Approval can be obtained. However it may take a very long time for approval if your's is the first in your area to apply for such a renovation. It's generally much easier if a prior approval was made for your area.

Just on the approval if you're the first in your neighbourhood to do this, you could be looking at taking up to 1.5 years for it. Saw a signboard for a house under renovation in TTDI and they submitted their plans late 2009 and only got approval early 2011. The approval was from 2 storey to 2.5 storey.

Hope that sheds some light and make sure you get a good architect and engineer for this.

Ask your neighbour if they could pass you a copy of the approved plans. It will be a base point to start talking to an architect and also easy for them to see what can be approved by the council.

If your neighbour has done it and approval was obtained, it definitely makes it easier for you. There is a past precedent for council to refer to.

[quote=weikee,Dec 14 2011, 07:17 AM]
If its illegal, your neighbor may have to tear it down

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I don't think the council will take that type of drastic measures.

Architect drawing for approval should cost about RM6k-7k, submission to your local council plus license and for the tong outside your house, you would be looking at about RM1.5k or so... i'm just basing these figures on estimates.

If your council requires engineer drawing for specifications of certain items, that may cost you but i'm not very sure how much. If you need i have a contact for the guy that liased with the council and did the architectural drawings for my submission.

He's quite a nice guy but as far as i know he does DBKL and MBPJ. Not sure if he does for other areas. If you want his contact just PM me and i'll send it to you and you can just call him and get a feel of what you need to do.