Hi All,
I am looking into buying an villa, whose garage has been converted to a room. That is instead of Shutter, there is a brick wall.
Building report that make sure its approved.. I asked the agent and vendor came back saying
" As for the garage, the vendor purchased the property with the conversion already made, you would need to contact the council if you wanted to look into this matter further."Now i have asked my solicitor to chase or look into this. but they are not the best so far.
I directly called the Strata Manager and asked him this is approved and will not create trouble in future. He said that he does not know if its approved, for that he will need to go through all archives and that will cost more money. But he sugested that he thinks that might not be Strata Approved, otherwise "Exclusive By-Law" would have been added to contract of sale, which would have mentioned that whover made that change, had notified the strata.
Now being a villa block, and not really affecting other neighbours, what are the chances of this becoming a "big" problem and what can I do next????
InvestHut
Hi All,
No help?? got the confirmation thats its not a valid change and i might be in trouble with council and Body Corporate in future…
How much does it cost as a rought estimate to get a single brick wall down and then shutter garage door be put it.
also for something like this can the council or body corporate impose "fines" on the current owner??
Please everyone what are your thoughts on this…
InvestHut
Investhut, as the garage has been converted to a living area it is most likely that the GFA (Gross Floor Area) of the site will have been exceeded and as such will automatically place the alteration into the gray area of illegal modification. I would also suggest that Council approval for the alteration was most likely not obtained. This is s touchy subject and as such you must make a decision as to the risk that you are prepared to take with this conversion should you wish to purchase the property.
You mention that the property is a villa and from my experience there will be many elderly people quite happy to purchase such a property and accept the risk. On the other hand, and provided that the alteration has been done to meet all building requirements, I believe that it would be an exceptionally rutheless Council that decided to go down the path of forcing rectification on this issue. Once this stance were begun, there would be so many properties that did not comply, that Council would be very busy and I hazard to say probably not in Council next term.
Jon
Hi Jon,
thanks for your input, much appreciated. being a first home buyer, this whole process has been a big learning curve…
almost certain that no approval exist. the wall itself seems well withing whats its boundary should be, if anything it looks it must be behind where other villas garage boundary is.
now bcoz of query the Strata Manager is aware that this change has been done.. so i dont know what his response will be in near future.
i am having till tomm, i am really looking at either pulling out or want the vendor to reduce by atleast 7k-8k.
as there was shower leak behind the tiles, which can cost 2k-4k for water proofing, re grouting and re tiling. i thought thats ok. i can manage that. as pulling out will also cost me 2 k.but now if i have to change that brick wall back to some sort of garage, i will argue tomm. that it will cost say 4k-5k and plus 2k-4k for shower redo.
and really ask them to reduce price say by 7k-8k.
regarding this garage issue, i will tell that it will need rework any sudden time if i am asked to do… plus whenever i wanna sell this i will face the same issue of many potential buyers being turned off.
InvestHut
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