Council headaches before buying .

Not sure if any one here would know or not but thought i would ask .

We are looking at buying our first rental propriety . It is only a transportable 3 bedroom house . but is getting ( or was, as just moved out ) good rental income . The purchase is low with the rent covering all costs and leaving a little extra .

The best thing about this deal is that it comes with a old shop , two stories next door that is being tossed in on the deal . It is old and needs work but i am looking at $100k with any luck and i can have two more rentals in there .

We are just about to sign but i am getting mixed messages from people on the second building .

I know that the area is zoned B1 and can not have residential houses build there now . This was changed in late 2011 .

But before this change it was granted a DA to change the lower floor into a residents . I was told this is still current and now cannot be changed . But when i went in the other day i got the normal ” Oh we cant tell you anything as you are not the owner ‘. Like go buy it and then we will tell you that you cant do anything with it.

So is my understanding that because it was changed to a residents and is now , although very rough, that it can not be changed back and the cant stop me from cleaning it up and renting it out ?

The second floor was for the last 100 years a residents , yet not used as such for many years . So would i have to apply to have this as a residents again ? I do understand and know i will have to go though fire protect on the two floors and that really is not a worry as long as i can work the costs into things .

Cheers and thanks for any help