I understand that the following scenario is quite common when it comes to selling your home. That is, that you discover that a certificate of occupancy was not issued for a building extension (in our case for work completed in 2001) and that you have been living in the house with an unapproved extension for more that 10 years.
I know (now that I have been through this experience) that we should not have paid the final installment to the builder back in 2001 until we received the C of O but we trusted the builder when he told us the paperwork was submitted. You live . . You learn.
We have since learnt that the builder was at war with his sub contractors (plumber & sparky over money) and all parties blame each other for not submitting the paperwork.
Yes we had to pay to have the work inspected so a C of O could be issued, so we could sell the house.
Why is there no follow up from the relevant building approval department of the ACT Government. It would seem to be quite a simple thing to send out a follow up notice to let the home owner know that the building application they submitted has incomplete action.
We had no idea we were living in an unapproved building extension with no final plumbing and electrical for 10 years.
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