signing building contract before soil tests??

Hello hello...... My land has been delayed, yet again, expecting it title in October now. We have chosen a builder - but have not signed any contracts yet. Typically, they're pressuring us to sign the building contracts.

Should we be doing this even before the land titles, and before we have soil reports? We don't have fixed site costs - but they do include a H class slab.

Anything I should be weary of?

Thanks in advance

hmm well just be aware if it's a HIA contract that they might be able to get you for a price increase if construction doesn't start within 45 working days of signing the contract. Plenty of people have been stung by delays with land titles and there's not anything they can do unless the price increase is more than 5% of the contract price, in which case the owner can usually break the contract. We're facing this at the moment and we're not even building in a new estate for what its worth our price increase is $2k but I've heard of people being charge double or triple that.

There's no way in the world I would sign a building contract unless I had either a soil test or fixed site costs.

What you are doing is agreeing that you will go ahead with the build, regardless of the cost of the site works required. Some people on here have had site costs of $40,000 (some even more).

What have you budgeted for site costs?

You would be mad to sign. I would walk away and wait, im sure the builder would still like to take your money in a years time if it takes that long for the land to settle. Not worth the risk and you give up any control you might have

I wouldn't sign because of the pressure. But I did sign my contract without the land being titled. We had a fair expectation of what the site costs would be, and we ended up paying a few thousand more than the builder's estimate. It was about 8 months between signing and titling and there was no price increase. So I was very happy with the process.

But if you're getting pressured into signing I would be wary. I would be asking for the contract to have a time frame of, say, 6 months before any price increase. If it really does take 6 months then you ought to be paying more anyway, as prices do increase for the builder. It's fair for them to ask that.

yeah you're right..... The contracts are ready for me, so I might pick them up and then advise them that we won't be signing until soil tests are completed.

I have in writing that they've comitted to keeping the same price as long as we commence in October 2010. If it is delayed further, the price will increase about $3k - which we are fine with.

The other option is to sign with a subject to soil tests clause. In other words, if the price for site works comes back and you are unhappy with it, you get to walk away with no loss.

We had the builder do the soil tests prior to signing the contract so we had a fixed price. We paid them for it and it was deducted from the contract price after we signed. The soil test was done prior to the land being titled - we put a subject to soil test clause in the purchase of our land.