It's just a bloody deck

[silentC]

Have started going through the motions of getting approval to extend a couple of decks at home. I had almost forgotten the joys of dealing with the local regulatory authority.

If the work is valued at $5000 or greater, you need an owner builder permit to do it yourself. If it's greater than $12,000 you need to do a TAFE course to get one. Based on the council's 'industry standard' figure of $316 per m2, ours comes in at $14,000. Even though this 'industry standard' is not set in stone - if I get someone to build it and they charge me more than that, I can't use it as a basis for complaint - the council insists that this is the 'true value' of the work. It doesn't matter if you are doing it yourself, or if you are buying secondhand materials to build it, they use this figure as a basis for charging you fees.

Now the problem is, I don't own the house - it belongs to my parents. This means that for the sake of $2000, my old man has to go and do a TAFE course (and pass it) in order to get an owner builder permit so that we can build a freaking deck.

The Dept. of Fair Trading admits that the 'industry standard' doesn't really exist - it's not in legislation - but they can only apply what is on the plan. The council says that they have to apply the 'industry standard' when costing it and don't have discretion. Their advice to me is to break it up into two separate developments over a period of time. A cynic would suggest that this doubles the fixed portion of their fees.

Does the council have discretion to say "well, OK since it's just a deck, we accept $11,999 as a reasonable figure", or does it come down to who you know on the council?

The alternative is to trim a bit off the decks. It just seems a ludicrous situation. When I complained about having to do a TAFE course, the woman at the council (why are they always named 'June') told me it was in our best interests to make sure we knew how to do things properly. I aked why that was any less important if the deck was valued by them at $11,000. No answer to that.

BTW, if it costs anything like $14,000, we wont be doing it.

:mad:

[Termite]

Silent, go up to your nearest brick wall and pound your head into it for an hour. Then say to yourself "Do I want a lot more of that" if the answer is yes then continue to have dealings with the council.

On the other hand if the answer is no, then consider several things
Is the planned extension in plain view from the street. Do you plan to stay there for quite a while. Do you get on well with your neighbours.

The point is if you can get away with just doing it then, unless the Council sees it, you wont have to do anything untill the place is sold at some time in the future.

[silentC]

Unfortunately this one is in plain view from the street. The neighbours probably wouldn't dob us in but there's so much building going on up and down the street, we're bound to get a visit from the local BI who knows all about every job in town. I prefer to keep them out of it when possible but I think this one needs to be done above board.

When the time comes to sell the place (if it ever does) the new owners will be quite surprised at just how different it is to the plans held by council. They'll probably just run a dozer through it and build a 3-storey slab fronted mansion like the other ones in the street anyway.

[nine-to-fiver]

Hi Silent C,
Can you break the job up into smaller jobs and get it by that way?
Say do one side, then another side and then later join them? just a thought.
Some restumpers use this method, but i would not use them...........

[silentC]

Yes, I could break it up into two jobs of $7500 each. I'm not sure how long I have to wait until submitting the second one. It means paying more in fees though.

It just annoys me that they use these arbitrary cut-off amounts. It would make more sense to base it on size and complexity but that would be too hard for the counter staff to work out. A 50 m2 deck is not going to be any more complex to build than a 5 m2 deck but the implication is that it would be. At the end of the day, they're just after your money.

[PAH1]

Hi SilentC

Went through this a couple of years ago in Canberra. It cost us an extra $3K or thereabouts to get approval. We had a pergola at the back of about 42m2, it was roofed with alsonite but the plans were for shadecloth and it had no gutter on it or decent battons. We put a deck in and then had to re roof the thing, re batton it and put a gutter on, then we had the fees.

However irritating we are glad we did it. After all with liability stuff, what insurance company is going to cover you for an accident off something that does not exist? Or is if burns down from that turbocharged BBQ grease fire, then it is on plan to replace.

The funny bit is that nobody really actually knows what the building standards mean and do not really know how to interpret them, it is all opinion. We had something a bit odd in our construction and every planner gave us a different opinion as to what what the actual requirement.

[DaveInOz]

It appears that some councils have different requirements for building works that are not permenantly attached to the house. AFAIK In my area if you bolt your pergola to the house, and to stirups then you don't need a permit. Well it is more complicated than that but you get the idea.
Might be worth checking.

[Slavo]

Yes, I could break it up into two jobs of $7500 each. I'm not sure how long I have to wait until submitting the second one. It means paying more in fees though.

You can submit them both at once if you like. There is nothing stopping you lodging an application for the left side, then the right. Council have to consider each on its merits.

[silentC]

I checked with the Dept. of Fair Trading. It was more the owner builder permit situation I was concerned about. Seems you can apply for as many permits as you like with no delay in between as long as they are all on the same property. So that's one solution. It actually is in two sections, one on the top floor and one below, so I can logically split it up and do separate applications.

It means Owner Builder permit fee x 2, various council fees x 2. Will probably cost about $400-500 more doing it that way. The TAFE course is about $160 and it can be done over the Internet... the old man isn't up on PCs and the Internet... but then, I wonder how they'd know it wasn't him who did it...

[jackiew]

I'm intrigued as to where the industry standard figure comes from?

Do you think if you got a quote from a local tradesman for the work it would actually come to their industry standard figure? If you can get a quote for less than $12,000 then it is unreasonable of the council to believe that it will cost more ( obviously their figures are out of date ).

[silentC]

It's a good question. They can't answer it, at least the counter staff can't. All they know is that it's 'in the computer'. They ask you what type of construction, does it have a roof, how many square metres - bingo. Can't argue with them about it because it's 'in the computer'.

I wonder what would happen if I got a quote... They'd probably tell me that, for their purposes, the 'industry standard' is used for estimating the cost. I bet they wouldn't give me a refund if it came in under what they said it would cost.

[jackiew]

being a totally bloody minded individual I think I would be escalating the matter of where they get their cost from to the next level of management ... remember local councils are supposed to serve US.

Can't believe they can use a standard figure .... difference in price between using treated pine and using jarrah. you could be building a deck which is 6 inches off of the ground or 6 feet which would make a huge difference to the cost. What kind of soil its on makes a difference for stumps etc.

Someone wrote the computer program so somewhere there should be the requirements for it ... including what values to put in where and where to obtain them from.

I have to say I'm still reeling from the level of over-regulation here. Of course the trigger points of $5000 and $12000 aren't indexed to the cost of living etc. The same way that the trigger points for some of the taxation laws ( federal and state ) aren't indexed either. One taxation law I read up on recently had an exemption for holdings under $x. This was introduced more than 10 years ago and surprise surprise the exemption is still for holdings under $x despite the passage of time. Its quite neat of them when you think about it. Introduce a law which doesn't catch many people initially knowing that if you let inflation do its work all of a sudden you are going to catch lots of people and your income will jump dramatically.

[Eastie]

Silent,
The council money collection system is meant to be bypassed.
Unless you are doing other works in the near future that will also require the SS to inspect, I suggest you go so far as getting an appropriate design that takes into account any engineering factors and then construct it yourself - minus any building approvals. The chance of being found out is 1,000,000:1 - even if your parents sell up no-one I know has ever had a buyer check approval with the council and then verify the as-builts. make sure of the design, take some photo's of each of the the footings and if you ever get caught out and need retrospective building approval you're in with a chance

Eastie.

[silentC]

Well, that's an alternative I suppose, but what do I do if Fred the inspector drives past and sees us building it and thinks to self "hmm, I know they don't have approval for that because I would know if they did".

[PAH1]

Silent,
The council money collection system is meant to be bypassed.
Unless you are doing other works in the near future that will also require the SS to inspect, I suggest you go so far as getting an appropriate design that takes into account any engineering factors and then construct it yourself - minus any building approvals. The chance of being found out is 1,000,000:1 - even if your parents sell up no-one I know has ever had a buyer check approval with the council and then verify the as-builts. make sure of the design, take some photo's of each of the the footings and if you ever get caught out and need retrospective building approval you're in with a chance

Eastie.

Actually in Canberra it is part of the sale process. When we bought our current place it was with absolute certainty of what was and was not approved. Sometimes it can be bypassed by building it first and then getting the approvals, however they will still use that "industry standard" figure for the costings.