I was feeling sorry for the guy when I read this article in The Age:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/no-permit-no-home-no-sympathy-potsmokers-dream-up-in-smoke-20130722-2qewv.html?fb_action_ids=678015382213471&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

Just another harmless person victimized by the system…. or so I thought,  until I read that he is now”squatting” in his own home due to the fact that the bank cannot sell his house to repossess it because he never bothered to get permits for any of the building work he did.  He did all the work himself and had no permits,  so the house is now deemed unsafe and cannot be legally sold. So he can basically go on squatting in his house without paying his mortgage indefinitely.  Most likely he didn’t intend any of this and just wanted to tend to his house and garden in peace, but there is a lesson to be learned here: Perform renovations on your house without a permit, then stop paying your mortgage. The bank cannot sell your house because you haven’t contracted  and  they are therefore in a stalemate situation. Nice.