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We have as a OC used, and a number of residents in our complex have used, all succesfully, SLR consulting.
We require (in our by-laws) that the accoustic consultants testing and report be done by a member of the Association of Australian Acoustical Consultants – http://www.aaac.org.au/nsw They are the peak association for these types of consultants and companies. While there are other associations apart from the AAAC, I have heard they are not quite as stringent on their members and the fly by nighters are more likely to either belong to no associations or a less well respected organisation then the AAAC.
We require a report prior to approval for installation, with the consultant assessing the likely impact of the selected underlay and flooring on our types of slabs, then a noise test on site, and then a final report. By keeping to this strict process, we have had no noise complaint issues on floors installed since this was put in place (floors put down before this was put in place have had noise complaints in relation to them in the past few years).
After seeing an article for BNBGuard I spent time on their website, and came up with the same questions as both thara and TruleEConcerned. When I saw it was $41 per month (ex GST) for a single landlord (with possibly multiple properties), I assumed the worst for the cost for a OC with more than 100 lots.
Every month I spend about twenty to thirty minutes reviewing the listings for my suburb on the main short term accommodation websites putting in a variety of date ranges to try to pick up any apartments in our complex on the sites.
Having a knowledge of what our apartment layouts are (where windows / doors / walls are and what bathrooms look like) means I can positively identify if they are in our complex and commonly narrow it down to a couple of apartments based upon the aspect. I would be very surprised if a piece of software could do the same without being “trained” in what to look for specifically.
I look forward to hearing if any Flat Chatters have had a real world experience with them.
We have used Tonja and John from Strata Answers https://www.strataanswers.com.au to help us with similar things. Last year they assisted us with creating an asset register which was accurate and realistic prior to our 10 year plan being updated. I have also spoken to both of them in relation to by-laws and the real world application of them, and while not lawyers, they were of great assistance. I believe they are based near Green Square.
We have a similar situation in our complex, where there is a by-law in place that does not allow laundry to be hung where it is visible from outside the complex. As the balconies are surrounded by glass, it is very obvious when someone has laundry on the their balcony.
A number of residents have complained that this is not being current enforced and looks unsightly from the street (the complainers all happen to be in units that are either high enough up or facing in a particular direction so they can hang their washing out without being seen).
We are looking to put an extra by-law in place to allow residents to frost their balcony glass with enough opacity that any washing on the balcony will not be clearly visible. This will give residents the option of hanging laundry out IF they are either high enough up, or do the frosting.
Hi Mezzo,
We also use BuildingLink and have not had any complaints re privacy.
What is their complaint? Is it that their personal contact details such as name / phone number / email address is contained within it? Is it they are upset about receiving emails or SMS alerts from the system?
BuildingLink has a number of different roles and settings which can restrict what information is visible to different types of users. For example in our complex residents can not see information about other residents unless that other resident has activated their public profile.
We did have a couple of off site owners who did not want to receive email alerts and they were able to be removed off the list for these.
In our complex, the Building Manager / Strata Manager / two Strata Committee members have access to information about renovations, requests etc in all units. This does not though through BuildingLink give them access to any financial data etc, and realistically the information they have access to, is no more than what the resident / owner would submit to the same people when making a request or complaint.
I would suggest asking the resident to be specific with their concern and then most likely BuildingLink could give you guidance on how to rectify for that one resident.
Councils should have on a file with the original development application (depending upon the age of the building) these plans.
Unfortunately sometimes people “borrow” the plans out of the folder at the council and don’t return them. This happened to us, so we then followed up with the original architects who were very helpful but did not in the end have the plans either.
Remember though that even if you track down the plans you can’t completely trust them. They show what was intended to be done, not necessarily what was done in reality, especially so with services that are hidden in the walls.
I believe there are sensors which can pick up plastic pipes filled with water etc, as our plumber uses them to track pipes in our building on occasion.
I have used Ethan from Sustainability Now in a number of strata complexes, and in each we were have been able to make substantial improvements to our energy use and costs based upon the advice / report given.
The Green Strata website that Lady Penelope mentioned is a treasure trove of great information on this subject. Coincidently Ethan has been involved in that over the years: https://greenstrata.com.au/acknowldegements
An example of why even ground floor units should have to abide by acoustic underlay standards:
For the past six months our building manager and a number of Strata Committee members have been trying to track down noises being heard by a resident on the 1st floor of our complex. After the resident on the first floor accused the unit above, and to each side of making the noises, we finally established it was the unit below causing the excessive noise.
A previous owner of the unit on the ground floor had installed floorboards with only minimal underlay. The current residents of the ground floor unit had a hobby where there were building things on a table that was sitting directly on the floor boards. All their pounding etc was being transferred into the floor > slab > presumably up the walls.
On a related note of noise travelling in buildings – a few weeks ago I would have sworn the unit above was doing concrete drilling directly above my bedroom (during the day). It was in fact three floors down, one unit across on the outside of the building. Noise travels in funny ways, and it is all owners responsibility to not make it worse for those around them when they renovate etc, even if others in the past did not care.
I don’t have a precise answer for you but have been involved in the CCTV at a number of buildings where I have been on the committee.
In one complex it was the Secretary and one other SC member that had access. In my current building it is the part time Building Manager and one SC member that have access. In both buildings the Strata Manager had the username and password but never needed to get involved.
In both buildings if a resident complained of theft, vandalism, people parking on common property etc, one of the two authorised people would view the footage and if they found something would copy it over to a USB key to give to Police, send a photo to the offender with a warning etc. If a resident really wanted to, they could sit with that person at the time and watch while it was being done. This was only taken up once, and the resident ended up being thoroughly bored as 48 hours of footage had to be watched, which at 16x still took 3 hours without the pausing and rewinding to check as it went on.
I can not see any legitimate reason that a resident would need a live feed. One good practice though is to have a monitor showing all the cameras displayed prominently, say in a foyer.
Have a look at http://www.flatchat.com.au/forum/another-day-in-paradise/surveillance/ as there are a few good points also.
The responsibility for the flyscreens can reside with the OC or the lot owner, depending upon who put them in. If the fly screens were an original fixture (put in at the time the building was built) then it would be the Owners Corporation who would look after them. If an owner put them in, then it is that or subsequent owners responsibility to maintain.
In relation to hanging out the window, I would suggest instead going off to the local hardware store to buy an extendable handle window cleaning blush and squeege. I have had same situation in a number of apartment blocks I have lived in, and find using one of these allows me to clean the outside windows in relative safety.
Hi Shanti,
To quote Jimmy in this thread (worth your reading): http://www.flatchat.com.au/forum/common-property/water-damage-to-ceiling-from-unit-above/#p18765 (Item 8)
Section 13
If damage is caused to a lot owner’s property while the owners corporation are effecting a repair, the owners corporation are responsible to fix the damaged property.
However, if the cause of the damage to the owner’s property was not made when the owners corporation were fixing the problem; instead it was caused by the problem itself, then the owners corporation are not responsible to make good the owner’s property unless the owners corporation can be deemed negligent.
E.g.: 1. A burst pipe occurs in a wall and the owners corporation have to knock a hole in the wall to fix it. The owners corporation are responsible to fix the hole and repaint the wall afterwards.
2. A burst pipe occurs in a concrete slab. The owner’s corporation fix the leak, but water stained the ceiling paintwork of the unit below. Here the owners corporation are not responsible to repaint the ceiling because it was not the fixing of the repair that caused the damage.
3. A burst hot water service soaked the magnasite in a unit and the owners corporation had to take up the carpet to dry the magnasite. Once the magnasite had dried, the carpet could not be re-laid because it had shrunk. The owners corporation would be responsible for the carpet because the carpet was damaged because they had to take it up.
4. With example 3, if the magnasite was not damaged, the owners corporation would not be responsible to dry out the carpet or replace it, if it shrunk because the damage to the carpet was not caused when the owners corporation were fixing common property.
Hi Waterloo,
This is a very broad question. You will need to be clear with:
- what was the money spent on?
- how much money?
- what authority has been provided to the Strata Manager by the OC to act on it’s behalf?
- was the expense an emergency, or a necessity?
- was is a recurring expense?
- did the Strata Committee or any of the office bearers approve it, or were consulted on it?
- do you think they were spending it to gain some benefit for themselves?
In our complex there was a feeling that the previous Strata Manager and Building Manager had spent beyond their authority, and had “wasted” money, but proving what they had done, was for their benefit and not that of the complex is very hard.
Hi Whoopi,
What do the by-laws of your building say? In our complex many of these questions are covered in by-laws but most residents have never read them. Your by-laws may or may not cover this.
In NSW most residential buildings allow two people per bedroom based upon their DA or other regulations. Therefore in our complex (and many others) we allow owners to obtain two access control cards per bedroom e.g. a one bedroom unit may have two cards, and a two bedroom unit may have four cards. For units that are tenanted, it is suggested that you have as many access cards as their are people on the lease documents, plus ones for the property manager and owner if appropriate.
If a complex has a separate remote for the garage area, I have seen them being limited to the number of car parking spaces on title. This stops residents getting extra remotes to be used by other occupants or friends to park in visitor spaces when they should not.
In relation to cost, I have been told of some complexes charging $220 non refundable per access card. In our complex we had a charge made up of both a refundable and a non-refundable component. This ensures that people will return access cards when they don’t need them anymore.
Hi cellblock,
We moved over to Irvine Strata about 8 months ago and have been very happy with his performance. Tony Irvine is the ex Operations Manager of StrataMax which is a piece of software to manage strata better – therefore Tony and his team are very savvy technology wise.
As a SC independently setup BuildingLink software to manage the day to day running of our complex (over a hundred unit) which is used by both our Building Manager and our Strata Manager.
Tony has mentioned he is currently implementing electronic voting and the like but we have not gone into any depth on that quite yet.
Hope this helps.