Hi,
I was after some advise on subdivision of a property.
We are currently looking at a large two level house in Sydney which we are considering to subdivide into two apartments for rental purposes. The building works to do this would be very simple, to just add a kitchen in the lower level and to remove the staircase. There are currently separate entrances for each level.
Subdivision is new to us, and we are currently researching our council's procedures.
What advice can anyone give us? What are the common pitfalls with subdivision? How long is it likely to take (and cost) given it would just be for rental purposes rather than resale (at this stage anyway)?
We would need to rent out the two properties asap following the subdivision to cover the mortgage.
Any advice appreciated (-:
Get yourself a copy of the Building Code of Australia, read it from cover to cover.
You will need to fire & noise separate the two tenancies to comply with Australian Standards. Get a DA/CC even though you aren’t building additional space, provide parking ….
Following from SNM comments you will need to fire and noise rate the floor space separating the two units and the load bearing walls. Could be costly to retrofit. May need to rip out all the wall sheeting/beef up beams and columns etc. So you'll need to engage structural engineer and builder at least.
Maybe you could get creative and have one lease with a sublease up/down stairs. That's probably dodgey though, someone else might know?
Thanks for the comments. I will have a read up on the fire and noise ratings.
The downstairs has 3 external doors (one at the front, one at the side, and one at the back). The upstairs has a front entrance and a back exit to a large balcony, so I would have (naively perhaps!) thought that fire exits were at a good starting point. The soundproofing between floors sounds like it could be more of an issue. We are viewing the property again today so I will try and read up more on the issues prior to the viewing so I am more informed.
It does sound much more complex that we initially had thought.
The other option we are considering is to rent out one floor and for us to live in the other (since we are renting elsewhere at the moment). Would that make a difference? I assume we would still need to subdivide to make it legally sound to do that? Our tax breaks wouldn't be as good but it is certainly financially viable for us to do this if it means making the subdivision process easier and/or cheaper.
Council doesn't particularly care who lives in the house (just known as unrelated parties).
You will probably still require the same level of noise and fire separation. (To clarify noise separation, this includes something like 60dB on waste & water pipes which run through the other tenancy).
Just be very careful – some Councils (most of the western Sydney Councils) would not allow subdivision of a house into a vertically stacked dual occupancy.
Which part of Sydney is the property in?
Hi,
Thank you for your comments. I spoke to council and the subdivision was not possible due to the land size so we are not pursuing this possibility. It has been a useful process however to learn a lot more about the subdivision process and I will certainly keep reading up on it so we can be more informed about whether to go down this path in the future.
Cheers
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