Design and Building Information

Owner’s who receive a letter from Council regarding illegal building work and informing them of a $200,000 Dollar fine if not contacted before a certain date, need to take a deep breath and call our number as we can help.

Unfortunately there is usually a cost involved in getting this sorted out and I don’t know of anyone who prepares for this situation except one very diligent client I had in Blockhouse Bay who said he wanted all his ducks to be in a row with regard to the legality of his property .

Getting this notice needs to be taken seriously as home owners have been fined varying amounts (this can be verified on the MBIE website http://www.mbie.govt.nz.  Council are usually reasonably helpful once they know you are taking them seriously and you have organised a Designer or other professional to provide the necessary information to obtain a Certificate of Acceptance (CoA).  The work usually involves architectural drawings and an application for a CoA plus the Council application fee.  The cost of the architectural work varies depending on the size of the building, the amount of illegal building work and whether existing plans are available.  Other factors are; there may be a  requirement for other professionals such as a structural Engineer or a fire Engineer.

If you need help with this, then give Ait a call.  We have done several of these applications now and not one has been denied.  In fact one client came out the other end with everything he thought was illegal, now legal, including the illegal work he had done.  If you go to our face book page https://web.facebook.com/architectureintouch/?_rdc=1&_rdr , you can see an example of the type of work required.  This is particularly important for re-sale of your property as often you can loose a lot of money selling a home that has illegal building work.

Ross Newby Architectural Designer LB3.