I can’t believe our luck

I need to vent, I’ll try to keep this as brief as I can, but there is a lot of stuff to say…

August 30 2009: My girlfriend and I paid a deposit for a block of land in Stage 1O of the Reflections Estate Tarneit, while we were talking to the sales person, she told us that a block from an earlier release (stage 8 ) might be coming up for sale again, as we had already discussed with her that we wish we were getting a block that would settle earlier than stage 10 (wanted to be in our house by Christmas 2010), she offered us the opportunity of first pick if the block in stage 8 became available.

September 3 2009: Swapped our block for the one in stage 8

At this point, knowing that our new block will title late November, we thought to our selves, it’s just meant to be, it’s all worked out perfectly. At this stage we had only just started organizing our finance.

September 13 2009, paid the rest of our 5% deposit pending finance.

November 27 2009: Land settles

As we had problems getting our finance (due to both wages not being consistent, deposit is in shares and not sitting in a bank account, high number of job changes, plus more), we had to continually delay settlement of the block.

December 4 2009: Finally got unconditional approval of our land loan

December 14 2009: Settlement booked in, but not before a huge amount of dramas, see my post viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27178. But the basics of it are:
Called conveyancer 3 times to confirm the amount we need to pay, “not sure, need to wait for your loan papers to come through” is what I was told each time, was never told that stamp duty and a heap of other fees were payable on the same day as settlement. Was now nearly $4000 short, and to get this money I had to sell more shares, this takes 3 or so days for the money to clear. Oh, and I was told at 2pm on the Friday to have a cheque for the amount by 11am Monday. So I was basically given 5 hours to come up with a cheque for $4000 more that I could get on such short notice.

December 14 2009: Had to postpone settlement again

December 15 2009: Was told we would now be fined nearly $300 for delaying settlement again. Settlement booked for 16th.

December 15 2009: Express posted the cheque so it would arrive in time for settlement.

December 16 2009: Australia post on strike, possibly till Friday, so my cheque didn’t arrive. Now I don’t know when settlement will take place, but have been told that I won’t be fined for this delay.

The amount of stress we have been through and the constant problems we have faced, I can’t help but think that we might be making a mistake, or its some way of a greater power telling us not to go through with our plans. Or maybe its just bad luck, but after our house is built (we have an April 2010 start date) we are going to celebrate like there is no tomorrow. I am expecting huge problems getting the loan for our construction too, but at least we have more time for this. We sign our contract for the house tomorrow (17/12/09) and then we start the task of the loan application, fingers crossed it all goes well, but I’m not holding my breath.

Our experience so far has still not put us off building, what it has done though, is made us more determined to get this house built, and once the house is built, we will most likely appreciate it just that much more.

Don’t know what the point of this post is, but I think I feel a little bit better….

Oh wizard... sad face...

I just want to say you're not alone. MY OH and I are currently having very similar problems. Just spoke to my Broker and we were supposed to get our land docs from the bank today, settlement for the land is due Friday (this is the 11th, yes 11th, extension) and we're clearly not going to make it either.

Also haven't done our land loan and are just keeping our fingers crossed we have no issues there. (We did have unconditional approval until the bank stuffed up some docs, so they had to go back into the system and now we're not sure what will come out the other end. Banks are so unreliable.)

So, no matter how bad your luck might be at the moment, keep your chin up. There are others going through the exact same thing, and I can guarantee we won't have been the first, or the last, to experience this. It'll all work out in the end, I'm sure.

Plus, things could alwasy be worse, right? You have each other and you have your health (hopefully), so (c'mon, altogether now)... always look on the bright...side...of life. Doo do, doo do do do do doo!

Wizard ............... look on the bright side

and remember
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it can only get better

cheers
rocket

Hi Wizard, Sorting out finance is a pain... hang in there! Singing along with you McBecks *doo do, doo do do do do doo*

Talk to your bank ASAP regarding your construction load and confirm you will have enough savings for the required period and get it in writing. Also brace yourself for the valuation and be prepared to make up any short fall.

We put in 10% into our land deposit and only needed an additional $800 for genuine savings. Luckily we still had plenty more in the bank. When settlement became due we paid our stamp duty out of our savings and were told this will count as savings as they can see where the money has gone. We still had more in the bank, however when the land loan was finalised, we closed our savings, rolling it over into the mortgage offset account.

When it came time for the lending centre to process our construction loan application, they refused to acknowledge the money we paid for stamp duty, and could not trace our old savings (for the required 3 months back). After a 3 week battle with them, (most of it lack of communication) they acknowledged shares we also had which we original submitted to but were not looked at.

With a 3 week delay on valuation because the valuer could not read the drawings and sat on it without communicating, combined with the 3 week delay to acknowledge our savings, it was a very stressful 6 weeks until we received unconditional approval. Our local branch lending manager did a great job and was pulling hair out himself, however the lending processing centre was very ordinary with service.