Responding to a Show Cause Notice from Council.

Under some legislation, Council, as the administering authority, may issue show cause and enforcement notices – most often issued by the Development Compliance team for matters relating to the Building Act (1975) and the Planning Act (2016).

Responding to a Show Cause Notice from Council is a distressing experience as we have come to learn from dealing with hundreds of clients who have received this.

This is especially true if the building work in question was carried out by previous owner.  Some clients have questioned why Council do not pick this up prior to the house purchase been made. This is outside the scope of this post. The reality of this is that the responsibility now lies on the current owner of the house.

It is worth distinguishing between A Show Cause Notice and An Enforcement Notice. In most cases, once a Certifier is engaged the Notice of Engagement which is sent to Council is sufficient response for the Show Cause Notice. Unfortunately, some clients leave too late until an Enforcement Notice is issued.

The building work in question is then assessed in compliance with current standards regardless of when the work was carried out. Please refer to Retrospective Certification for more details on the approval process of existing structures.

We trust that you find this information useful. Feel free to leave us a comment below for further clarification.