"Paul", a friend of mine that I know in real life and also a reader of aus.invest submitted this article for the real estate FAQ. He subdivided his back yard (he lives on a corner block) and ran into all sorts of trouble with local council approval processes. He pointed out to me that the differences between two councils can be dramatic. Some will pass changes very easily, others will draw out the process for months and cost you thousands of dollars. I think Paul has learned some very important lessons here and I thank him for writing it. I particularly like the one about getting broadband Internet! -TM

What Paul learned after selling his back yard.

comments/disagreements welcome.. These may seem silly but some of these are things that I overlooked that I'm now dealing with the hard way. I've omitted the really obvious stuff (to me anyway).

1. Investment properties

   Make sure that you get a property with 2 car bays. I have bought a flat in a secure complex, pool, spa, etc all very nice, close to city, good suburb, easy to rent out, low maintenance, etc. At the time I had the choice of 2 units. One was not quite as nice as the other but had 2 car bays. I stupidly went for the single bay unit cos it was nicer. What was I thinking!

   Get actively involved with the strata. I enquired to the strata about leasing a visitors bay (there were 4) but they had already sold 3 of them to other owners who got in first. I didn't even know Whack in a really cold reverse cycle air conditioner Get the phone line broadband (ADSL) enabled if you can without entering in a long contract. Nerds make good tenants.

    

2. Subdivisions

   General:
   

   • always cost more than you think :-)

   • local councils are pricks

      

   Specifics:

   1. If you buy a house with the intention to subdivide, make a condition of sale for the seller to get written approval of subdivision from neighbors. This will speed up the approval process by 2 weeks cos it takes councils that long to send out paperwork to them. Do not underestimate how many neighbors will be asked to give approval. Even check with the deaf old lady across the road. If you are submitting actual plans to the council, get the neighbors to sign them.

   2. Ring the planning dept of your council and find out their requirements for things like:

      • max height of any retaining walls or other site works; effectively anything that would require a council meeting to decide. (in my case anything over .6m retaining wall went to meeting - resulting in a 4 week delay)

      • building restrictions (roof pitch, distance of walls to fence, aesthetics, etc). My council has a fixation with a 30 degree roof pitch for example.

      • min block size that doesn't require an architect plan

      • Some of the above will be different for strata vs green title, etc

      • If you are buying an existing house on the block you are subdividing, try and find out whether all existing renovations were approved properly. In my case, I wanted to renovate an old carport that as a result of the subdivision, didn't quite meet the new back fence leaving a gap. The council rejected me at first on the grounds that the carport was technically against their planning guidelines now. But because the original was correctly submitted and approved 10 years before, they let me do it.

      Get this all in writing! Council meeting = long delays, avoid at all costs if you can.

       

   3. Is the property on septic still? If so you have to convert it to the deep sewage system (WA).

   4. Ring up the water authority, tell'em the lot number and find out how close water and sewage are (greater distance = greater $)

   5. Is underground power already in? If not you may be forced to convert both lots to it as a pre-approval condition.

   6. Don't buy on a hill. It increases the likelihood of issues with 1 and 2 as neighbors (especially the lower ones) don't like retaining walls as it can result in a large fence on their side. If you are building, it increases site work costs as you may be forced to split level your house (the people who bought my rear block had to fork out another $7000 for this reason).

cheers

Paul