The Building Inspector....

Things have been progressing - sometimes too slowly but its progress none the less. Our plans were submitted about 8 weeks ago and we have been trying to keep track of which departments (there are 11) they have passed through and better yet how much longer it will take to be approved. Surfice to say "Africa Time" and you will understand that we are the only ones in a hurry. As far as progress with the plans, on Wednesday we heard they were at Sewage and they had been to town planning BUT required sign off from the neighbours........ on top of this worrying news (re the neighbours) I was handed a business card from the Building Inspector (Mark Tobin) ...... I must admit, I had a mild panic attack as I knew full well that we are not suppossed to have our bricks/sand etc on the pavement and this usually results in a fine! Thank goodness for Errol - he knows the inspector assigned to us! So he took the card and said he would call and see what the situation was. So "operation clean-up" was started with the target being Friday lunchtime. Errol had arranged for Mark to come back on Friday and we would discuss any issues. The builders got organised and Mark arrived - he was concerned about our plans being submitted and told us we had got ourselves out of a R1000 by cleaning up. He also kindly told us what our rights are regarding zoning/neighbour etc. The best news was that the neighbour can't not sign off the plans because of double story - the only reason we require their signature is for the studio as it is seen as a subsiduary dwelling. In fact we could even go triple story - Good news at last. Now we can go armed with our rights when we meet them. After all this, the 4 of us went to lunch (truly good to be in SA)