty period,  that aren’t getting the defects fixed, because the developers are just trying to drag out the time so that they don’t have to do it. And if they get pushed too hard, then they just go into voluntary liquidation, and absolutely nobody gets anything.

Sue  14:30

Be great if there was a further stage later for those buildings, which are out of the warranty period, but have defects and have problems where maybe, you know, the building commissioner’s office could actually advise those buildings on how to go about, well, I think the defects like what what experts they need, and then how to raise the money for that to fix those defects.

Jimmy  14:52

But I think that would switch the polarity on the issue the moment the government is pursuing the developers to fix defects. When you start looking at buildings that are outside the warranty period, then they’re starting to say to the owners, the owners, corporations, a body corporate, if you want them to your responsibility, the responsibility is now yours. We’re going to tell you what you have to do, but you have to do it. Now that is going to change. A lot of people are going to be very unhappy if the if that ever starts happening.

Sue  15:26

I don’t know, I think having been in a building an old building with defects, I think we would have really welcomed independent advice on how to get them fixed. Because, you know, often you’re going to engineering or construction companies, and you’re never quite sure how good the information is. And also you get three tenders, sometimes the tenders can be wildly different.   And I mean, I’m not an engineer, how do I know which one is okay. So actually having a really, somebody who’s really familiar with the industry, being able to advise you in an independent way, I think would be fabulous. And I completely disagree with you on that Jimmy

Jimmy  16:01

I didn’t disagree with you. Do change the world change the polarity, because the responsibility will fall or switch from the developer to the owners Corporation.

Sue  16:14

That’s all part of the same rich tapestry of the Building Commissioner..

Jimmy  16:17

I’m not, I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m just saying it is what will happen. It has to I mean, you can’t go to buildings that are 20 years old, and say you got serious defects, and you need to make some decisions, and then say, Oh, by the way, this developer is still in business. So let’s go and chase them. That’s not going to happen. You can’t know exactly, so who else is going to fix it?

Sue  16:41

Well, the owners exactly know that out there know that that’s why they’re seeking advice.

Jimmy  16:47

Okay. When we come back, we’re going to talk about what is popularly known as nimbyism in Bondi, specifically with Waverley council saying they want the spiritual effect of developments to be taken into consideration. And the developers saying, Are you for real? That’s after this?

[MUSIC]

Jimmy

And we’re back. So what is going on in Bondi?

Sue  17:16

Well, Waverly Council, are talking about how they really want to now assess the social impact of any new developments being proposed.

Jimmy

Right. So we talked about the spiritual side,

Sue

Yes, that’s one of the one of the ideas but it’s also looking at the social context of the the area that the new development is planned to be in. And other things like indigenous indigenous history of the area, the susceptibility to climate change, whether it helps vulnerable or minority groups, or maybe kind of gets rid of low cost housing, building and replaces it with expensive apartments, as happens so often, and whether a new development might increase psychological stress and social isolation. Right. And so I actually think it’s a really interesting idea.

Jimmy  18:05

I think they’re, they’re on the right track there. But the trouble is that a lot of the streets in Bondi are kind of jumbles of cottages and really crappy old apartment blocks. And you’ll look at them … 15 years ago, if not more, we had an investment property there. And a building that was literally falling down. Remember, sinking into the sand, wasn’t it?   And it was, it was because the building next door had blocked off the drain from the downpipe from from the roof, you know, the water drain pipe. I want to call it a rhone pipe. But I think that’s a Scottish word. And the water was just running across the pathway and going under our building, and it was literally sagging. And we went and looked at it one day. I remember a committee meeting and AGM and we looked at it and went, Oh, my God, this building is falling down. Because one of the residents of that flat immediately above that corner, said my floor has started sloping. And that day, one of the other residents said would you be interested in selling your apartment?

Sue

And he knew about problem?

He knew about the problem.   He was there at that meeting, you know, but it did occur to me later I especially when they brought in the collective sale thing. If we’d hung in there, we could have probably persuaded everybody to sell the building and the huge area, the back that was mostly unused. And we could have put up a very decent sized profitable apartment block, not us, but we could have got somebody to buy us out.

Sue  19:47

And there is so much renewal going on around Bondi you know, old blocks. They’re often extending underneath or extending on top and selling off those extra spaces in order to to pay for the whole block to be refurbished and renovated.

Jimmy  20:03

It doesn’t have to be knocked down, but some of them are being knocked and some of them are houses being knocked down and replaced with apartment blocks, I guess of varying levels of attractiveness from the streetscape.   I think this feeds into what Waverly Council are saying and what the people who are opposing development, they don’t want streets of bland, identical apartment blocks. And I think that’s where the developers and Waverly Council – the  developers represented by the Urban Task Force and the story that’s in the Sun Herald today. That’s where they need to sit down and go, How can we encourage the replacement of old buildings that are pasture used by date and maintain something of the charm of the area as a whole?

Sue  20:55

That’s right, because I think the urban Task Force, you know, it’s their immediate reaction, saying people are NIMBYs and we kind of need to be able to develop and   kind of thing. But really, people are saying, well, no, it shouldn’t be the development of these fantastic suburbs, like Bondi Beach shouldn’t be just about the commercial imperative of developers and about their profits. It should also be looking at what’s great for the suburb.   And developers, I mean, if they were smart, would recognise that and work with the council to make sure that they’re developed developments kind of fit in really well and provide a good mix of facilities, and then the loop be successful.    

Jimmy  21:33

And I think the problem is that developers come at these issues, from the point of view, don’t add any more restrictions to anything because that might diminish our profit. And the local planners and local population and even the visitors go, don’t turn this into just another concrete and glass suburb, like you’ve done elsewhere in the city,

Sue  21:58

without any kind of overview from somebody saying, Gosh, we really need different facilities. They’re like, maybe we’ve got too many backpacker hostels, we need more social housing, or we need more, you know, upmarket housing, whatever. But it’s great for somebody to have a bit of an overview about the development rather than just, you know, piecemeal development here and there by number of different commercial developers.

Jimmy  22:21

The problem is piecemeal, you got one developer comes in, and for whatever reason, is able to throw up a cheap and cheerless building, and somebody else who comes in and thinks I actually want to build something that’s quite iconic and attractive, and stands out from the rest of these awful other buildings. Here’s my proposal. Waverly Council and the urban task force need to put together a project where they take a street at a time, starting with the worst street that needs the most attention. And they draw up a kind of template. Say, if in a perfect world, this is what the street would look like with new apartment blocks where older buildings exist and need to go, and then say to developers, if you want to develop that particular site, and you can fit this template, we’re going to make it easier for you to get planning permission.

Sue  23:18

That would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? Really?

Jimmy  23:20

What are the chances of that happening? Do you think so? My brilliant plan ever take off?

Sue  23:27

It would be great. Unfortunately, it takes, it often takes instead lots of residents campaigning for a long, long time, taking up an awful lot of time and money really, to get those kinds of changes in often it takes one person. Well, Waverly council there has taken initiative as well, because they’ve hired a planning advocate to my planning.

Jimmy  23:51

I think they held a professional NIMBY.

Sue  23:55

So they’ve got somebody there on staff who’s there to help residents, but maybe it would be better if they were more proactive themselves.

Jimmy  24:01

Or maybe they should be drawing up the template.   Their professional advocate could get some architects who’s prepared to do some pro bono work and draw up a streetscape based on what’s already there, and how we would like it to look. And then everybody can be happy and everybody can move forward.

Sue  24:19

Because lots of architects these days really specialise in creating overviews of projects as well.   And then other individual architects kind of fulfil the brief.   so it’s not, it’s not beyond without precedent really, because, you know, we’ve seen new areas go through that places like green square square all around there.   I mean, that’s got, you know, an overarching view of how it should be and where, where everything should be. So   to be able to do that with existing suburbs would be a great step forward, I would suggest,

Jimmy  24:53

okay, when we come back, we are going to have the final part of Lawyer in the hot seat with David Bannerman. That’s after this.

And we’re back and this very extended version of, of the Flat Chat Wrap. We are about to run the final part of a webinar I did with Strata lawyer, David Bannerman a couple of weeks ago. This is delves into some of the questions that were thrown at us during the webinar. It was one of these things that you get so involved in doing it that you realise you’ve gone way over time, which I think speaks to how interesting some of the topics were that came up. So here are David Bonderman and me thrashing the last dregs of the lawyer in the hot seat webinar.

Lawyer in the Hotseat – Part 3

Jimmy

I’m gonna throw in another question here, just well, you touched on funding. It’s not entirely directly related. But let’s say you’ve got a Capital Works Fund, which has been contributed to more than it needed over the years. And you’ve got your admin Fund, which needs some money to, I don’t know, pay for a lawyer or something like that. Now, the law says that you can borrow from one to the other. But a decision has to be made about how that’s going to be repaid within three months.

David  52:54

Yeah, there’s some there’s some divergent views on what that means. Yeah, I believe it’s been tidied up in the strata reform. But the more commonly applied view is that within three months, you’ll replenish that fund somehow.

Jimmy  53:09

So it’s not just a case of sitting down and saying, Yeah, our decision is to not get the money back for another year.

David  53:16

Yes, yeah. There’s divergent views on it. But I think it appears when you read the whole clause that the intention is that, yes, it’s a short trend, short, short term transfer from one account to the other. But the idea is the other account needs to be replenished.

Jimmy  53:32

Okay, I see that two people have raised their hand. But do we deal with that? Is it just too complicated for me?

David  53:42

To know what the raised hands is. I don’t know where that went. Maybe, if you if you can post any questions in the q&a? And we’ll look at dealing with that at the end.

Jimmy  53:54

Yeah. Are there six questions in there already? So jump in books, dysfunctional committees. How long is a typical appointment? We’ve said it’s, it’s one year initially, but usually goes to two, is that fair?

David  54:07

In many buildings. If they want to go for a further appointment, which is quite typical, when they’ve been appointed once for two years, that require fresh application to go in. To get another one. You can’t step it out beyond two years, unfortunately, and it could otherwise.

Jimmy  54:26

And we know that the the strata manager doesn’t have to consult the owners about anything, apart from bylaws that individuals have to approve changes to. But is it common for the strata manager to talk to the owners about

David  54:44

Yeah, it’s definitely recommended best practice that you consult with the owners about what you’re thinking about doing, get their feedback about what they want to say about it, but then ultimately, they’re going to make the decision. So he doesn’t ask them to do a straw poll and a vote and things like that. There might be some more rare instances where he might elect to do that, like, you know, where he’s got worry and where he’s satisfied that he’s got for consensus, because it’s such a sort of precarious decision like borrowing money, as opposed to raising Levy, right, consult with the owners on that, and make a decision either way, after giving it consideration, and they might well let him know about the scope of works and the timing. Because at the end of the order term, he may well be wanted to be appointed contractually want to have great relations with the owners as best he can, there’s always going to be divergent views about whatever he’s doing. Some people don’t want to spend money some people do, some want to spend it differently. So he’s in a rock and a hard place when it comes to keeping everyone happy. If he was able to keep everyone happy, it’d be appointed under a contract. So it’s a matter of, you know, doing the right thing, keeping people informed, and having that maybe you want to get appointed at the end of the job.

Jimmy  55:58

Yeah, I have heard that a lot of strata managers are reluctant to take on compulsory appointments, because they know that at the end of their term, the owners can’t wait to get rid of them. Just they resent the fact that they’re been there. Look, sometimes

David  56:13

in life, you got to think, you know, no matter of money is worth dealing with the agitation and grief that these people will throw at you. Just email you bombard you try and weigh you down. And, you know, there are a few measures you can take to deal with those people, you can block email, you can tell them to send you correspondence via fax, if you have one or via snail mail. And then today, you can manage that line of distraction and irritation by those methods or require them to communicate with you on some sort of Portal or via some sort of special AMS Corporation email address, things like that.

Jimmy  56:55

Okay. Next slide, please. Maybe go the strata hub. Can the owners and occupiers and various government agencies access to secretaries and chairpersons phone number and email in Australia because they, as I told my last reading of it, you have to register the chair and the Secretary’s email and phone?

David  57:23

That’s correct. And there was talk at a recent industry SCA session, and I wasn’t present for it. But somebody told me it was said was that they were going to try and limit the access of the phone number away from certain parties, whether it was owners or occupiers, I don’t know. But that hasn’t turned up in the legislation as yet. So the accessibility to the information is there still busily uploading it? I’m not too sure about how people access the uploaded information, particularly how owners and occupiers might access it, and how they get a password to access it. Who’s going to control the password allocation? How do you establish your unknown are often not aware of those solutions been resolved yet? But they’re all in the pipeline? It’s pretty big innovation? Yeah.

Jimmy  58:15

I’ve heard of strata schemes already. They buy a mobile phone or two for the share and the Secretary and that, and that mobile phone goes with the position. So it’s not their personal mobile phone, but it is the mobile phone that gets to them. And they also the invest or subscribe to their own strata. Portal, so that there is an email address there for chair of such and such a strata scheme. Yeah, I mean, presumably, that would comply with the act.

David  58:52

Yeah, it just needs to be a phone number of that person. You can have multiple phone numbers, and everyone has a lot of people have multiple emails. So there’s no harm in that just needs to be something that that person has, or even think that you could have the strata manager set up a Google account, where they can provide access to the chair and the secretary from time to time to that account. And trawling through controlling the Google account.

Jimmy  59:20

And we’ve got our good friends who are also sponsors of Fletcher, like you are strapped a box who provide a portal for all the interaction in strata schemes. Sorry, I should have asked your permission.

David  59:34

That’s all fine. That sounds like a useful service given the current climate where people are more and more irritated by Kelly marketing and everything else and then any other calls that they don’t want to get. And yet, who knows what would happen with the control of the data? I mean, look at what happened with Optus, the

Jimmy  59:56

many Medicare Medibank is the latest

David  1:00:00

One. All right, I didn’t hear that one yet. And you

Jimmy  1:00:03

know, you know, the biggest breach of information in the history of the world was in the USA a couple of years ago, a company called Equifax does that name ring a bell now to view, Equifax or the company that’s being used to assess developers for David Chandler’s gold stars? Is there a credit rating agency, basically, but they had a big data breach a couple of years ago,

David  1:00:37

I would take a lot of data to establish the rank, right 20 20

Jimmy  1:00:40

million, something like that people’s information might have even been more. There you go. But I’m sure they’re really reliable now. Like they’re top notch.

David  1:00:54

I made the same mistake twice, you know?

Jimmy  1:00:56

Yeah, absolutely. They know, they know what the flaws are in the fix them. It says here. What happened? What may happen if a secretary or chair alleges a privacy breach for the release of their personal information?

David  1:01:12

Well, there’s various government agencies that they can go to and complain about it. But if the owners Corporation strata managers performing a function for the owners corporation that’s required by statute, well, that’s the end they have a amendment or at least something in their privacy policy, that they’ll be providing information as required to be disclosed by law, they’ll be alright. But as to say there’s no committee decision to decide to provide the information to the strata hub, and a secretary willy nilly just goes ahead and does it, then there could be a problem there for that person.

Jimmy  1:01:58

Yeah, I mean, there’s no question of privacy. I mean, there’s this thing about a, you go to your strata manager, and you say, I want the email addresses of all the owners. And they say, Well, you can’t have it because it’s private. Under the Privacy Act, we can’t give it to you. And that apparently is, is there is one opinion that that doesn’t apply, the Privacy Act does not apply to strata schemes.

David  1:02:25

The way that in the best way of looking at this is like a strata managers is like a postbox. And they’ve got all of the strata scheme records sitting in a post box. And an owner can go and access and have a look in the post box anytime they want anything that’s kept out, if they’re suing the US corporation, or they’re being said, there might be a folder of legal papers held aside for legal professional privilege. But anybody can go and look in the post box and work, extract whatever emails and whatever else they like, once they paid the fee to access it. So whether that’s looking at the strata are all getting it off there. So and there has been some confusion about privacy around that in Australia sector, but we’ve got articles and website which make that abundantly clear that that’s effectively what’s happening

Jimmy  1:03:13

at that. I mean, one of the things somebody wrote to us the other day and said, if you write to your strata manager, you’re an owner, and you say, I can’t come to your office to see the records. Can you please send me the strata row? This strata manager is obliged to do that this person was saying, I wasn’t sure if he got to go to the office, if they

David  1:03:39

look, as if strata managers had to answer every question and supply every document that an individual owner or tenant wanted, they wouldn’t be able to do the work for the corporation, they’d have to completely retool and provide a different service. So they’re providing work to the US Corporation. If a member wants to go and inspect the records, that’s fine. Admittedly, some management companies will provide an online service where they’ll give you a password and you’ve so long and you can look online do it but there’s no obligation at law to to do that. And many, many management companies will require physical attendance and production of the records right on the laptop, they just get there and they start searching some older firms will give you a box of the bearing

Jimmy  1:04:28

a shoebox Hello without this person said they turned up with with their phone to take pictures of the documents. And

David  1:04:38

the law refers to their got an entitlement to inspect and photocopy and so it depends on the company’s attitude towards the collection of a photocopying fee.

Jimmy  1:04:52

Yeah. That could be that could be the barrier and it does sound like some some companies I mean Though the companies that say yeah, look here, here are the records. And here’s a password, and it will deteriorate after three days or whatever. But use it, view the stuff. That sounds like the way of the future, because

David  1:05:17

it’s creating its own problems. Which basically mean that everyone just dumps a whole copy and just keeps everything running that’s creating problems over time. In fact,

Jimmy  1:05:31

don’t don’t lawyers. Don’t lawyers do that all the time. In a case where there’s a demand for documents you say, Okay, here’s a roomful of documents you saw at them. That’s what happens on American TV shows anyway. Yeah. We’ve talked about the Secretary and chair having their own email address, is the $3 per lot fee recurring?

David  1:05:56

Yes. Each time you annually update the information, you’ll pay the fee then, and that’s to maintain the website.

Jimmy  1:06:06

Right, and How frequently does the information need to be updated? You’ve just said every year, or that’s

David  1:06:11

when if there’s if there’s something needs to be corrected? Ah, yeah. Right. Within 28 days, right.

Jimmy  1:06:19

So

David  1:06:21

let’s say there was no secretary at the time did it because everyone put their hands down. Yeah, there was a committee meeting and someone took the appointment, then you’d have to update it within 28 days.

Jimmy  1:06:31

Okay. That makes sense. There’s initials here. What happens? What may happen if a scheme takes no to a current AFS? S? Now you can tell me what AF s s VMs.

David  1:06:48

One of the fields that exist within the strata have is the requirement for you to acknowledge the date of the annual fire safety statement and whether it’s current and buildings that were registered before. One July 1998, weren’t required to have annual fire safety statements. And so they haven’t gotten there. So they obviously can’t take Yes, because there’s no requirement for them to lodge them with council. But it has a couple of implications. One is that what’s interesting is we talked earlier about exempted compliant development in class two buildings, there’s a carve out that says you cannot be exempt, you cannot be doing exempt development unless you got a current annual fire safety statement. So all those buildings without Daniel fires, I just don’t typically like anywhere from strata plan one to about 33,000. Right? They won’t have any fire safety statement. So all the work they’re doing thinking that they’re exempt, and actually exempt under the step the state environmental planning policy on that. But what that the reason that was implemented was because when you went to do significant remedial works, or works, they wanted you to lodge a day, and then when they put in the DA, they would then say, You got to get the building up to cope with fire. Right? That would typically be a notice or precondition to the development consent to say, get a fire engineer, getting into what you need to do bring it up to today’s code. But what I suspect will happen is that buildings will continue not to go for exempt development. But we’ll continue to forget that it’s exempt development, because it’s technical. And what fair trade is going to do is once they get that information that there’s no current IFSS they’ll inform the council’s on that because they’re allowed to do that, or the fire brigade. And then there’ll be a whole bunch of notices to those owners corporations to say, Oh, you’ve ticked the box at your class to building we know you haven’t got annual fire safety statement. Please go and get a fire engineer to go through and undertake scope works to comply with today’s standards. So that’s what I envisage might happen down the track later on.

Jimmy  1:09:10

Okay. You realise that we are now 10 minutes over time.

David  1:09:15

Oh, I didn’t realise sorry about it. Wrap it up. Well, I’m

Jimmy  1:09:18

happy to keep going. If you are we’ve got 175 people hanging on your every word.

David  1:09:27

But we’ll try and wrap it up in five. What about with Jeff on the q&a? We try, we try and rectify those. Okay.

Jimmy  1:09:33

All right. All right. I want I’ve got one question. I would really like you to answer. Can you? Can you pass a bylaw that says this bylaw applies to let’s say visitor parking, or you have to comply with the rules, which may change from time to time.

David  1:09:51

Now there’s been cases where that’s been invalid and it would strike whatever the rest of the bylaw route is as well. So You have to specify this typically this ball is to say, you will comply with the committee’s house rules, right? That means nothing, because needs to be a registered identifiable rule for it to be enforceable. Okay.

Jimmy  1:10:15

And I’ve just noticed one here, which I think is quite important because it comes up quite a lot. What accessibility measures does a scheme have to take when an existing resident becomes permanently incapacitated, and requires mobility access to a higher floor, for instance, somebody who’s living on the first floor of an apartment block that doesn’t have a lift.

David  1:10:38

There’s been lots of cases on this point, we’ve been involved in numerous. And there’s two pathways that they can go, the more strict one is the Disability Discrimination Act, Commonwealth Act. Now this cooperation can be provided with a notice to say we’re required to make an adjustment because we’ve got a disability. And there’s a staircase and we need to get those little chair assists to go up the side of the staircase so that I can get to my apartment. And Dad’s corporation will typically go and be up in arms going, I would want to do that. And sometimes they’re right, because it would affect the egress for the building and make it unsafe, and therefore make it not compliant with its fire safety requirements, and therefore it shouldn’t be done. But a more simpler pathway than going down to disability discrimination and dispute in the Human Rights Commission is to put up a bylaw to say I want to put this in, I’ll pay for the repairs myself, I’ll remove it when I leave. And then that wouldn’t be an easier pathway for that person to pursue. But they’ve always got that Human Rights Commission pathway to decide to pursue that. But that’s

Jimmy  1:11:45

where it would fire safety issues supersede the individual’s need for access to the

David  1:11:54

Yeah, who would make it like yeah, that would be very good reason to not do it. Right. In for instance, you can’t we can’t we can’t make your accommodation because we can’t do so legally.

Jimmy  1:12:04

For instance, if a chairlift made a stairway so narrow, that it became, it was no longer compliant, then you couldn’t put the

David  1:12:13

chairlift in. Yeah, that’s a totally, that’s totally good reason not to do it. You shouldn’t do it. And you shouldn’t comply with the adjustment request. And therefore, you should simply just suggest that we are unable to help in this circumstance for these reasons. Yeah, get a fire engineers report to specify why. And then you’d invite the person back to say, Do you have another adjustment? That we can help you with? This one? We cannot.

Jimmy  1:12:41

Okay. We have 16 questions in the q&a. Do you? Do you access them? Or do I? Okay. Oh, here we go. We sure can. That’s an answer to a question. So that was it. 330? Yeah, I think that was the answer to Can You Hear Me looked down at hey, look, if you’re still listening. How responsible who, who I guess is responsible for confirming that mole is sold as a cause of illness? Well, that would have to be medical. Yeah, the

David  1:13:23

person who’s asserting the illness and the losses, reimbursement of losses, the person has got to assert it. So they gotta prove their case. Okay.

Jimmy  1:13:32

Can you confirm that under the DB PA? Great, I love initials, because I never can remember what they mean. I said yesterday at that thing, I hosted the LOL stands for lower levies. dB PA, what the hell is it? And does it apply to all works? If there is a $5,000 threshold?

David  1:13:55

Yeah, the design building practitioners act acts on it. If it’s below 5000, you do not need to comply? Right? Yeah.

Jimmy  1:14:05

Well, somebody says they can’t find reference to it. That’s okay. You don’t need to because David’s just told you. It

David  1:14:10

you’ll find it reference to it includes the team of the designer going practitioners act regulation, I think it’s around F or G. And you’ll see that it refers to something in the home building act. And then when you click on that section in the home building act, it’ll take you to a section which will refer to all the regulation. And by the time you get to the fourth click Yeah, find a reference to $5,000.

Jimmy  1:14:34

Or you could just take David’s word for it. And save yourself a bit of clicking where the builder developer is slow to make defects under the six years warranty. Can the owner call his chosen trades company to fix it and send the invoice for payment to the developer? Good question.

David  1:14:52

Yes, and sometimes and US corporations are advised to do that particularly where those words that are required to mitigate loss like loss of income worried that loss of loss of income because of water entry, or it’s making the building not comply with fire codes, and it’s unsafe, you’ve got to notice corporations sometimes have to raise the levy, fix the thing, and then come back to the developer and establish that the scope and the cost was reasonable and that therefore they should be required to provide it. The reimbursement but typically, it’s set that up with saying we’re about to do this, this is your chance, before we do it, did you want to do it or not? If they still say no, then you go ahead. And

Jimmy  1:15:30

okay. We’ve done the surplus funds thing. It’s going to change. And Jonathan Chu agrees with you, 100%. David, but we don’t know what He’s agreeing with you. Whatever you were talking about just before for 28, you’ve got his 100% agreement, does this function does dysfunction of a strata committee necessarily lead to compulsory appointment? I think we kind of covered that. It’s good. It depends how bad it is.

David  1:16:02

Yeah, like, it’s always easy to establish that there’s been technical non compliances with something or other than as corporations doing, there needs to be a significant adverse impact, which is ongoing at the time of the hearing. So not minor non compliance is it’s just a bunch of secretarial functions that haven’t been fulfilled properly. Very little consequences on the functioning of the, the, the objectives of the analyst, cooperation is not going to get you over the line. So you’re looking for something major, like typically failure to repair and maintain common property. It’s been going on for a long time.

Jimmy  1:16:41

This, these people are talking to each other on this q&a. By the way, David, we probably should just leave and Lachlan Malik, you know, Lachlan, he’s much more community. The customer service department. Yeah, he’s in he’s in?

David  1:16:55

My exactly answer for us. So

Jimmy  1:16:56

John, John, John min, John. Is it means John? Yeah, yeah, he works with John mins. He’s said he has the answer, but he’s not telling us what it is. Thanks, love. Your Euro Gent. If an applicant and the owners Corporation failed to reach an agreement, within three days after the owners Corporation receives the application, the owners corporation must immediately give the applicant a written notice fixing a specified time. This is the inspection of records. Yeah. So if they think that’s what he’s talking about, yeah, yeah. So they’ve got three days, and then they’ve got to give you a time in a day when you can. Yeah, title along and have a look. Are they allowed to photocopy this fragile roll with everyone’s names and contact details? Yes, they are. I can answer that. What should we do if the previous agent ignores section 181? And does not hand over the records even though the notice was sent to them a month ago? Good question. Then this has come up recently, and the community community titles,

David  1:18:07

pass some new laws that commenced in September for the regulation of agents, you commented on the two disc a couple of functions or a couple of options. One is make a complaint to Fair Trading Compliance Division, and they can investigate the conduct of the agent. So you could do an ethics complaint to the FCA, New South Wales three, go for an application and then get for non compliance with a section if in fact, noncom not compliant. But I’m not commenting on whether they have complied or not.

Jimmy  1:18:44

Right. I mean, historically, you make a complaint about a strata manager. And I mean, I was I was at a meeting, this is years ago, and the guy who is in charge of complaints against strata managers, I said, What happens when you get a serious complaint against strata manager? He says, Oh, we we have a word with them. I mean, I looked at all these laws, all the acts, and unless it says, somebody must do something, and here is the penalty. If they don’t, I’m really not interested. It’s so hypothetical. Here’s Lachlan, the legislation has been changed very subtly, so the department can choose not to disclose the mobile phone number of the Secretary and change chairperson to members of the strata scheme via the hub. Oh, so while the information will still be reported, the department won’t share it with scheme resident. So it’s not just a case of logging in and saying I want the chairman’s number and email address. How are they going to, hopefully going to police that?

David  1:19:47

Well, I think what he’s saying is they’ve got the option in the legislation to not disclose it. So that must be further down in another section where it says about what information will be shared. So

Jimmy  1:20:01

then I put the answer in the next message, he says, but there is no next message. All right, he’s obviously had to go back.

David  1:20:12

Sounds like a discretionary type of mobility.

Jimmy  1:20:15

But I mean, that means if it’s discretionary, it means that not everything is available all the time. And it only becomes available when you ask for it. And they say it’s okay for you to have it. Am I reading too much into this?

David  1:20:27

I think really too much it I think it’s saying that the department’s going to decide not to disclose it.

Jimmy  1:20:34

Right. Now, I’ve got no more okay. But I think it’s probably because this is your show.

David  1:20:42

I think it’d be made a lot clearer when they were off just before they work out how to give people access. Yeah.

Jimmy  1:20:49

Whatever that is. Yeah, I do like this new thing of in previous years, and we’re going back 20 years that I’ve been engaged in this crazy world of strata. They used to just do nothing. Because it was too hard. And now it seems the powers that be are going yeah, let’s do this. And let’s do that. And let’s put this in place. And let’s have this and how is it gonna work? Yeah, we’ll work it out. You know, it’s, it will be fine. It’s a bit like Shakespeare, you know?

David  1:21:21

Yeah. It’s just technology. It’ll work. Yeah, eventually.

Jimmy  1:21:25

Everybody knows how to log in.

David  1:21:28

Yeah. Well, thanks, everybody, for attending. Thank you so much, Jimmy for your time and your skill in answering and contributing to the questions and answering some of them along the way. It’s always a pleasure. For that we’ll probably be doing another one of those next year. Jimmy, what do you think,

Jimmy  1:21:46

Oh, next year, I was thinking the next couple of weeks. It’s so much fun.

David  1:21:51

We’ve got so many questions. If anyone does have a question, just feel free to email inquiries, and we’ll see to answer them for you. Usually, we’ve got fact sheets on our website, there’s already an answer there. It’s just a matter of flicking that on.

Jimmy  1:22:05

And if you’re interested in the angry man’s response to your problems, flat chat.com.au and on the forum, and you’ll get you as I said, The angry man response. If you want a legally correct response, David’s probably the person to ask. Okay, thanks very much for having me, David, everybody …

END OF WEBINAR

Jimmy

Well, that was quite interesting.,

Sue  54:00

Again I think we see different things come up.

Jimmy  54:03

It’s a worthwhile thing to do. It’s something I want to do more in the coming year and maybe next year, we’ll organise that for all our sponsors, who want to take part

Sue  54:11

because they are all experts in the field.

Jimmy  54:15

So  as always, some surprising question comes up. Alright, so Well, thank you for giving up part of your Sunday again to come on the podcast.

Sue  54:25

It’s an honour Jimmy.

Jimmy  54:26

Oh, an honour and maybe even a pleasure now. Let’s not push it. And thank you all for listening. We’ll talk to you again soon. Bye. Bye.