Monthly Archives: November 2015

Everyone has heard those noisy neighbours; the people who are up partying all night, the sport fans who yell at the TV every match or even the people who just pump up the volume to their choice of music. Noise is one of the most common areas of concern in most apartment buildings. What one owner may find soothing may drive another owner batty.

Issues don’t always include music; they can be the surround system people have installed in their entertainment area or wooden floors causing footfall noise. To find out ways to deal with these issues please click here

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Window safety is an on going issue. Most people don’t realise the seriousness of not having the right precautions in place as one family in Brisbane recently found out. Their little two year old girl fell out of a second-storey apartment on the 23rd October 2015. She was left in a critical condition after falling head first onto the concrete driveway below. Why is this still happening?

Today as a society we receive more information than ever before on precautionary risks and hazards. But even with all this knowledge we are still slightly naïve when we read about incidents such as a child falling out of a window. We seem to be more likely to think “Oh that won’t happen to my family” rather than “I need to prevent this from happening to my family.” The reality is if you’re living in an apartment level than the first floor you should take some necessary precautions, this could be something as simple as moving your lounges or beds away from all windows so children can not climb up to reach an open window or fitting your windows with locks to open no more than 12.5cm (approximately the same length as a pen).

It is predicted that by 2030, 50% of people in NSW will be living in a strata community and these accidents will become more frequent if the required safety precautions aren’t put into place. Don’t be fooled into thinking just a fly screen will prevent these accidents; chances are they aren’t strong enough to hold a child. The NSW Government has enforced safety laws to prevent further accidents from occurring. In 2012 the NSW Government released the campaign Kids Don’t Fly to bring awareness to this issue.

All new apartment buildings built from 2013 onwards have to abide by these new regulations contained in ‘The Building Code of Australia’. In saying that, existing buildings will have until 13th March 2018 to get their windows upgraded to the new safety standard.

Don’t become a statistic it only takes two minutes as Karen Martin experienced. Her blog is a real eye opener to all parents on how quickly your world can change, to read her story please click here. Take the safety steps implemented by the NSW Government to prevent further accidents from happening to those little humans in your apartment that you love with every fiber of your being.

So, please take this blog as a reminder of how serious it can be and check if your windows are up to code. If they aren’t speak to your Strata Manager to find out more.

We would like to thank our guests for attending the Renovating, Budgeting and Saving on Levies seminar last night held in Burwood, we had lots of fun presenting it and we are sure you enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing all of you at one of our upcoming workshops.

There were more than 90 proposed changes to strata laws announced by the NSW Government last week – some are big changes in the concept of property ownership, others are tweaks and finesses to the existing laws, by-laws and rules.

But what were the changes, announced by Fair Trading Minister Victor Dominello, that will affect strata residents – owners and tenants – the most?

Smoking
The proposal: a small but significant note on the section on residents’ behaviour identifies smoke drift as a potential “nuisance” under the legal meaning of the word.

The intention: rather than placing a blanket ban on all smokers, this allows strata communities to police their own buildings where, for instance, people might be able to smoke like chimneys without bothering anyone.

The effect: it’s very much up to individual owners to decide what they want to do about neighbours’ smoke.
“A property owner has certain rights to do as they please in their home but they also have a duty of care to ensure they don’t cause a nuisance with their neighbours,” says leading strata lawyer and chairman of the Owners Corporation Network, Stephen Goddard. “By identifying smoking as a nuisance, this allows owners to take action without passing a by-law imposing a ban on people smoking in their homes, which would be a serious reduction of property rights and almost certainly illegal.”

Collective Sales

The proposal: to allow 75 per cent of residents of older buildings to agree to their sale to a developer for redevelopment, regardless of the wishes of the minority. Currently this requires a 100 per cent vote.

The intention: to remove the opportunity for individual owners to prevent redevelopment of their aging and high-maintenance unit block, or even hold their neighbours to ransom by holding out for an inflated price.

The effect: simply put, about 8000 apartment blocks in established communities in NSW will be viable redevelopment sites where newer, safer and healthier buildings can be built, accommodating two or three times as many residents. An advice hotline and advocacy services are to be provided for the vulnerable and elderly and fair compensation mechanisms will be established but, inevitably, some people will be evicted from their homes.

Karen Stiles, executive officer of the Owners Corporation Network, welcomed the additional protections for strata owners, “such as the hotline, free legal advice and advocacy for the more vulnerable members of the community”, but says the policy should still have a 100 per cent vote for blocks of four units or less, and 80 per cent for larger blocks.

Charmaine Crowe, senior adviser with the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association of NSW, says this change will benefit “investors but not owner-occupiers who are not ready to sell or who just like where they live”.

“Lowering the vote for termination of strata schemes … serves no public policy purpose. The NSW government is simply caving in to pressure from property developers.”

Renovations

The proposal: to create a three-tier permissions regime that allows certain minor work to be done without permission, some significant renovations can be carried out just with a simple majority vote of the owners’ corporation and, for major renovations, especially anything affecting common property and water proofing, the full gamut of special resolutions, by-laws and restrictions is required.

The Intention: to make it easier for strata owners to live in a home that suits their needs and sense of style without requiring something just short of an act of parliament to hammer a nail in a wall.

The effect: more trips to Bunnings, fewer calls to your strata manager and lawyers.

There were more than 90 proposed changes to strata laws announced by the NSW Government last week – some are big changes in the concept of property ownership, others are tweaks and finesses to the existing laws, by-laws and rules.

But what were the changes, announced by Fair Trading Minister Victor Dominello, that will affect strata residents – owners and tenants – the most?

Defects Bond

The proposal: developers will have to place a bond of 2 per cent of the value of the building to cover potential defects after completion.

The Intention: to protect buyers of new units, especially first-time buyers, create more confidence in the industry and force the bad developers to have the same diligence as the good ones … or pay a price.

The effect on owners: owners of new apartments who discover defects will no longer face the choice of accepting them and paying for rectification themselves, or rolling the dice by pursuing recalcitrant developers through the courts just to get what they paid for. It will also clip the wings of fly-by-night, one-off developers who disappear as soon as the last unit is sold.

Pets

The proposal: to change the standard or default bylaw to state that pets are allowed, provided that the Executive Committee approves, although that approval can’t unreasonably be withheld.

The intention: to create a default situation where pet ownership, under reasonable conditions, is allowed.

The effect: this will make no difference to older building that have established by-laws, or new buildings where they have written their own by-laws. But for the many buildings that just go with the basic by-laws recommended by Fair Trading, you can have a pet unless the owners’ corporation has a very good reason for saying no.

There were more than 90 proposed changes to strata laws announced by the NSW Government last week – some are big changes in the concept of property ownership, others are tweaks and finesses to the existing laws, by-laws and rules.

But what were the changes, announced by Fair Trading Minister Victor Dominello, that will affect strata residents – owners and tenants – the most?

Over-crowding

The proposal: to allow owners’ corporations to create by-laws limiting the number of adults who can live in an apartment (although that limit can’t be set at fewer than two adults per bedroom), with the fines for over-crowding to be raised to $5500.

The intention: to curb the multi-occupancy of apartments in blocks near the city or universities, because of health, safety and the detrimental effect these “battery cage” apartments have on other residents of the buildings.

Mr Dominello is also looking to the Boarding House Act that he successfully steered through the last Parliament, which allowed council inspectors to use circumstantial evidence, such as the number of people coming and going from houses, to show there was probably overcrowding.

This allows councils to bypass rules that meant they had to give landlords advance notice that they were coming to look around their properties, thus allowing these landlords to remove any evidence of multi-occupancy.

The effect on residents: owners will be able to limit the number of people in a flat, find it easier to gather evidence and then take effective measures at the NSW Civil Administration Tribunal to get apartments cleared and fines imposed.

Parking

The proposal: to allow owners’ corporations and local councils to let council parking inspectors patrol strata car parks and issue fines to people who have parked where they shouldn’t.

The intention: parking is one of the most contentious areas of strata life, especially since the law seriously limit what owners’ corporations can do about rogue parkers (especially non-residents). It’s an area that leads to arguments and even violence. Just last week a driver was convicted and fined $2000 for “keying” the car of a woman who blocked him in for stealing her parking space.

The effect: once signs go up and the parking inspectors come in, everybody will have to be on their best behaviour. Sure, the non-resident commuter who parks at the property will get a ticket, but so may you if you park briefly in the driveway or over the lines round your space. Be careful what you wish for!