Legality of existing dual occupancy

[aquaman]

Property in Sydney. It's a 2 storey house with separate self contained upstairs and downstairs units. I've checked with the local council and they don't have any records on the house.

Would there be any issues with renting them out separately? How would I go about checking the legality of the current building used as a dual occupancy? Liability/Insurance issues?

Thanks.

 

[pennyk]

Do you have any idea how long its been used that way?
We have one in Sydney which is like that.. we just exchanged to sell it. Its been divided since early 70's and we have no record of council approval, but they have supplied 2 sets of bins etc. I doubt that council approval was required that far back.
I imagine that it would be difficult for council to stop it being used as a dual occupancy because of the length of time its been used this way...

 

[Propertunity]

Would there be any issues with renting them out separately?

Not if they were mine.

If they've been set up that way for that many years, they may even have "existing use rights" (you can google that)

How would I go about checking the legality of the current building used as a dual occupancy?

You've checked with council - what else can you do?

In all likelihood, they would not comply with current building codes. BUT they were not built under current building codes.

Liability/Insurance issues?

Full disclosure of all that you know when you are getting a quote from the insurer. Some will take it on, others won't. Make a few phone calls.

 

[aquaman]

Supposedly has been dual occupancy before the current owners who bought in the 80's. Has 2 sets of bins too.

Anyway to verify when it was made dual occupancy? Whether it was built as a dual occupancy (conforming to the building codes at the build date) or if it was modified into dual occupancy later with no permits.

 

[laurieload]

We looked at something like this recently. First phone call to council revealed no dual occ approval. Second subsequent phone call to someone else at council found a microfishe record that had "dual occ" written somewhere on it. Perhaps you could keep pestering council and see what the original DA says.

To my knowledge two sets of bins are no guarantee of dual occ - anyone can order these if they pay.