House: Spa certification
I got an email from the council yesterday about the spa… they want us to schedule it for an inspection to make sure it’s up to the new standards set by the victorian government. Uh oh! We absolutely know it won’t pass, and we’ve no interest in making it so.
So I called up to discuss our options, and learned that we’ll have to remove it (ok, no problem, we knew that), but that it’ll cost at least $500-ish to get a permit to do it, because it’s in-ground (if it was sitting on a deck it’d be another story). Bummer!
While I was on the phone, I checked it out and our plan of selling the thing advertised as “buyer to remove” was doomed from the start: the previous owners had drilled holes in it to make it unfillable. Per what the council had told me, I think this means it’s not actually a spa, it’s just a hole in the ground. I sent them photos in an email, and haven’t heard anything since… I think that means they’ll be off our backs about it for now?
From what the council folks told me, we’re stuck with the “hole in the ground” until we pay for a permit, provide a site plan showing it’s relation to the house, and a bunch of other stuff. But hopefully that can wait until spring/summer so we can address other things (and have money for fill, and so on).