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This is from a reader called “Blocker”
I bought a unit in a block of four, 28 years ago. I lived there very happily for 24 years. The block would have been built early 1950’s.
Problem 1
Recently, the unit above was sold to a young man who promptly decided to remove a wall with a jack hammer. He had warned my tenants that there would be noise on one Saturday.
Needless to say this extended over odd week and weekend days, without further notice. Result: cracks appeared in the kitchen, lounge and vestibule of my unit. He has made an offer to repair the damage, which I accepted and asked him to liaise with the current residents.
I sent him an email asking him where things were, as my tenant thinks this young man was avoiding him! The reply was that he was taking it to the strata meeting next week.
I think this young man’s motto is to ask for forgiveness after the situation, rather than permission before hand!
I have been told that it is illegal to use jack hammers on older buildings. Is this so and where do I find the fact?
Problem 2
Is there such a piece of legislation that can ask an upstairs unit owner to replace carpet in their unit?
It would appear that he has removed all floor coverings as distinct high heels (of the girl friend one would presume!) and foot falls can be heard in the unit below. Also, their amorous adventures and squeaking of the bed!!!
The people who had the unit previously were a young couple, who married and subsequently had two children while they lived there. I might hear a baby crying at times but that was all. The babies grew up and had started school by the time they moved out but I was never inconvenienced by noise however, there was carpet throughout apart from the kitchen of course.
The young man upstairs never mentioned that he was removing carpet to the strata – should he have done so and can I ask him to replace it?
I hope you can help …. as I don’t know where to turn right now.
From the airbnb Sydney office:
As the world’s leading community driven hospitality company, we’re excited to be such a big part of how people travel in Australia.
Of course, we advise hosts to follow their locally set rules and regulations when listing on Airbnb, and these often differ from council to council, street to street. Around the world, we’re seeing cities and countries pass new laws that enable home sharing, and we’ll continue to work with governments for progressive, fair regulation.
Local communities should make rules that work for them, but we also need basic ground rules to ensure regular people can share the home in which they live with visitors and friends.
The fact that the majority of our listings are outside of the main hotel areas means a significant boost to local businesses that traditional tourists just don’t visit. Our hosts represent a diverse group that vary in age, occupation, household type and income. The majority of which rent the home they live in occasionally and earn a modest income from it. Our research tells us this income makes a real difference though – with about 50% being spent on essential living expenses such as mortgage repayments, electricity bills and groceries.
In terms of getting in touch with us – our ‘contact us’ feature on the site is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and we take feedback about breaches to our policies very seriously.
Dean in New York writes:
lol …..boo hoo, J.
Stock standard 4 story multi family (6 apartments) brownstone here in Brooklyn heights New York. The co-op rates for our individual apartment is $1925 per month – sales value about $1.6m for 2br/2bath about 120sqm (or about 1.4% property value).
Though this does include “city tax” (eg council rates) but apart from that….no gardener…no security….no concierge, though does include someone to vacuum the hallway once a week and take out the trash to the curbside 3 times a week (oh and they shovel the snow…..which almost make it worth its weight in gold when I wake up at 7am in bed and hear them out there shoveling while I’m toasty and warm).
But just thought you’d appreciate the food for thought as a comparison.
Jimmy first of all good piece of work in your article.
But l would like to draw your attention that there is no real fighting of laws around governance of managing strata fee’s by developers in the first instance so this is where it should be addressed as part of the develop,met in the first instance.
That strata fees must be standardised as to their application.
Typically developers will:
– do the bare minimum in insuring the property complex, this should be standardised to ensure new owners are covered at a real cost of strata fee’s.
– the sinking fund component is a low guess by developers
Developers should be made to:
– have a sinking fund component is audited before the developer can sell to ensure an actuary has signed off on estimates to be reflective of a true calculation. That where a developer incorrectly omits this then there is legal recourse in law to go after them at the developers cost.
– have strata fee’s to be in line/reflect with similar built complexes in the area as compared to age, size and facilities.
– get quotations from local Australian registered companies to cover all maintenance items for a complex should be part of the selling document so buyers can see when quotes were done, cost for the complex and how this is broken down to yearly strata fee’s.
– that a full occupancy certificate must be included before any sale commences to stop building work being carried around new owners, which is currently allowed or done by overseas developers.
– that developers deviations from the original plan to which they are selling off the plan, which includes fittings in apartments should allow a buyer to opt out of the contract if these changes are more than 20% of the design change to the building to which the purchaser is purchased and if internal changes are more than 15% changes to internal fittings or lesser quality fittings supplied allows the purchaser to opt out or get an independent report to allow for a discount to cover changes to lesser quality Fittings.
A Landlord writes:
I would like to say that not all short term rentals create problems.
We have been doing this for 5 years and have never had an issue. We have a maximum of 4 people in our apartment and there has never been a complaint from the neighbours or any damage done to our apartment.
Mostly we get couples from overseas, people in Melbourne for medical treatment or from interstate on business. I find it laughable that we are supposed to protect the big hotel industry-the same people who charge exorbitant rates that few can afford.
We are retired, lost most of our super in the GFC caused by big business, who we now have to feel sorry for, and the income we get from the occasional rental helps us survive. The people who rent from us love the experience of living in a community which gives them a better feel for the city.
I find this is just another example of money and power being concentrated in the hands of the few. Why shouldn’t individuals make some money out of their property? I for one will fight this all the way. No-one can tell me that I can’t use my own property for any purpose I like as long as it is not illegal.
I also think your expression ‘strata parasites’ is unwarranted.
A lawyer writes:
Just read your article on Airbnb; a narrow minded approach.
I just returned from a family trip to NYC. We rented an apartment for $450 per night, 2 bedrooms, kitchen, the works. Located in Hell’s Kitchen only one block from Times Square.
This was far cheaper than a shoe box hotel room which could not accommodate my family of five. No parties, no doof doof music, just privacy and comfort.
Where I live my next door neighbour holiday lets his house. Sometimes there are parties but they don’t disturb us.
There are laws in place concerning noise. Leave it be. Airbnb or Stayz will not go away. I’m perplexed how you think a flood of apartments will open in Melbourne. Leave free markets alone.
Have you even used the app?
The apartment above us put in hard wood floors and it sounded like there was a circus going on every night and morning – our agents (name removed) could not have cared less and when we finally had enough and moved out last month ,they asked us why we were moving !
The trouble when you have somebody, like in our building who is vexatious as in ours who complains about anything and everything it can cause lots of problems, just like you mentioned once a problem or imagined problem is brought up there can be implications that keep on keeping on
One wonders whether the person concerned has legal capacity to, in the first instance nominate herself to stand, and in the second instance if she were to be nominated by someone else whether she would have capacity to accept the nomination. If she attends and votes at meetings and she is the person that makes quorum but due to the dementia is subsequently found not to have legal capacity at the time of the meeting it raises a point as to whether any of the motions or resolutions of the committee are valid.
This takes a slightly different tack, from a retired strata manager, responding to THIS post:
With the greatest respect I find the information you provided in your column not quite correct and this may confuse any readers in relation to repairs/maintenance/replacement of especially sliding doors on balconies. Repair/replacement of balcony sliding door rollers comes to mind.
The 1973 Strata Titles Act started on July 1st., 1974. Strata Plans registered before this date fall under old 1961 act, whereby the common property extends to the outside balcony “wall”, which makes individual owners responsible for repair/maintenance/replacement of a.o. balcony sliding doors.
As a rough guideline Strata Plans numbered before around 8000 are registered under the 1961 Act, Strata Plans numbered around 8000 and above fall under the 1973 Act. The Land Titles Office could probably advise of the correct Strata Plan number registered first under the 1973 Act.
Irrespective of any Act, accidental damage to glass in windows/balcony sliding doors should be covered under the Strata Plan’s insurance policy covering buildings.
@considerate band fair said:
DFT, CTTT, NCAT, tell em your jokin’.Belly Laugh,
CBF
would ICAC be interested
yep, I have complained, hmm about a week ago saying I WILL be taking it to Fair Trading if I have to, I have not heard anything yet, I will give them another week and start officially making a noise.