Building with Homes by CMA - Ascot 260

UNCONDITIONAL FINANCE woooooooooo

whoop whoop whoop!!!!!

So we are still awaiting final approval from council. It's been an emotional kind of adventure lately. It seems like as soon as they have our money, all contact ceases and they don't provide you with a specific contact point - you're just sitting in limbo until someone else comes along.

The stress of no communication and waiting has been taking a toll on my already non existent sleep. I've been dreaming of arguments that haven't yet happened with the salesman. For example, I dreamt council plans wouldn't be approved because the contour survey recommended 2 sleeper retainer wall up the left side of the block yet CMA has made the business decision that only 1 sleeper is required - it's a difference of $2500 if it turns out to be the case. This hasn't happened but neither has approval!

Then I find out that the owner submitted landscaping plans were never actually submitted 3 weeks prior despite my constant request for updates. I had to contact stockland and submit it myself because the office lady that said she will follow up, clearly didn't or she would have seen they were never actually submitted! I have to commend her for her honesty though. It's more than I can say for the salesman who blatantly l!ed to me when he called to give his version of events.

So where we are at for the moment: still waiting on council approval because the certifier needs the slab engineering report and the engineers are experiencing delays because they are inundated with new builds. We are at week 4 of patiently waiting....

I've taken to daily emails requesting an update - yes I am being *that* customer - because I want them to realize I'm all over this, that I'm not happy and that I won't stand for them dragging their feet any longer than required. All I ask for is open and honest communication. If there is a problem or they are at their allowable quota of builds at the moment, just say so. Almost all the houses on the other side of the street are being slabbed or almost at completion of the frame/roof/bricking. It's time to start cutting dirt and making progress now!

Council Approval has been received after exactly 4 weeks!

Nothing of significance with the approval apart from the condition that the minimum finished floor level needs to be 36.65m AHD which is just slightly higher than the plans cut/fill measurements.

The approval has been sent to the broker so they can send it to the bank and the bank can issue our letter of commencement!

Hopefully that wont be too far away!

Oh YAY you have approval I am so happy for you! Finally!!!!

My plans got rejected by council I'll update you or my thread later - I'm still trying to get my head around all the changes.

Oh no! How disheartening. It seem they just keep testing you every step of the way!

So I went through the estate again on the weekend to show my Sister where she will locate me in 4-6 months time. It's great to see that some houses are finally being erected on my side of the street. Almost every block on the other side of the street has started or ready to start so it's really good to see something happening on our side, including our neighbour and their neighbour - both building Metricon homes. We also experienced 2 electric trains and a freight train while we were there and it was comforting to hear they weren't overpowering like it was at the last place! I just hope that when houses go up, the sound doesn't reverberate off them and make it so much louder.

Hopefully next week we should have our letter of commencement from the bank and a start date from the builder. We are a couple of weeks over our self imposed start date so its absolutely time to start this show! I have emailed K-Spec to advise we would like to employ their services as a private building inspector to make sure our build is conducted as per building specifications. For the small price of $1,500, it provides piece of mind that someone with qualifications is checking everything is constructed properly and we aren't missing anything with our untrained eyes.

It seems that if we aren't waiting on one party, we are waiting on another. Let's hope it doesn't take too much longer. Our 18 weeks build time doesn't begin until the slab is laid! Fingers crossed to end of July hand over.

Letter of commencement has been posted!! C'mon postman!!

I'm at the same stage with Homes By CMA! Just waiting on the bank for the letter of commencement! Eeek!

Welcome! You and me both. For some reason the bank has sent this via snail mail - which is just silly in this age of technology plus with all this rain. It's been a week now and I'm not a patient person. CMA held us up with council because they didn't provide the slab report because the engineer was swamped.

Where are you building and what design? Do you have a forum going?

Scubabe is building with them too. I hope your admin process has been a nicer experience

Ahh silly bank!

I am building at Narangba Heights and I'm building a version of 'The Endeavor' which is pretty much the display home at Burpengary with a few wall moves and changes.

No don't but I am documenting my build

It be nice to sit here reading everyones posts though but I thought I would finally join in.

Yes, well it really is the bank that's holding me up. I am tempted to go to head office in Brisbane, pick up the letter and walk it to CMA because it would probably get there a lot faster.

I saw that you posted on Scubabe's post so I went and stalked the V1.2 of the Endeavour. It is a really nice design and I love the original display home. The identifiable differences that I noticed in the V1.2 is the step back in the walls of the living room, the change in bathroom configuration and the laundry change. I love the idea of storage room in the garage but I don't like that they cut into the media room to do it. I'm sure it will still be a large enough space though. The change does make the hall very seamless from entry to living areas. I very much like the changes so the bathroom, toilet and bed 3 doors open onto each other. I think that was a very smart change! I would have preferred our toilet in the same position (out of the main hall) but I didn't want to part with the WIR in bedroom 2. Does your design still have the glass splashback window in the kitchen? The new designs don't look like they do and I kinda like the natural light and being able to see out over the yard (or at someone's fence).


CMA are supposed to be building a 2 story home and an endeavour with skillion roof on my block somewhere. Last I heard they were going to council but then the bank screwed us around an extra week asking for stuff we had already provided and now its been another week waiting for a letter for the go ahead so they might have caught up to us now.

Narangba Heights will be just up the road from us. My cousin lives in there and he seems to like the place. I preferred Stone Ridge to Narangba Heights only because there was less levels to the blocks. Sure there is lots of mountain views, but we were a little put off by the thought of someones house towering over ours and that you would need retaining or piers on almost every block - well the ones I looked into anyways. And we got so lucky with our block and the perfect placement of the house plan on it.

I am so very past ready to begin though. Its coming into Easter which means catching up with people and I'm over dodging the questions about how the non-existent build is going! I'd really like to be able to tell a different story next time. On a good note though, we are now the proud owners of a very heavy letterbox!

And we have a sign.... not long now

We have now been assigned a SS. We should get an introduction phone call in the next few days

Awesome! I have had a sign for months.. so it's annoying that nothing has started.
My bank have been very slow unfortunately. I should be at the same point as you very soon.
Good luck

Super frustrating about the bank! I had to call the bank on my lunch break and tell them to fax the letter to the builder. Otherwise they would still be waiting. You should do the same on Monday just to put a rocket under them. As soon as they got it, we were assigned a site supervisor within a few hours. Scubabe and I have been assigned the same SS. Maybe if you get yours soon, you will have the same one and we can all share this journey together!

So frustrating!
Ooh good idea, I might do the same. I hate being rude or inpatient, but I feel like I have to be at this stage.
Yes, that would be fantastic. How exciting!

So we are still waiting our "couple of days" for the assigned site supervisor to call. It turns out that they forgot to mention he was taking holidays until after easter. I did have to send an email to inform them that their lack of communication was stressful to me. I know we aren't the only ones building and that people are very busy but it doesn't really take much time to flick off a 1 or 2 sentence email advising they haven't just taken our money and run away.... especially because they managed to send a variation request for electricity connection.

I'm very happy that for the low price of $500 they have offered to organise the electricity set up and connection as well as usage for the duration of the build. I called AGL to enquire on the process and approximate cost involved and it seems like its far too much additional stress for me to worry about. We are happy for CMA to do this on our behalf and we will just arrange for the re-connection once hand over occurs.

So the SS is due back on the 18th and the initial plan is (weather permitting) to start the site scrap on this day. Slab is due to be poured on the 26th at this stage. Hubby says he will believe it when he sees it. The lady who provided the initial plan stated that piering is due to commence on 19th..... this is odd because we don't actually have any piering in our contract/plans. We got a compaction certificate which meant we didn't have to do piering. I won't argue if they decide to do them as well. I'm not paying for them though.

The neighbours frame should hopefully be up by then. If not, they will need to find somewhere else to park their rubbish and their frames until they are ready to go up. Our land is about to get busy!

Omg!! The Easter bunny bought us a temporary driveway and a site scrape and didn't tell us!! So excited!

It's always more exiting when it takes you by surprise. Looks great!