HOUSE PLANS LOCAL AUTHORITY SUBMISSION

Following a tested and tried process for preparing to submit house plans to any municipality/ Local Authority in South Africa. This should enable you to go through the submission process with a little more ease and help you understand the documents required by most local authorities in South Africa. Please keep in mind that this is a guide only and based on the regulations of the Gauteng areas and that requirements might be slightly different in other areas.

Before submitting your house plans to the Local Authority, various documents are to accompany your house plans. Below a self checklist of documents: (NOTE: This is for normal additions or new dwellings). Each document will be discussed in a little more detail.

•          Council Submission form
•          SACAP (Schedule 4) form
•          Power of Attorney
•          Engineer appointment form
•          Copy of latest paid up Account
•          Copy of Owners ID
•          Sewerage connection diagram
•          SG Diagram
•          Zoning Certificate
•          Title Deed
•          Plans copies signed by Engineer, Client / Architect/ Draughtsman
• ·         Fees for submission

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Council Submission forms

This form may be collected at the LA/ Municipality where you will need to submit your plans OR your registered designer / architect should have them available. In most instances this is a one page form to be filled out with details e.g. the owner details, size, type, zoning, size of the building stated in the form will be used by the council to work out the plan submission fees payable for plan scrutiny, also required is the details of appointed registered designer / architect. Both the owner and designer / architect’s signatures needs to be on the application form. (NOTE: Designer includes; Draughtsman etc.)

 

SACAP (Schedule 4) form

This form is available and completed by the registered designer / architect whom you appoint to draw your plans. This is an appointment and mostly compliance certificate to confirm the appointed person is registered with SACAP.From 1 July 2006 no person practicing architecture will be able to submit plans without being registered with SACAP (The South African council for the architectural profession.)

 

 

 

Power of Attorney

This will not be necessary if the owner of the property is submitting the plans. If you would like to make use of a third party or professional consultant to submit the plans and get it approved, you will need to write a letter OR complete a power of Attorney form available at some LA’s and/ or with your appointed registered designer / architect, stating that you as the registered owner permits the said appointed person to act on your behalf regarding submission, applications etc..

 

Engineer appointment form

This form can be obtained from your local authority, to be filled out by your appointed engineer stating that he / she as a professional and will take responsibility for the structural soundness of the building designed, roof types structure and do the necessary inspections on site.

 

Copy of latest paid up Account

A copy of the latest water & electricity account for the property is required with the submission documents.

 

Copy of Owners ID

A copy of owner’s ID document is required with the submission documents.

 

Sewerage connection diagram

The Sewerage diagram is available from the services department at your local authority. t’s a one page document outlining the stand with an indication of the position and the depth of the connection of the municipal sewer connection on the stand.

 

SG Diagram

This is document is availble at your local council usually from the town planning department and contains info about the stand size, location, orientation, side lengths etc.

 

Zoning Certificate

This document can be obtained from you local council’s Land use rights department The document contains information about the property’s use rights or zoning, building lines, coverage etc. allowed for the stand.

 

Title Deed

There is various ways to obtain a copy: 1. Financing institution until settlement of your property loan is paid-up, ask for a copy from them. 2. If the property was bought without a loan, the title deed should be requested from the attorneys’ 3. The deeds office keeps all records, thus a trust worthy place to obtain the document. This document should be scrutinized carefully as it often contains a lot of additional information about the specific property and possible registered servitudes that might exist

 

Plans copies signed by Engineer, Client / Architect/ Draughtsman

The amount of plan copies required by different town or city councils varies broadly, but all local authorities will require at least one set of colour copies and normally 3 black & white copies. (NOTE: All the plans & copies are to be signed by you owner, your appointed architectural draughts person and the appointed structural engineer.)

 

Fees for submission

The fee payable for plan scrutiny also varies widely from council to council and may be anything from about R3/sqm to approx. R13/sqm at some Municipalities. There-for it is important to contact your LA to confirm the submission process. Some Municipalities have other criteria whereby they calculate fees.

 

Now you have all the documents completed, you are ready to submit your application to your Municipality. We wish you best of luck with your building plan submissions/ approval!