Drainage: Getting permission from neighbours

Things have slowed down a bit. We went with the designer recommended to us by the housemovers. He has been good value. He's drawn up the site plan and renovation to the house to insert a laundry. There has been just one hiccup that delayed getting the application in to Council - the drainage plan.

There are public drains just 3 metres from where the house will be, but they are in the neighbours nice new concrete driveway. We had to get him to sign approval on to the drainage plan but he's playing catch-me-if-you-can. So to Plan B: we had to draw up a new drainage plan showing us going to the road. This will cost a lot more. We still have to try and get the neighbour to let us in to his driveway - and we'll have to do this by showing him that this option will be better for him and his tenants. Because, if we have to go to the road, we might have to dig across his entrance which might disrupt his tenants. Also, that disc at the entrance to his driveway but in line with our fenceline better not be a marker indicating that his electrics run under our fenceline - oh dear... that will be a big problem for him if he has to dig them up and move them... you get the picture. 

Yes, the designer has been real good value - we wouldn't have thought of all these options ourselves.

So, the application for a building consent is in to Council. They claim a 20 working day turn around, excepting any queries (in which case they stop the clock). We are on track to have consent within the 10 weeks free storage of the house in the housemovers yard.

There's been a lot of rain over the last 2 weeks. Today we went out to the house to mend the roof with our Trade Me bought 2nd hand tiles. Unfortunately the hole over the bathroom is missing a baton so we had to use the corflute for sale sign from the section to catch the rain and head it off. The corflute signs were to patch up the broken window in the main bedroom.

With the garage off the section and the rubbish gone, the next fun thing is to get a digger, mark out the profiles for where the house is going to be, and clear the vegetation off; and, dig out some tree stumps and the concrete from an old shed.

New Zealand Architectural Awards 2010

We attended the New Zealand Architectural Awards Gala dinner on Friday night. It was a night to 'visit your dreams' or at least dream of being rich enough one day to live in an unusual and startling home. We'd never attended one of these events before and neither of us are architects - we expected only that people would be dressed up as required by the 'black tie' instruction on the invitation and that they'd show pictures of the winning buildings.

The event was held in the Auckland Museum. There was free booze, a really nice three course meal and lots of awards to be given out. The surprising element (and most welcome for us) was the unexpected amount of Maori content: Frankie Stevens was the MC and he injected Maori protocol, language and humour throughout the night; there were also several Maori recipients of awards and some Maori clients whose buildings were winners, such as the Mantell's Wanaka Lodge. Deidre Brown won an honorary award for her book on Maori Architecture and it was great to see her again.

The New Zealand Architecture Medal went to Ironbank which we could only concur with.

So inspired were we, we've started designing our own eco-friendly, cheap-as, container home to be built on the next cheapest piece of land we can find bordering an industrial area, and perhaps overlooking the Manukau Harbour.

Garage Gets Taken Away

The draughtsman has the building consent application to council underway and the garage is being dismantled.

The house movers rang and left a message - just wanting to catch up, see if things are on track. No doubt wanting to discuss the 2nd installment due within 14 days of signing of the contract.

The rubbish pile is dwindling, and the new tenants in the front house don't seem to be living there yet.

Progress photos are here.

The Hard Labour Begins

This weekend we started clearing the rubbish from the section: one van load on Saturday and one van load on Sunday ($55 ea). There's 1-2 loads to go. We also bought 100 secondhand roof tiles and went and picked those up (from way over West). They need cleaning with bleach and water and a scrubbing brush (water blaster would be quicker).

The garage sold - unbelievably for $171.00. They come to dismantle it and take it away tomorrow. Excellent to be able to trade so easily via Trade Me - this will help offset the rubbish fees.

The draughtsman is looking at the house tomorrow and then coming to look at the section and pick up our plans which we've drawn up on SketchUp which is free to download 3D Modelling software.

The surveyor is booked to confirm the boundaries some time early this week also.

Progress photos to follow.

Being Neighbourly
Some new tenants were moving in to the house in front, when we arrived at the section on Saturday. Don't know what happened to the Indian couple that were there for only 1-2 weeks? When we said we were taking away the rubbish they shot in to the garage to look through what was there. We said, take whatever and pointed out the good stuff (plates, some lengths of fabric, some kitchen stuff which we'd set aside to put out for free removal). Sadly, they asked for the couch and double bed mattress and base which were dry, but who knows how long they've been in the open-air garage? I'm covered in flea bites from working in the garage the weekend before - I hate the thought of anyone sleeping on that bed. Am searching on Trade Me for a better bed for them. But, would they be offended if we went back with a slightly better crap bed and said give us that other horrible one and we'll dump it? Maybe they won't want to give it up because they still don't have enough beds?

Before and After Pics

Now that we own the section and the house - we can show you the before pics. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The garage is for sale for removal on Trade Me and on the weekend we bought a weed eater and laid in to the overgrown grass and weeds. Lots more rubbish was found and one small citrus tree (the gold beneath the rubble).

Settlement Day

In the run up to settlement day, we had to:

• See the neighbour at the back about getting access down his drive to move the house on (TBC)
• Check with the Accountant about what sort of structure to purchase the house under
• Register a new company name
• Register the new company
• Apply to Inland Revenue (the tax department) for LAQC status
• Cash up the never-grew-over-10-years-superannuation
• Get to the bank to set up a new account and sign the loan documents
• Get to the solicitor to sign Company resolution and shareholder documents, the same bank loan documents again and arrange for the rest of the cash to be debited from our cheque account
• Put the house movers off til settlement day (they were chasing for the contract to be signed)

Sounds like a lot, but setting up a new company can all be done online at night time. The LAQC is Loss Attributing Qualifying Company. Definition: A type of company structure that enables company losses to be allocated to individual shareholders to reduce their personal income and taxation.

LAQC's are good for new start-ups and for owning a couple of rental properties, where the directors (us) typically have to outlay a lot of capital to get the business happening. Capital which isn't going to be tax deductable. There may also not be a positive return straight off and for the first few years the business will probably run at a loss. An LAQC provides for that loss to be carried through to the directors' individual tax returns.

Next week the government announces it's 2010 Budget which will clarify what changes are going to be made to dampen the amount of loss directors' of LAQC's have thus far been able to write-off against their personal incomes.

Settlement Day came and the section is ours! The house movers rang wanting to know what time we'd be out with their cheque, adding that they'd had another enquiry about the house... [what a crap sales technique that is: threatening potential buyer with loss of purchase duh!] Suppose they'll conclude that it worked, because we got out there before they closed and signed up for the house. Well it'd be a bit useless to have the section and not the house wouldn't it?

We have 10 weeks to get the building consent, after which time the house movers start charging us $100 per week storage! Better get a move on.

Empty Section A Dump

Why do people think an empty section is a free garbage tip? The amount of rubbish dumped on the section we just bought tripled in a week.

There was a fair amount inside the garage, but since new tenants moved in to the house in front, the rubbish inside the garage is now overflowing!

We were about to advertise the garage for removal on Trade Me for $1. But, decided we better check with the lawyer first, because technically the garage doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist, who owns it? The garage sits across the boundary between the front and back halves of the cross-lease section. Some of the garage sits on shared area. The tenants in the house in front have clearly over the years used the garage. The vendor was going to remove it, until we bargained and took that job on ourselves. Hmm... a murky area. 

Meanwhile, we suppose even more rubbish will pile up.