Exact Location of Dwelling to be Pegged by Owner

Hi,

We are currently building in SA and have just been told we are responsible for pegging our house location (house is currently with council signed contract in April) - in the contract are the attached 2 notes referring to boundary pegging but all that is mentioned about dwelling pegging is a note on the plan stating “exact location of dwelling to be pegged by owner”. I have been told if we don’t want to organise our own surveyor we can pay an extra $1k for this to be done by the builders. Is this normal? I’d be surprised if most owners are arranging their own surveyors…

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers

Often its possible to find the pegs and save the money.

Here is a link to how I did it: https://anewhouse.com.au/2020/08/block-boundary-pegs/

Thanks Bashworth. What they are actually telling us to pay for is the pegging for the house location, not the boundary pegging.

Is that normally the owners job?

TIA

It is the landowners (your) responsibiulity to provide information about the boundary locations (usually marked by Boundary Pegs)

My advice is related to finding boundary pegs which may still be there but not obvious.

If the boundary pegs cannot be found then its your responsibility to have new pegs set out. (cost around $1,000)

Once the boundary pegs have been established it is the builders job to set out the position of the house

Thank you. That’s what I thought, unfortunately we are being told it is our responsibility to set out the house position or pay $1k to get it done by the builder.

Their design and you have to peg it out or pay $1k to get them to peg out their own design?
If you peg it out what sort of responsibility will they take for any issues?
I'm guessing none.
$1k is not a lot in the scheme of things but it could be a sign of what sort of relationship you'll have with them going forward.

We definitely agree that $1k is not much in the scheme of building a house but are very concerned about what else will suddenly be our responsibility.

You're mistaken. It's the boundary pegs. There is no way in hell a builder would be getting you to mark out your own house position or charge you for it outside of the build price

I specifically asked multiple times if it was the boundary pegs because it seemed absurd we would be pegging out the dwelling and we were told that it is the dwelling we are pegging or we have to pay $1k for them to do it. Boundary is already pegged… I thought the same thing! I even got our admin officer to speak to the building manager because I thought she was incorrect and she came back to me and said it was the dwelling pegging.

Absolutely bizarre if that's the case.
I'd be looking for another builder or at least demanding to speak to someone senior to clear the issue up.

yep bizarre is the nicest way to put this.

Will the owner be required to also set out the waffle pods or the place the plastic stools under the the reo? Maybe they will also be responsible for cutting out the holes in the plaster to mark out where they wan their light switches....

given the builder has to do the siting, how TF are you supposed to knw where your home should be sited. So dumb

I just got off the phone with our admin officer yet again and she has again assured me it is the dwelling pegging we are responsible for and that we have to pay if we want them to do it... I have requested she follow up with someone higher up and get it put in writing because aside from the note on our plan it is nowhere in our contract and just seems so strange...

You have failed to accept that the plans and the note forms part of the contract
EXACT LOCATION OF THE DWELLING TO BE PEGGED BY OWNER
Get legal advice
OT My understanding is unless you are a licensed surveyor you'll be paying for it
HTH

I would have thought I would need to be in the contract somewhere but that’s my mistake. I’m happy to pay the $1k to get it done by the builder, it just seems very odd to me that it wasn’t included.

What next?
"Oh you wanted glass in your windows? That will be .........................."
"Oh you wanted locks fitted to the doors? That will be .........................."

Well our builder was supposed to repeg our property (so that home is in the correct position but never did. He used a reference point on the road as the reference point. Go figure .

Yes exactly. Very very strange. I would question whether this builder would be the right one for me.
Potentially a whole lot of other strange "owner responsibilities" may pop up later on.