Travels etc.

It's been a while since  the last post In January 2016 the owner lodged an application to NCAT against owners corporation to fix three major defects: - waterproofing of large windows in the living room and bedroom which led to windows full replacement - bathroom drain fix - planterbox fix The owners corporation didn't come to mediation and tribunal ordered to fix all defects within 2 months (the deadline was 8th July 2016). The owners corporation as usual didn't rush to comply with the order regarding two items: bathroom and planterbox. The windows works started end of April 2016. At the same time owners corporation decided to check whether it's a warranty and original builder should fix the issues. That was also related to the fact that the variation was submitted by the current contractor who started fixing the defect. So the owners corporation stopped all works in the middle and went off for a month to "make decision". The decision was mad...

A story from one user of  http://strataboss.com.au A strata unit owner has got a problem with exhaust fan in the bathroom and requested a strata manager to send someone to fix it. An electrician came and fixed the issue. Next day the strata manager sent an invoice to the unit owner and requested a payment or proposed adding that amount to the levies bill. The owner went to  http://strataboss.com.au , chose the problem location (bathroom) and the problem (exhaust fan) and got a c omplete information about who is responsible: If it is inside the lot it is the Owners responsibility. If it is mounted within "Structural cubic space" e.g. communal ducting or a false ceiling which is designed to carry communal pipes etc or outside the lot, then it is the responsibility of the Owners Corporation. In that case the fan is not inside the lot and therefore is Owners Corporation's responsibility. Instant savings of $100!

During more than 4 years dealing with various strata living issues I have got good experience working with committees, builders, strata managers etc. Almost always the good service - which is timely, reliable and doesn’t require further follow ups and re-visits - doesn’t happen at all. I don’t take to account when the job is just apply some paint and replace a light bulb. But operations that are even simpler i.e. getting to contact the builder or other people by strata manager very often takes weeks without any action. Though money is being regularly paid to them for the service. Low quality solutions are not good for multiple reasons They require time and effort to rectify after the work is done. So instead of productive activity we have to be engaged in fixing the problem which shouldn't exist in the first place They are equal to fraud, because almost always the money is paid for the solution and if it's low quality then it's obviously not the product...

StrataBoss  has got a feature allowing to notify your strata manager after you have identified who is responsible to rectify a problem in your strata unit. The email will contain the information from the web site that will help the strata manager, executive committee and yourself as an owner to proceed with problem rectification. This feature will save your time informing the strata manager and relevant people to get problem solved as soon as possible. Check it out !  

Almost 8 months passed from the time of previous post and here's how the owners corporations activities looked like to "resolve" the defects/problems: 1. Independent inspection report was ordered and completed 1st June 2015. The report confirmed the defects that were known to owners corporation already. It should be noted that in the period between December 2014 and June 2015 the only attempts by owners corporation to resolve the issues were to convince the lot owner that it's the owner's personal responsibility. Therefore half a year gone with a couple of meetings only, because people were "on holidays", "busy" etc. 2. Between 3rd July 2015 and end of July 2015 the strata manager spent "contacting the builders for quotes". Until owner called the strata manager nothing have happend. 3. By the end of August 2015 all quotes were in place. The meeting of all owners was set up for the 7th October! Because as usual "holid...

Reducing costs of strata unit ownership: start with identifying who is responsible for maintenance and rectifications of the common property that affects the unit at http://strataboss.com.au

When dealing with strata living and issues related to a unit or common property it is crucial to identify the responsible party as soon as possible! Having ceiling falling on your tenants or your beloved cat and dog? Need to paint the door to your unit? Waterproofing is not functioning? Other major or minor issues with the unit? Regardless of the severity of the problem, you can spend months before you realize that the reponsibility is not yours, but either a builder or owners corporation. In addition to that you may spend some money on investigation and/or fixing the problem which is not yours. Fortunately there is a tool which can help you out identifying who is responsible and where you can start your claims and/or fixes: http://strataboss.com.au The tool is simple - choose where the problem is located, what is the problem and see who is responsible - you as an owner or owners corporation as a whole (which will potentially save you a lot of money in some cases). Enjoy!

On the 24th February 2015 (six months ago) the Owners Corporation of an apartment block lodged an application to NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) seeking orders to appoint compulsory manager of a strata scheme and to refund the fees paid to the former strata manager. The application caused by negligent and inacceptable behaviour by strata manager and included the following concerns: -        No proper service for two years -        Breaching of the rules and not following the orders of Owners Corporation -        Spending money on items that were not agreed or ordered by Owners Corporation -        Not servicing fire safety inspections and insurance for the building appropriately -        Other issues   All the documentation related to the above-mentioned problems has been submitted to the ...

Meetings are important part of the business activity. Our basic need to communicate is topped by necessity to deliver meaningful results at workplace. As usual though reality is not as rosy as the ideal that many of us trying to achieve with meetings. What is a good work-related pastime for one is at the same moment a time wasting and useless activity to another. This contradiction is coming from a few factors (among other things): 1.     Core difference in perception of meetings between different levels of workplace hierarchy or among committee/board members 2.     Meeting audiences and agendas 3.     Involvement and focus level of participants during the meetings Therefore usually instead of being an effective business or private processing tool, meetings become the opposite. There is an opportunity to adjust existing practices to meet new expectations of the work related activities to be more productive and fun....

"We have a problem with waterproofing in the bathroom. Would it be possible to fix it?" "Yes, we can fix it. We will apply silicone." "There is job to attach a roof to the terrace properly." "Cool. We will do it by applying silicone." "The window frame is installed without flashing." "That’s OK. We will fix it with silicone." "Bathroom doesn’t have any waterproofing." "No worries. We will apply silicone." ... I have talked to a building quality specialist during the most recent (third so far) inspection of the same property where builders can't rectify their lousy work. The inspector said "it seems like builders in Australia build homes like it never rains here". It’s not fair to all builders of Australia to state that the quality of their work is not up to any acceptable standard. For sure many builders are good professionals and do their job at the highest quality level. ...

This post is a continuation of the long process that started in December 2011 and is still going. Here’s the link to the whole story: http://traveloga.blogspot.com/p/home-building-issues-sydney-experience.html An idea of this publication is to draw attention of people who are interested or involved in the building industry, property market, construction, property development and property management and ownership. That should help to raise awareness and to ignite conversations with relevant people in law making, business and other communities who could take this information to account when they dealing with relevant matters and think about quality of the work and of research and education. This matter is about building defects that are covered by statutory warranty, but in reality are covered by rather a joke. Well to be fair to all parties some minor defects (that are similar to paint a crack or to replace broken toilet paper roll holder) were brilliantly rectified by the resp...

While reading some paperwork regarding International Tax Law subject following statement drew my attention: "The complexity of the international tax rules makes it nearly impossible to diffuse the public sensibility about the issues." It is from the speech "Sense and Sensibility: The Policy and Politics of BEPS" by Manal S. Corwin.  The full text can be found here: https://www.kpmg-institutes.com/content/dam/kpmg/taxwatch/pdf/2014/beps-corwin-tillinghast-tn-100614.pdf That thought is not unique to tax law. In my experience of more than 3 years doing what I call “applied dispute resolution” which correlates with law research and paralegal activities I see that in any area of law, social matters, environmental, humanities, economics and others we can witness increasing level of challenges that our society face. Let’s take as an example The Law. Carefully crafted legal framework is one of the essentials of contemporary society. However ...

I have finally built and installed to the phone my first Android app: It has got the following features at the moment: - call to remote Web service to retrieve data from the database; - display received data in a timeline; - cool floating button; - form to submit data to the Web service. This is also my first ever project to build in Java. My profession is mostly related to Microsoft .NET and this project was an interesting variation from usual. Cool stuff!

Good communication is one of the keys to successful business collaboration. Business process designed and implemented properly is an important part of reaching a business goal. Business processes are designed and implemented by people. Contemporary level of technology development allows us to automate processes partially, but at the end of the day it is people who make final decisions and do the job to integrate those various pieces of a process puzzle into a working mechanism. People are communicating with each other. They are not machines and therefore interpret received messages according to their attitudes . Personal attitudes and combinations of those are different for everybody. They may match but not with every person you meet or have a chance to work with. It may happen that messages received from others are in a form, intonation and with content controversial to our personal views, traditions, knowledge and mental state. This situation is described as cogn...

There is usually two distinct perspectives on multi-tasking: 1. Multitasking is counterproductive. We get distracted by multiple tasks that all get our way and fight for our scarce attention, time and resources. This leads to a common fallacy that if you do multiple activities “at a time” you are not doing good work in any of those. 2. Multitasking is a way of getting many things done in a short period of time or in a long run. Indeed it can be either a disaster or a great helper depending on how it is used and practiced. Most recent research shows that we don’t do multiple tasks purely in parallel or simultaneously. That means we don’t purely multi-task, but switch between tasks and execute them one at a time, but by spending very small timeframes on each task. A good example from the history is a story about Julius Caesar capabilities in that area. Plutarch writes, “Caesar disciplined himself so far as to be able to dictate letters from on horseback, and to give directi...

We all have probably seen on the Web pictures which may look like the following: It implies that if someone quotes to a customer low (or lower than average, I presume) price for the services or products it necessary means low/lower quality of the services or products provided. This is very interesting assumption and I had a short conversation a while ago on Twitter with another SharePoint specialist about it: Original Bjørn's article should be here http://t.co/36brwYq4Kf A study in Journal of Consumer Research http://www.jstor.org/userimages/ContentEditor/1351717003127/DevalRelease.pdf in regards to the subject clearly shows: '" Consumers rarely have complete information and use various strategies to fill the gaps in their knowledge as they consider and choose products. One of these strategies involves using naive theories : informal, common sense, explanations that consumers use to make sense of their environment. For example, consumers may believe th...

Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Shaped the Modern World by Jane Gleeson-White My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is very interesting. While reading it becomes clear why bookkeeping today is what it is. I liked to see historical information about it and some outstanding people who influenced the way people administer business. Despite the main idea of the book, this quote shows us that nothing has been changed for centuires: "Money, wrote Alberti in the 1430s, ‘is the root of all things’: ’with money one can have a town house or a villa; and all the trades and craftsmen will toil like servants for the man who has money. He who has none goes without everything, and money is required for every purpose.’" View all my reviews

Review of employee performance or enquiry about it is necessary. It is important from the business process perspective. However usually some critical items are missing from the picture: a) Clear metrics of performance; b) Communicating to the employees what is their career path or responsibility-compensation evolution; c) Information about necessary skills or competencies the employee is missing to reach potential role within organisation. At my first ever interview with a huge multinational software company in 2001 when I just finished university as a Software Engineer, one of the questions I still remember was "How many lines of code have you ever written?" I didn't know exactly and estimated it as approximately 10,000. The interview was unsuccessful, but I presume not only because of that reason. If I had this question at an interview again I'd reply to an interviewer with a proposal like "Would you also like to know how many lines of code I delet...

As I explained in the previous post , communal ownership like strata title implies duties and responsibilities of all owners. This is not quite comfortable idea for majority of property owners. If we consider current unit/apartment prices in Sydney as an example the reasons of it would become apparent. In addition there is a particular feature of Australian lifestyle which is politely described as being laid-back. Strata owners have to regularly contribute money into an account specific for administration and maintenance of the building and common property. Here’s where majority of property owners in such titles limit their duty and responsibility in relation with the communal well-being and problems. However this is not enough. Some owners contribute their time to present at the meetings as an executive committee and once a year for all owners meeting, i.e. out of 28 units there are 4-5 units that consistently are involved. That doesn't mean involvement after or in betwee...

It’s hard to underestimate importance of planning. It is (or should be) integral part of any conscious activity that requires more than 1 step and implies a target. Especially when we deal with complex processes of various kinds. Contemporary prejudice about planning is that it’s only relevant to big projects like construction, IT, space exploration, military operations, massive production etc. However any activity that involves setting up a goal and steps to achieve it requires planning. Why is it necessary? Because we need to: 1. Estimate approximate date/time to reach the goal 2. Understand what/who is required to achieve the goal 3. Measure success or failure 4. Review and adjust the plan if needed. So planning may help not only at work, but also in personal life which will in turn positively influence our so-called work-life balance. Planning should only serve one purpose – reaching as close as possible to the target. Very often this idea is being overlooked and burie...