Forum Replies Created
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My understanding is that an electrician who is a Level 2 accredited service provider has qualifications exceeding those of a Level 1 electrician and that those additional qualifications relate to their training and ability to connect or disconnect network services – underground and above ground. In addition to having this training they would need to have been approved by the Distributor ( not retailer) as well as the NSW Dept of Industry.
The Level 2 electrician would therefore have the authority to remove & replace the main fuse.
Unsealing and resealing of meters would be authorised by the appropriate metering provider.
The owners corporation is liable for the consequences of its actions – whether it is failure to repair or the installation of a watering system without the necessary protection.
You are affected by the consequences of the OC’s actions and the OC must rectify the cause and if necessary compensate you.
The SM is splitting hairs in saying the issue is damp rather than mould, but if there is mould, then there is almost certainly damp there to feed it.
You can demonstrate damp by taking readings with a damp meter – not expensive and obtainable from Bunnings.
Whatever the Minister does to deal with regulatory failure in the construction industry, it will be welcome but quite possibly too little too late. The boom of the past few years will have left us with a legacy of residential apartments with suspect fire and waterproofing likely to burn holes in the pockets of future owners.
It is time for some honesty from both the government and the real estate industry about what an apartment purchase really involves – airspace not bricks and mortar and unlimited liability for whatever goes wrong in the building.
This elephant in the room should not be allowed to continue to browse unharrassed for fear of upsetting the property market. If the real estate industry is incapable of coming clean then, then it’s the Minister for “Better Regulation & Innovation” who should be driving public awareness of what apartment buyers, and particularly First Home Buyers, are letting themselves in for.
Hi Tony & All,
Yes a franchise can be gateway to consistency of service. A franchise imposes performance obligations on the franchisee be they a cafe proprietor or a strata manager.
We live in a era where strata management services have been commoditised and owners corporations without expert knowledge are tempted to take the cheapest offering.
This obscures what owners really want – personal service from a strata manager who listens and responds on time.
The strata management industry has now crystallised into a few large business groups, leaving but a few capable boutique operators. A number of these formerly worked for the large management companies. Worth your focus.
The important question is, not so much is the manager part of a franchise, but rather – are they part of a large strata management group whose strata managers work to systems and targets that preclude that personal service element ?
Noticed that our company Strata Answers Pty Ltd has been put forward as a possible solution to “Tank”s issues.
You’ll find us at www.strataanswers.com.au
The discussion to date appears to have been around a floor that was installed, with or without permission, that is a fixed floor. It sounds like a fixed floor if it has underfloor heating. If it was installed with permission, then in the absence of a by law holding the owner responsible for its maintenance, it would be owners corp responsibility. If without permission, it is hard to see why the OC would have any liability at all.
Things change if it is a floating floor; floating floors are not part of common property. They are lot owner’s responsibility, but may be covered by the OC’s Building Policy under Owner Fittings. If the damage is not claimable under the OC’s Owner Fittings Policy, then it is hard to see why the OC should have any liability, in the absence of negligence as opposed to building failure.
Now of course if the floor has to be torn up to fix the spalling, then whatever is torn up would have to be replaced at OC’s expense – but only if the floor had been installed with OC permission, where permission is required.
Strata owners and committees should not get too carried away by the “Broadband Bullies” rhetoric.
There was a time when the the approaches made to strata buildings constituted a threat to freedom of choice in the high speed broadband marketplace. The fear was that a single provider might connect to a building and offer one service only – its own retail product – and at the same time the presence of that wholesaler might “scare off” other potential providers.
Things have moved on since then and past fears no longer have foundation. I would suggest that the technical attributes of “vectoring” are not being properly understood and are being used by NBN as a means of deterring owners corporations from providing their owners with a choice of high speed broadband connection.
I draw on our own owners corporation’s experience to demonstrate that providers other than NBN may not be “broadband bullies” and that fear of vectoring may be very different from what vectoring actually is and does.
As an OC we were determined that our owners should get access to high speed broadband at the earliest practical opportunity. NBN was unable to provide the OC with even a general indication of when they would install FTTN (Fibre to the Node – our building). At the same time we did not want any single wholesale provider with its own retail operation to dominate our building.
Yes. We negotiated access for High Speed Broadband access for a couple of independent providers, who installed their Vslams in our comms room. This gave owners a good cross section of retail providers to choose from. No talk of “vectoring” and speeds as forecast of up to 100mbps.
And…as luck would have it along comes NBN six months later and installs their Vslam equipment. Great, even more choice and no interference by or from the NBN either.
The techo’s tell us that NBN never installed a “vectoring” module because they didn’t need to and … even if they had installed vectoring it wouldn’t have made any difference because vectoring affects not the connection into the building, but the copper wires distributing the signal to individual apartments. The copper to each apartment is not shared by providers – people typically sign with no more than one provider; so even if “vectoring’ was operated by NBN, it would not affect users of other networks.
My advice to OC’s is “before you spend money on by laws and restrict the consumer choice of your owners, get some independent technical advice about the vectoring bogeyman”
John Hutchinson
Mondrian Waterloo
Lots of good work has been done to try to focus the NSW Government on the need to reform antiquated strata laws and to stop the further erosion of the consumer rights of strata owners & residents.
Alas, the current government has dragged its heels with promised reforms. It has advanced the rights of the construction industry ahead of those of strata owners & residents.
Strata needs its own voice to be heard not just in the run up to an election but in parliament for the next term. Alex Greenwich the Independent Member for Sydney has been the lone champion of strata owners & residents for too long. He together with the new Strata Party – Group H are the only hope for giving a voice to strata residents & owners.
Unless the government wakes up to the voice of strata, there is a real danger that strata living will cease to be the lifestyle choice for many.
Sounds like a great idea…..You have to be on your guard. You’re spending more money than you ever have in your life.
Pay a couple of dollars for something in the supermarket and you’ve at least got a brand name to rely on.
Spend a few hundred thousand on an apartment, there’s no brand name , just “trust me I’m a developer” to rely on.
$40 spent on a seminar could save you a fortune.