04/09/2019
I visited a prospective client today and the only advise I could give him was to demolish the granny flat he built for his mom and start again. This is because he took the advise of a builder who had no clue of the building regulations.
With all due respect to the many competent builders out there, there are many more builders who have no idea of the regulations. Their job is to build, not to design. They would also like to start your job now rather than wait for plans to be produced and approved at council. Any responsible builder will not build until he has approved plans to work from.
The national building regulations is a full A4 lever arch file. Plus town planning regulations can change from suburb to suburb, never mind from town to town. Plus the recently introduced energy efficiency regulations. And then what about the clauses buried in your title deed?
If you are contemplating doing some building work on your home, get some professional advise before you start. Phone your local building inspector, he"s there to help you, Phone an architect, technician or draughtsman. They should not charge to visit you to give you advise and a quotation.
Remember, you have to have approved plans for everything, including carports, thatch lapas, swimming pools and, boundary walls.
In accordance with recent legislation, banks may only finance a bond if the seller can produce approved plans for every structure on their property.
I get many panic calls from sellers nowadays asking me to make their additions legal. Invariably there are problems with these jobs because homeowners have taken bad advice from their builder. It costs more money to fix and often they loose the sale because of the time it's taken to fix the expensive mistakes. or maybe they can't even make it legal - hundreds of thousands of rands down the drain!!!
