2 years of occupation

Firstly, apologies for slipping away quietly there.  Its been two years since we first occupied our new home.  And guess what, we only just got the final occupation certificate in February 2012!  The replacement of the footpath out front was the cause of the delay but other than that, we are still very happy with our home.  The experience has been an interesting one and if we were to build again, we would know what to expect now and how to avoid those problems (or at least get them resolved a little faster). 

We first started contacting the council about the footpath last August 2011.  And council being council, they were pretty slack getting back to us.  They eventually sent someone to check out the damage to the footpath and concluded the whole thing needed replacing.  We could choose to let council do the work or if we hired our own subcontractors, they would have to leave a $5k deposit!  The cost that the council quoted was just over $6K! At this point, we just wanted it done and let the council do it as they were the ones that would have to approve the final thing.  Even the subcontractors that the council hired were flabbergasted as to why we had to replace the whole footpath when only 2 sections were damaged.  They even rallied against the council for us but council were not to be budged. 

So finally we have a brand new stinkin footpath in the front and the final occupation certificate YAY!

but the million dollar question... would we build again???  ABSOLUTELY!