Signing up to what ?

Well today we have reached a major milestone, the signing of the building contract.
But first, we had our electrical appointment. We chose to just have battens installed and will go with getting our own fluorescent downlights and electricians to install later.. this should save us at least 1K i would think. We just put downlights in common areas but the rooms will have the one standard room light. Hubby seems happy and our electrical salesperson was quite helpful and pleasant to deal with.

After this, we went over the building contract which we had read prior (with only layman knowledge) and it seemed pretty standard. I know we are really going in a bit blind and trusting that the builder will be doing the right thing. I am hoping that since our builder is quite large and well known and appears to be doing well in this financial drought, that they will not suffer the same financial hardships as other building companies have done recently.

Unfortunately when looking at the final final final plans we noticed our previous salesperson omitted putting in the little shower recesses we asked for. For those who don't know what i'm talking about, its a little cavity in the shower wall used to put toiletries within instead of having a shelf sticking out or those shower caddies. Hubby really had his heart set on it but it seems to have been missed. It was quite disappointing as during the time we asked for it, our salesperson was saying she would put it in but had to wait as there is only one copy of the files and the draftspeople had it at the time. Then our salesperson ended up leaving the company and it was several months until we saw the next version of the tender and it had slipped our mind by then.

At any rate, the excitement levels have risen again now there seems to be a bit more activity. Fingers crossed that there will be something happening on our land within the next month. First things first, we have to get full approval now from the bank.

Stay tuned.

Zone of annoyance

Yesterday I mentioned there was a considerable increase in the total cost due to us now being considered within the 'zone of influence'. We had sat down prior with the sales person who showed us that the main house was not on the zone of influence, only the alfresco area which should not be a problem Well, it seems like she was mistaken. We are following up to see if it is the alfresco area that is the problem and if so, we may scrap this as the alfresco area is now costing over $20K because of this. However if it is the main building then there is not much we can do about it.

Unfortunately if it is the alfresco area and we were to scrap it from the plans, it would probably result in more delays to redraw the plans and submit to council again? ah what to do. Never build again, that is for sure. There are too many risks with unknowns when building, too many for me to be comfortable with.

Finally happening??

Did i say that in the last post? well its 6 weeks later and we have yet to sign the building contract. Over the last 6 weeks, we cleared the land (lots of mowing, weeding and rubbish removal for the site) so the builder could do the peg out, got pre-approval from the bank and was waiting for the construction certificate. Suffice to say that while we were expecting some delays to the process, we were not expecting this degree of delay.

We also have received another version of the plans and have found another 30K increase in the variations! Most were due to council requirements and being in the zone of influence. We have also noticed about another $6K in new tenders being provided by the builder following the lapse of the previous free 6 months tender which expired in xmas. Since xmas we have had another 2 versions of tender (each for 3 months periods). Auburn council is a soulless hound!