removing internal walls in single fronted weatherboard cottage

I own a 1920s single fronted, tin roofed weatherboard cottage in Melbourne's inner west and am hoping to do some remodelling and rearranging of the internal layout.

At the back of the house a 5.4m x 4.2m skillion roofed lean-to which now contains the kitchen, laundry and bathroom, which we want to turn into an open plan living space. There's a wall down the middle which I assume is load bearing, seeing as it breaks up the 5.4m width (correct me if you think I might be wrong). We want to have this removed.

A couple of questions - would we need to go through council (Maribyrnong) and get an engineer's report to have this done? Or are we safe to have someone do it without going down that route. Needless to say we'll take all steps to ensure they do it correctly and safely. We will also need them to build a wall in the current lounge room for the new kitchen & bathroom.

How easy is it to find a builder/carpenter to do a job like this and how much can I expect to pay? Rough estimates are fine - I'm aware I haven't supplied loads of detail (but will be happy to if more is needed).

Anything else I need to think about with a job like this?

Thanks in advance.

Trent


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