[QLD] Moreton Bay recognition of 4th bedroom and 2nd bathroom

Hi Good People,

We bought a 3/1/2 late last year with a large kitchen/living (around 10m length) in the Moreton Bay RC area.

Because we want to rent the house out and we felt that have a 4th bedroom and 2nd bathroom will make the place more desirable as a rental, we hired tradies to help us do this.

We hired a plumber to help us convert the laundry room into a combined 2nd bathroom and laundry.

As there was space in the kitchen/living to put an additional bedroom, we hired tradies to build a couple of internal walls and put in doors. Now this room could be a bedroom or a home office.

We did not have to demolish anything and were told that for internal modifications there is no need for a formal DA.

Now we want have our place officially recognised as a 4 bedrooms 2 bathrooms (in addition to the 2 car garage spaces).

How do we go about it?

(Tradies told us there is a form online, but I can't find it. Apparently form 61 or 71, but that does not seem to be it)

Any help/suggestions are much appreciated

 

I'm not sure what you consider to be "officially recognised" but you probably should have done it with proper building approvals in that case.

 

Best option is to to firstly speak to a building certifier to check that no building approval is necessary. If no issue write to the council and get a written response to cover yourself.

 

Thank you for that.

Probably this is the stuff I need to look at - how do I get the building approvals?

Is that something that happens only if a council has a development application in? It seemed to us that DAs are something done for extending houses. So we thought it is not the case when we started to do the work. Can tradies certify a bedroom as being a bedroom? Or certify a bathroom as being a bathroom?

For example, how does CoreLogic know a house has 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms?

 

Thank you for that. Will start there then.

 

I've done modifications many times. Now admittedly they've been for older homes, and I don't know what the council regs are for your area BUT I've never once had to have anything 'certified', so long as it's a non-structural change within an existing home.

If it is a concern to you, call a certifier to check as per @Closet. If for some strange reason you DO need it certified, then get the certifier to do it.

 

I thought core logic just took data from listings on real estate, domain, etc? So if you rent it out as a 4 bed 2 bath then it will be updated in due course. I could be off the mark and there’s probably people on here who know a lot more about this than me however I thought this is how it worked.
If you need something form the council then that’s a different story.

 

Where it gets messy is if you like buy a highset and you want to create extra bedrooms or living quarters underneath. Having this legally certified if renting out is considered more challenging and essential.

 

Thank you @Skater for that explanation.
I spent time today trying to figure out whether we just got things completely wrong. We did only 3 non-structural walls with doors.

Two walls and door for the bedroom/office. We did not even have to change the floor tiles or anything. Our sparky added power points and we decided to add a carpet in the new bedroom/office to make it look/feel more like a living space. Windows were already there on the wall.

One non-structural wall and door to separate the laundry area from a corridor. A qualified plumber put a shower and a toilet in the laundry room.

When we initially talked to our plumber, sparky and carpenter they said this is not a DA level modification. The plumber mentioned a form, but now I see he might have meant form 4 with QBCC. Apparently MBRC mentions types of works for plumbing that should be notifiable.

I will call the plumber and figure out if anything else needs to be done.

I called a building certifier and they asked for the plans of the house. The plumber ordered the plumbing related plans, but we did not do draft plans.

 

Yes good point. I think this is it then.

I don't think we need something from the council specifically. I was not sure if the certification process is compulsory.

So, at this stage, I don't think we need a full certifier or certification process. I might find otherwise.

 

Good point. This is a lowest. Quite sprawled over the land. So, it had space inside to do things without further digging or much change.