others' experience and description of process

Detailed description of process of relocating from someone who has done it in NSW:

INITIAL STEPS

Visit your local Council

We suggest that you make your first step a visit to your local Council to find out about local requirements and restrictions.

Each Council around Australia has different procedures and varying fees, so it is imperative that you have the right information from Day 1. For example, it is vital that you know whether you are required to supply a bondto the Council, and if so, how much it can be a substantial amount which you will need to add into your budget.

Later, when you have found your removal house, you will need to check with the Council that your proposals fit in with the overall town planning scheme. (See also Town Planners).

Find your House and ContractorNext, you will need to find your removal house and a suitable block of land. Removal houses can be found in your local paper, the Trading Post, Yellow Pages as well as online. Prices vary widely so consider your budget before you embark on your search.

Some vendors are businesses that also provide the removal service, whereas others will be private individuals who will require you to arrange for a removal contractor to take the house away and so you will also need to find someone qualified to do this.

Removal contractors will ask you to sign a contract. This should set out the terms and responsibilities of the removalist and state all inclusions, such as bonds, fees, delivery details and services provided. For example, some firms will deliver the house on blocks, whereas others will carry out stumping and some even renovate the house for you. We ALWAYS recommend that you seek legal advice in relation to any legal contract especially as there is no standard contract for the industry - Buyer Beware!!

Choose your land. You'll also need a sufficiently sized block of vacant land for your house, with no easements or covenants that restrict a removal house from being placed on the block.

Get your Finance in place.

Talk with your financier, as many lenders will not take security over a removal house until it is in position and has been stumped.

THE PROCESS IN DETAIL

Inspections and plans.

When the Council considers your application for a removal house they will visit both the site and the proposed house to ascertain if it will suit the situation. Consideration will be given to existing neighbouring homes and to the style, materials used, roof pitch and height of your proposed house. Neighbours may be granted permission to view your proposal and lodge objections if they wish, so this is why it is imperative that you research your area first.

As with all building works you'll need to obtain a soil test so that an Architect/Engineer can consider structural details and design plans for submission to the Council.

The plans will contain details including:
Existing floor plan and details of any alterations

Sub floor, beams, bracing and tie down details.

Architectural elevations, location and orientationAny other relevant information
Lodgement of preliminary plans with the Council will attract fees that vary between States.

An Officer from the Council will then prepare a report of recommendations of building work required, such as:
Level of renovation work required - usually no patching is permitted and rotten materials must be replaced

Maximum building height

If roof replacement is necessary, including insulation

Generally rewiring all electrical workReplace/upgrading of plumbing

Installation of smoke alarms

Tie down, bracing and depth of footings

Determine the bond (Amount held by Council until all works are complete)

You may lodge a Building Application simultaneously with the Preliminary Application and again, fees vary depending on the size of the dwelling and number of plumbing fittings.

Payment of Council Bond and other fees

Most Councils charge a bond. This is a sum of cash to be held by the Council until all works are completed to its satisfaction usually within 12 months. The bond provides the Council with a safety net in the event that it needs to step in and take over an abandoned or unfinished job, or one which is not completed to its satisfaction. The bond is often a significant amount and this can put a huge drain on your cash flow. However, it is usually possible to ask for a partial refund as work progresses.

Before the house can be moved, all bonds and fees must have been paid to Council and the appropriate authorities notified. The contractor will need to provide the Council with proof of current insurance and a building services insurance policy may also be required. Bonds also apply for escort fees and security bonds for roads.

Once the house is in place

Make sure your contract specifies who will be responsible in the event that damage occurs when the house is moved. After the house is moved, as with all renovations, you'll need to have a team of tradespeople ready to start work. The sooner the house is finished, the sooner you can receive your bond back.

A final word...A removal house requires lots of careful research and planning, but the rewards are enormous. The satisfaction that you will gain from turning a dump into a shining diamond will give you immense pride, and co-ordinated correctly, a very healthy profit too.

SUMMARY OF THE PROCESS

Visit council or town planner

Purchase vacant land

Find suitable house for removal

Engineer report and architect plans

Lodge Preliminary plans with council

Council assessor visits house and site

Pay bonds and fees to move house

Renovate and certified

Certificate of Occupancy

Bond refunded

I have to say this looks quite complicated to me - not that I am averse to complexity but how does one take care of all of this at the appropriate time etc? One step at a time.

recent article

By Fiona Gillies
March 08, 2009 12:00am
NOT long ago, Martin Ismay would look out his back door and see a plain suburban steel fence. These days, from that same back door, he sees cows and countryside.

So what has changed?

Ismay and his wife Sonya are among around 200 people in NSW last year who relocated a house to a new piece of land.

In the Ismays’ case it was their own home, moving it from Sydney to the Hunter Valley, but many more people take on someone else’s unwanted house and give it new life in a different place.

With demolition costs as high as $20,000, people are often happy to give a house away when they want to rebuild. The company moving the house then bears the cost of clearing the block and makes its money relocating the home for someone else.

But when research shows moving house is one of life’s most stressful events, what happens when moving house literally means moving a house - chopping it into pieces, transporting it on the back of a truck, then putting it back together again?

It’s not as stressful as it might sound and those who have done it heap praise on the experience, citing it as an affordable, environmentally sound, community-minded way to get a home with character.

Your Space spoke to three residents and a house-moving company to find out more.

The McKillops

Don McKillop’s family has been relocating houses for three generations.

Now running Housemoving Contractors Pty Ltd (www.housemovingcontractors.com.au) with his son, Scott, and daughter-in-law Maree, McKillop moves around 20 houses a year, mostly from Sydney into country areas.

“You can move just about anything except full brick homes,” he says. “It’s fibro, it’s brick veneers, it’s weatherboards.” A house must be stable, in reasonable condition with a good kitchen and bathroom, and must sit on piers so moving equipment can be put underneath. “I probably look at 25 houses a month and I’m likely to get two out of 25,” says McKillop.

His company, based in St Albans, north-west of Sydney, has an email list of people waiting for properties. Information on each new acquisition is sent to those on the list. Council approvals are similar to those required when building a new home. Once a buyer is found, and red tape sorted, the house is reinforced with internal frames, cut into two to four pieces, depending on its size - to comply with RTA width restrictions – then transported by truck to its new location.

On arrival, the McKillops rejoin the house and lower it onto new footings. Says Maree McKillop: “We don’t construct the footings or brickwork and we don’t join the electrical or do plumbing. Those are specialised trades and we don’t get involved.” The McKillops generally charge $50,000 to $70,000 for their part of the move, depending on the number of cuts and the distance travelled. Beyond that, the buyer takes care of services, renovations and cosmetic work. “To finish the whole thing, till you’re sitting in an armchair, generally works out at around $110,000 to $120,000,” says Don McKillop.

“For that you usually get a reasonably nice three- to four-bedroom home, with a reasonably modern kitchen and bathroom.” Maree McKillop says before choosing a house mover, ask for references and talk to people who’ve dealt with the company.

“If there’s damage in the move, then something you’ve done as affordable housing can see you end up with a lot of repair bills,” she says. Fortunately, bad-news stories are a rarity. The Office of Fair Trading says it has received no complaints about house movers in recent years.

The Ismays

Sentimentality was the driving force behind Martin and Sonya Ismay’s decision to shift their three-bedroom weatherboard house from Oatley, in Sydney’s south, to Millfield, near Cessnock.

“I took 10 years to renovate the house and we just didn’t have the heart to knock it over, but we wanted to clear the block to build a new family home,” Martin says. The Ismays set themselves a $100,000 budget to buy land, found a quarter-acre (1000sq m) block in Millfield, then contacted Robert Mannix Relocations (0412 698 864).

Mannix cut their house into three pieces and relocated it to the new block for around $50,000. Since then, the Ismays have spent $20,000 to $30,000 on services and improvements. “You could do it for cheaper but my heart’s attached to this rather than my head,” says Martin. “Both my kids were born there and grew up there and you just want to do as good a job as you can.” Daughters Lucy, 11 and Ruby, 7 are delighted with the new location. “They were very upset when we told them we planned to knock it over, so they’re ecstatic our family home just lives on a different block of land,” Martin says.

The Ismays are now selling the house to help fund their new Sydney home, but Martin is philosophical. “The main purpose was just not to knock it down,” he says.

Lisa Brown

Recycling a home fitted right in with Lisa Brown’s green ethics. Working for an environmental consultancy in Port Macquarie, Brown encourages local government and businesses to recycle more and reduce what goes to landfill – and she recently studied waste management overseas on a Churchill Fellowship.

So when she and her then partner, Patrick Edwards, wanted a house on their land at Wauchope, she decided to practise what she preaches. “It’s a crazy waste of resources to have houses demolished when people want to upgrade, so it’s sort of the ultimate in recycling to take a perfectly good house and give it a second life,” she says.

Brown and Edwards paid Housemoving Contractors $65,000 to relocate their chosen house from Sydney’s Riverwood to their mid-north coast land. She estimates that the final cost will be $50,000 less than if they had built from scratch. “And I don’t think we would have got such a nice house. The cheapest ones to build are those generic project homes, whereas this one is really nice.”

If they hadn’t installed solar panels and a water tank, they could have saved even more, she says. Brown says one bonus of the move is that it fostered a great sense of community. The family she bought the house from were happy their well-loved and well-kept home was getting a new life, and are keen to see it in its new location. And neighbours in Riverwood and Wauchope have been very interested in the process. “The idea of recycling a home makes sense to people,” says Brown. “It taps into something and captures their imaginations so they come out and have a look."

The Nichols

Bill and Annette Nichols were after a home “with character” to put on the two hectares they had bought for their retirement at Invergowrie, just outside Armidale. Bill calculated that to build a three-bedroom timber home surrounded by verandas would cost somewhere between $280,000 and $400,000. Instead, the Nichols found a charming 1930s timber house with high ceilings through the Housemoving Contractors email list.

Moving it from Newcastle to Invergowrie cost $55,000 and Bill, a Sydney-based truckie, estimates he will have spent another $80,000 by the time it is finished, complete with his yearned-for wide verandas.

He says he would recommend the experience to anyone, particularly if they can wait for the right house to come up. “We had the leisure of sitting back and choosing exactly what we wanted,” says Bill, who took three or four months to find the right house. “We probably looked at 20 before this one. It was the style we wanted. It just clicked.”

Any negatives?
“The time span from when you choose the house until you get it to your property is quite tight. Bearing in mind that the people getting rid of the house want it gone, you still have to do the process through council so it’s very pressured.
Not from the house movers. It’s just the way it is.”

more research

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I drive past this well kept California Bungalow all the time in our neighborhood. There's something wonderful about pink weatherboards I think, especially if they're contrasted with a good blue like this one. Of course the garden frames this home beautifully, extra plants on the nature strip for hard rubbish?!

There are so few period homes around here compared to the inner city suburbs where I've lived for most of the 16 years in Melbourne. I miss living in them and being around them. They have wonderful high ceilings, and often beautiful ornate features that provide character and a sense of history. They can have the downside of being dark, cold, dingy and damp but I guess many of those elements can be improved on.

I found this lovely federation place that is up for relocation. It has four bedrooms and a good floorplan. Will need some work as they all do and I am in the process of finding out more details about it. The guy from relocation company said it would be a good house for a narrow block I was looking at in Mitcham but I think the block is not appropriate as it is too narrow, at 12.5m wide.
So I am looking for an appropriate block, but there are not many around. Don't really think it appropriate to consider putting a house like this one on a new development, it would be among only new houses.

Still lots of questions, finding some interesting stuff online like this one:

Traps to avoid when relocating a home

January 25, 2009 12:00am

HANDS-UP those who have stopped and gawked at the sight of a house on the back of a truck? It is an awesome sight, a must-see for any lover of big machines.
But how - and why - would you do it when houses are usually fixed-to-the-ground items?
According to developers who want to avoid demolition costs and buyers seeking budget-friendly houses, the benefits of relocating a house offset the risks.
We asked experts how to move a house, literally.


THE BUYER
FIRST-HOME buyers Genevieve and Luke Burton "fell in love" with a relocatable home from Moonee Ponds.
But on the day they moved the 1930s house in June 2007, they lost its back half.
Failure to do a full site inspection meant the Burtons did not know their laundry and bathroom were attached to a slab of concrete and could not be moved.
"We laugh about it now . . . but it really pays to know the foundations before you move a house," Mrs Burton said.

The Burtons had been looking for a home re-erect on their 2023sq m block of land in Maindample in northeast Victoria. Mr Burton was a full-time student at the time, so the couple hoped to save money buying a pre-loved house.

"We had seen a lot of rubbish out there, so when we spotted our home in the Trading Post, a three-bedroom Californian bungalow, we fell in love with it," Mrs Burton said.
"The developer was in a hurry. We sort of rushed the whole process when we really should have investigated our mover and the site further." A "pretty loose agreement" was reached between the seller and the Burtons. They were later told the seller wanted the entire site cleared - sheds, carport, even trees and gardens. "We cleared what we could, but the details really needed to be more clearly stipulated at the start," Mrs Burton said.

The relocation company charged just $22,000, but the Burtons had to remove the home's interior plaster and lard and clean the site. Unfortunately, the Burtons bought the house before engaging a moving company. All of the house's roof tiles had to be removed and the roof "flattened" before it was jacked-up from its original stumps and loaded in two pieces on prime loader trucks. They later learnt half their house "almost fell off the truck".

Luckily, because all windows had been taped, the home's leadlight windows survived the move intact. At its new address, it was moved to metal stumps until permanent stumps were built.
Building permits and a septic system and water tanks had to be arranged and because the Burtons had not foreseen a rebuild of the back of the house, it has taken 20 months to get the house to a liveable state.

Next month the couple and their 22-month-old son, Thomas, will move into their 170sq m home. A three-bedroom home in Maindample, on a smaller block, is listed for sale for $189,000 - $36,000 more than the cost of the Burtons' home. "I can't say we would be in a big rush to do it again . . . but it will all work out and we will have a very small mortgage," Mrs Burton said.

THE SELLER
SAM Assoud said his three-bedroom weatherboard home was "too good to demolish" and he would save $10,000 if he could find it a new owner. A first-time relocatable home seller, Mr Assoud listed the Pascoe Vale house for sale online late last year.

He had received about 50 calls from prospective buyers.
He hoped to clear the 700sq m site and start building a new home by April. He would sell the original home for "about $10,000". "I bought it a year ago for the land, but if I was to demolish it, it would cost me $10,000," Mr Assoud said. "It is worth trying to sell it this way. Many homes on the market are of a lesser quality, they are not built to last and weatherboards in good condition are becoming rare."

THE MOVER
BIG savings and recycling benefits were possible when moving a house, expert Carmine Bernardo said. But buyers must do their research. "If you start with the right home and the right people, you can save 40 per cent of what it would cost to build a new home,"

Better House Removers founder Mr Bernardo said. "Nothing else I know is a better example of recycling than recycling a whole house." But unprepared buyers, could easily undermine their savings. "I know of a house sold for $1 and ended up costing the clients $100,000," he said.
Mr Bernardo, who has relocated homes since 1983, said pre-loved houses should range from free to $10,000 for a "really top notch" home. Relocation costs depend on factors including how far the home moves, its construction and permit needs.

A house in Moorabbin listed for sale with Better House Removers would cost its buyer "about $75,000-$90,000" to move, including the house, restumping, rejoining, new roof, sarking and metal batons, and council permits, Mr Bernardo estimated.
"When pricing you have to factor a truck, running costs, a crew of three people for maybe three weeks away, living expenses - you are not going to move it for $3000 to $4000 are you?"


Interestingly according to the article published in Inherit, Heritage Council Victoria Magazine, Issue 19 May 2004, it "suggests that the upgrading or recycling of heritage buildings is an energy efficient option."* The results according to research carried out "showed that older housing actually costs less to maintain and occupy over the long-term life of the building, when compared to more modern housing."

good news on a fine Monday

Heard today that we have pre-approval for our finance to buy! We will have to alter the mortgage products but it seems it will be fine.

Had a good conversation with a guy from this company, they take care of the whole relocating job, to lock up stage. They have been in the business forever and he gave me lots of good info.

• One of their houses cost between $70k - $90k and we would have to allow $30k more for connection of utilities and getting it to 'certificate of occupancy' stage. They provide a seven year guarantee on their work. GST inclusive.
• They organise the council permits, relocation, put it on new stumps, rejoin the house, put on a new colourbond roof, gutter and fascia.
• The block we buy must not have any covenants on it and needs to meet size requirements for access - typically needs to be 500-600 sqm.

There is also this company offering similar services,and this one , and this one. Also this one too.

Lots more research to do, but I think it is feasible and we could create a welcoming home that we will want to live in and with scope for improvement down the track. Very exciting! And terrifying! I have thought of Tarsh and Peter so much, you guys are pioneers and I am inspired by what you're creating with no prior experience. It's very powerful and I know you'd hoped to inspire others to build strawbale but this option will definitely be environmentally friendly. You don't much better than recycling a whole house!

Today's expedition

Just went to see this place in Heathmont, subdivision potential. Sloping block and demolition job for the house. Also saw a little block of land in Mitcham, only 320sqm but bargain price and pretty good location. Question is could we fit a 3 bedroom relocated house on such a small block? It has plans and permits for a 2 bedroom unit. Any idea Ben? The Maroondah council requires 80 square metres of open space, including 60sqm of secluded space such as backyard. Mitcham is city of Whitehorse so I would need to check with them to see if it is different.

the question of home

I am going to document the process of aquiring a home for my family. This may not be interesting to many people, but it will help me keep track of this process and generally get things out of my head. I say my head because it is primarily my actions that are driving our home buying, I have the advantage of shift work and am able to make calls and chase information during business hours. Tim listens to my ideas, comes to look at houses and contributes when I have moments of insanity, like the other day when he said "Trine, we are not going to live on Springvale Road".




Eight weeks ago we received notice of a rent increase, the second in the last year. Fed up with the house we're currently living in, what with it's concrete lions out the front, revolting carpet and curtains and perhaps the most irritating feature for me - the lack of air-conditioning or adequate insulation. It is a stinker in the summer months. The latest rent hike spurred me into action. I organised a visit from a mortgage broker that day, and we are waiting on pre-approval for purchase now.





Following the happy news that we can most likely borrow what we need to buy a house I started looking. The internet is an amazing tool and I have spent many hours scouring the pages of properties coming onto the market since then. We have been in probably thirty houses since then. We have been looking around the Mitcham, Ringwood area but think now we can't afford to buy in Mitcham - houses prices are definitely on the rise, at least in the lower end of the market. It's very difficult not to get attached to particular houses, they come to represent home in a very short space of time. We put in an offer on this house a few weeks ago - I really did love it.
I had even planned where I would place my outdoor spa - I was there. We offered $378k, it sold for $408k. There were 5 written offers after one OFI. That was quite a shock to us - initially we thought the buyers had gone overboard with what they paid, but as time goes on I'm beginning to think that wasn't such a bad buy at $408k. What a roller coaster.



I had continued to look for houses, expanding the radius of searching to include Ringwood East and Heathmont. Most of the properties we looked at were renovated (at least partially) and on subdivided blocks. It occurred to me that it might be worthwhile looking at what it would take to complete a DIY subdivision, to build equity in our own home. I called a good friend of ours who works in property development and he gave me lots of excellent information about the process, what to look for in properties, what research I could do to see if it is feasible and offered to help us with the whole thing if we decided to go that way. Broadly, we have these options with regard to potential subdivision:

• Buy land with existing house which sits at the front of the block (fit unit on back), at the rear of the block (fit unit on front) or in the case of a very large block, the existing house may sit in the middle of the block. That way one might be able to place a unit at the front and rear of the existing house.




• The block would need to be at least 700sqm. Needs room for driveway or have existing driveway down one side. The flatter the land the better - less cost for excavation.




• We could buy a large block, say more than 900sqm, apply for permits for 3 units, bulldoze or sell existing house for relocation. This option seems to be the riskiest to me, as we would be paying rent somewhere else while paying mortgage while bulldozing house and selling land - and we would have borrowed the extra $20k for the subdivision costs.

So I started looking for the type of property that might fit the bill - and discovered these properties are pretty unusual and seem to sell even faster than the ones we'd been looking at before. A terrific place was listed last weekend in Croydon (further out than we'd planned but not far from East Ringwood). By Monday it was sold, within our price range. Not aesthetically what I would choose but great block on a corner and scope for improvement of the existing house. Same story for this one, sold in one day, with one party going through it and putting in an offer. Then there's this type of property, suitable for the more cashed up property development folk. It has tenants in it paying low rent for the next 10 months. So that one is a no-goer.

On Friday we went to to see this place, it seemed promising. It is an old original house, but good bones and plenty of room for improvement. The land is definitely big enough to subdivide but when I looked at the driveway leading to the back of the block it seemed a little narrow. On rudimentary measure it was about 2.5metres wide from the side of the house to the fence. On return home I called the council. I have had a few conversations with the people in planning in the last few weeks and have learned some very useful information. This phone call illuminated the fact that the minimum width for a driveway is 3 metres. So short of buying extra land from the next door neighbor (or bulldozing/relocating the existing house) this was not the house for subdivision.

Today I got thinking about whether that house on Warrandyte Rd might be ok to buy without subdividing. The big downfall is that it is at the front of the block on a busy road. Then I got thinking about how much it would be worth to sell for relocation, thereby funding the period between removing it and selling the land. My basic internet research on this topic seems to indicate there is very little money in selling a home to house relocators. Then I got thinking about whether it would be feasible for us to buy a smaller block of land, say 500-600 sqm and buying a house that is up for relocation. A lovely period home or something with character that we could put our own stamp on. From preliminary investigations it seems it is a much less expensive option than building, and I love the idea of preventing a house from being demolished. The trick is finding the land. Tomorrow's project.