Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 18 July 2007
Last year’s Census highlighted the growing appeal of apartments in Brisbane’s inner city suburbs. Some 69% of our housing is now attached, but despite this there’s still plenty of confusion over how apartment buildings operate and who the body corporate actually is. As inner city agents we’ve made it our business to know – so here’s a quick overview:
A body corporate simply consists of each owner of a lot (eg. townhouse, duplex, apartment, villa or unit) in a community titles scheme. When you buy you automatically become a member of that body corporate, which is a separate legal entity and a bit like a company with you as its shareholders. In Queensland there’s an Act that regulates exactly how this works and it’s overseen by the Office of Fair Trading. The annual meeting of owners (the 3 of them that turn up plus the gardener’s dog!) elect a committee of owners to oversee regular decision making, and usually also appoint a manager to do all the admin work. A body corp is generally responsible for maintenance of all of its common property and that’s usually everything outside the 4 walls of each apartment including walkways, lifts, pools, stairs and infrastructure such as pipes and wiring.
Of course the committee can’t make major decisions or incur big dollar expenses without a general meeting of owners. If you’d like to have more say in your building put your hand up for the committee, but be aware it doesn’t pay and can be a thankless job. Interestingly there can be a marked difference in the ongoing appeal between similar buildings simply due to one having an active committee, and another being left to an external manager.
So there’s no outside company or person deciding the fate of your building. The annual costs are set by the owners – hopefully with recommendations by the managers as experts in this – but the idea that someone is hiking costs for their own benefit is just not true. Put a bunch of people in the one building, add some emotional issues like money, keeping of pets, noisy parties and bikes stored on balconies and it’s no surprise there’s ingredients for disagreement! But the real surprise is how well most bodies corporate actually operate. Remember that a dominant committee or chairperson can make life interesting but at all times all owners collectively have the final say.
Tags: body corporate issues Queensland
Posted in trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 18 July 2007
In the latest Smart State initiative Premier Pete this week released a blueprint for managing future growth of inner Brisbane, appropriately called “Smart Cities”. There’s plenty in here to applaud with proposals for new bridges better linking the CBD with Kangaroo Point, New Farm, South Brisbane and Bulimba. There’s also a move to reintroduce a light rail system (trams or similar) to run from the Valley through to West End.
We’d suggest the smartest part of this plan though is that it largely matches the City Centre masterplan adopted by Brisbane City Council over a year ago. Finally we have a Council (mostly big enough to make their own decisions) with the financial and planning support of the State. Council’s Urban Renewal team, under the leadership of the late Trevor Reddacliff, spent a long time assessing what the city heart needs, and did plenty of consultation with stakeholders near and far.
The State Govt says it will now spend another 3 years and $3.5million fine-tuning their plan. Lord Mayor Newman says there’s no monopoly on good ideas – but in the interests of our inner city’s future it’d be good to get past “Go”! More info is at www.smartstate.qld.gov.au
Tags: Brisbane City Council, urban renewal Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane CBD, Brisbane's future & new infrastructure | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 17 July 2007
An unidentified English woman, according to the Sunday Express, was climbing into the bathtub one afternoon when she remembered she had left some crumpets in the oven. Naked, she dashed downstairs and was removing the crumpets when she heard a noise at the door.
Thinking it was the baker, and knowing he would come in and leave a loaf of bread on the kitchen table if she didn’t answer his knock, the woman darted into the broom cupboard.
A few moments later she heard the back door open and, to her eternal mortification, the sound of footsteps coming toward the cupboard. It was the man from the gas company, come to read the meter. “Oh”, stammered the woman, “I was expecting the baker.”
The gas man blinked, excused himself and departed.
Tags: bad but clean jokes
Posted in just for fun! | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 4 July 2007
Would the smell of smoke wake you from a deep sleep? Are you confident you could escape a burning home in less than 3 minutes? Latest research suggests fires in modern homes are burning a lot faster, leaving a much shorter escape window. And there’s a good chance the home’s occupants will be asleep, with almost half of our fatal home fires occurring between midnight and 8am. So the government’s smoke alarms that came in on July 1st 2007 are well warranted, despite the extra work and costs.
The Building Code’s required smoke alarms since 1997 for new and renovated homes, but the Fire Service estimate 200,000 Queensland homes still don’t have them. Many of us grabbed one from Bunnings a few years back and double-sided taped them to the ceiling… but those middle of the night battery beeps might have since seen them ripped down! So here’s a quick look at the new requirements:
- All homes must have at least one outside sleeping areas and one per floor
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When you sell a home you’ve got to declare that you have them
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If you’re a landlord you must clean and test alarms and change batteries as needed before the start of all tenancies
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Tenants must clean, test and change batteries at least once per year. Those delightful beeps should go off every 60 seconds for 7 days prior to the battery going flat.
Go to www.fire.qld.gov.au for all the info.
The smoke alarm rules come on top of the recent safety switch requirements. Designed to monitor electricity flows and shut off the supply when there’s a current leakage, safety switches must now also be installed in every Queensland home. Again these have been standard since 1992 but we see older units particularly where these haven’t been done, with owners mistakenly thinking it’s a body corporate issue.
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Landlords – you should have put one in within 6 months of starting a new tenancy (or at the latest March 2008 if your tenants have been long term)
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Sellers have to declare if they have one, and if not the buyer must have it installed within 3 months of settlement.
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For those of you about to run out to the meter box – it usually has the word “test” written on it! It should cost around $220-250 to have one installed.
Tags: electrical safety switch Queensland, Queensland tenancy legislation, smoke alarms Queensland
Posted in Brisbane landlords, architecture and renovation | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 4 July 2007
An apartment-dwelling tenant in a multicultural and childless small household. That could well be inner Brisbane’s typical resident, according to the latest Census stats for the 17 suburbs immediately surrounding the CBD. This area has just 2 people per household (compared to 2.6 for Brisbane and Australia) so it’s no surprise more than 2-thirds of all dwellings are apartments and similar.
A whopping 50% of homes are rented and if you aren’t the type to say hi to your neighbour maybe it’s time you did – 30% of households have just the one resident. Couples without kids are double the number of those with children. And while our inner-city has plenty of English and Kiwis we do have less than our fair share, and there’s far more Korean and Chinese born residents than you’d expect to find across Brisbane. Just 70% of households say they only speak English at home compared to 84% across the whole city, and Mandarin (2% of households) and Greek (1.7%) speakers are amongst the cultures adding colour and life to our inner suburbs.
We’re now updating Bees Nees’ short suburb profiles using the latest ABS stats so if you’d like to receive a copy just click here to send us an email.
Tags: Australian Bureau of Statistics, household types, multiculturalism
Posted in trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 3 July 2007
From the Gloucester Citizen: “A caller complained to Trading Standards. After dialling a 1900 number from an advertisement entitled “Hear Me Moan…”, the caller was played a tape of a woman nagging her husband for failing to do jobs around the house.
Consumer Watchdogs in Dorset refused to look into the complaint, saying ‘He got what he deserved’!”
Tags: funny media articles
Posted in just for fun! | No Comments »
