Amendment to Building Act to benefit Owners and Builders.
I received an email from the MBA (Master Builders Association) today regarding amendments to the new Building act.
One of the regulations put in place when the act changed 01/04/12, was that the shire MUST provide a building permit once submitted within 25 working days. This is supposed to speed up the process, however we have not found that anything has improved, in fact just the opposite.
Key changes in effect from November are firstly
Starting and stopping the clock: the shire, if they request further information, from the builder, this does not mean the shire can start the period of providing a building permit again, the act now says that the clock will pause until the applicant supplied the requested info, and restart once the info is provided. Let’s see if this makes a difference.
Power of public authorities:this is minor word changing in relation to Government building works
Access to other land: The amendments have removed the need to obtain consent of the adjoining landowner to
- Access land during construction where the land is vacant or unoccupied or
- remove a dividing fence where a building permit or development approval authorises the construction of a zero lot boundary wall.
This amendment will benefit both Owners and Builders immensely, as it has been one of the largest problems relating to building applications. We have a client that took over 3 months to be able to obtain neighbour consent to remove a fence and build a parapet (on line boundary wall) firstly because there was never anyone in the home when he visited, secondly when he eventually went to the house when the person was at home, only to find that the house is tenanted and that our client will have to contact the managing agent. The managing agent then had to contact the Owner and then the Owner took weeks to sign the paperwork.
THIS WILL SAVE AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF TIME AND STRESS.
Head of Power: the amendments provide a head of power within the legislation for
- The Minister to make an order removing the need for owner signatures in some circumstances
- regulations to prescribe how a permit authority can request missing information both in terms of
- how often missing information can requested and
- outline the manner in which a request can be made, distinguishing between requests that stop the clock and minor queries that can easily be resolved without stopping the clock.
50 plus and loving life 