We’re rolling the Wrap out a little early this week because it’s connected to the hottest topic in strata right now.

Linton Besser, the reporter who brought you the Four Corners report The Strata Trap on Monday, has come on to the podcast to answer our questions about what he’s found in the strata industry, not only in NSW, but across Australia.

What questions? How about what piqued his interest in the story that led to the exposure of strata management firm Netstrata and the resignation of its General Manager Stephen Brell as President of Strata Community Association (SCA-NSW)?

Linton admits he almost ignored the story when the first email landed in his in-tray. But when another came in a few days later, he thought he might start digging.

That led to the 7.30 report on Netstrata and that sparked a tsunami of tips and complaints that led, in turn, to the Four Corners episode.

The podcast is a wide-ranging chat about the culture of the strata business – not just in NSW – that leads to big strata management companies believing they can act with impunity while apartment owners are left “incoherent with rage”.

Everyone from complacent politicians to apathetic media operators cops it in this fascinating chat, but he does think some strata managers are suffering too and believes, despite it all, that there is a solution.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

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Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to mail@flatchat.com.au.
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

Are your cooking and heating appliances giving your kids asthma? This week in the Flat Chat Wrap, Sue talks about a story she’s been chasing where families have found that switching from gas to electricity for their heating and cooking appliances has seen their kids’ asthma disappear.

As we head for net zero emissions and electricity becomes the affordable power source of choice, you might want to start checking your pots and pans to see if they work on induction stoves.

Before that, with Spring definitely in the air, we’re turning down the heat in the podcast this week as we examine why the majority of tenants – especially younger ones – are in favour of the Victorian government’s incoming regulations about insualting homes being introduced nationwide – and why two-thirds of landlords are against them.

Then there’s a question of what to do in strata when a number of owners want one thing and an exactly equal number don’t.

And when we say “equal”, we mean that the unit entitlements on one side add up to precisely the same figure on the other.

As this story plucked straight from the Flat Chat Forum explains, it has led to a strata stand-off in one small Sydney block.

And finally we look at how an ailing RSL club has been turned into not just one of the coolest venues in a booming Sydney suburb, but one of the hottest properties on the apartments scene.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

____________________________________________________


Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to mail@flatchat.com.au.
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.

There’s been considerable speculation about NSW Strata Commissioner John Minns this week after the revelation on an ABC news report that he has retained a significant holding in a property management company, albeit through a family trust.

Is it a serious problem for the man tasked with overseeing strata management (among other things), especially in the wake of the Netstrata scandal?

Or is it just an unfortunate embarrassment at a time when NSW Fair Trading has launched new legislation intended to boost transparency and combat conflicts of interest? We give that question a good kickaround in the playground.

We also look at the new legislation in Victoria which imposes a 7.5 per cent levy on short-term holiday rentals and allows apartment blocks and local councils to curb Airbnb and the like. (We can’t help having a good chortle at Airbnb’s typically left-field response).

And we have a serious disagreement on whether the reduction in student visas is going to help ease the housing crisis or is just a response to the dog-whistle politics of racist right-wingers.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

____________________________________________________


Flat Chat is all about apartment living, especially in Australia.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter and the Flat Chat website.
Send comments and questions to mail@flatchat.com.au.
Register to ask and answer questions about apartment living anonymously on the website.
Recorded by Jimmy Thomson & Sue Williams; Transcribed by Otter.ai.
Find out more about Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson on their websites.