LEGAL OPINION RE BUILDING FEES

Taupo Times, Volume III, Issue 146, 12 November 1954, Page 6

LEGAL OPINION RE BUILDING FEES

SEPARATE FEE PAYABLE ON ADDITIONS A letter from the Borough Council's solicitors was before the Council meeting on Wednesday, November 3, advising on the matter of fees for building permits issued for additional work to be done on buildings for which a prior permit had already been issued and paid for. The matter arose when Messrs N. Cole Ltd. advised the Council that they considered they were being overcharged for permit fees in connection with the Lake Hotel. A permit had first been issued for the building, costing £99, based on the original estimated cost of £99,652. When extensions to the building were decided on, at an estimated further cost of £10,700, the Council had charged them a fee of £32, as on a separate building. The builders considered that the extra cost of the additions should have been added to the original estimate and the fee been worked out on the total, according to the graduated scale, which would have made the total fee £108, leaving a further £9 to be paid, not £32. The firm stated that wherever they had erected buildings, as in Auckland, and additions were decided upon before completion of the building, the permit fees had always been adjusted on the basis of the total cost being that of one bulding. The Council's solicitors advised that the correct fee for the additions to the hotel was £32. Two permits were necessary and two permit fees were payable. The fact that the Auckland City Council might allow an adjustment of fees in similar cases was, in the solicitors' opinion, irrelevant.

The Council decided to reply to Messrs N. Cole Ltd. in accordance The Town Clerk reported that a with the legal opinion. similar position had arisen in connection with Messrs Casson and Prater's new concrete building in Tongariro Street, now in course of erection. Originally a permit had been taken out for a one storey building comprising four shops. It had now been decided to go on with the addition of a second storey, and accordingly a building permit had been issued for the additional work and the fee charged and paid as for a separate build- , ing.