Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 06, 2022 12:46 pm Hi All, We bought a plot of land at Riverwalk estate Werribee that will be titled next year. We finalised Orion Homes as builder and gone through plan, drawings, PBA and Colour Selection over last few months. Now when it is time for Contract documentation, we have new costs and quotes being added based on the Consultant reviewing our Colour Selection document again. When questioned why these costs are now being quoted and saying that we really are not ready to pay more, the Consultant is saying we can stop the process. Anyone had such experience? I feel anxious that we spent so much time to get all locked in for floor plan, look, Colour selection, flooring, etc and now this email on last minute additional costs and the response to sever process just before contracts seems very rude. On other hand, don't want to be at mercy of Builder even before locking in the contract. Please advise Re: Should we sign the Contract? 2Oct 06, 2022 1:35 pm builders asking for more money when the contract is ready to be signed (or even after it's been signed) is pretty common in the current climate, especially if it took a while to get from original tender to that point. you could ask to speak with their manager and negotiate/get explanation of the new charges, but if that doesn't lead to the result you want the only other option is to seek a new builder and go through the whole thing again. which doesn't guarantee that the same thing won't happen with the new builder. oh, and people should never sign any contracts they don't understand/aren't happy about. Re: Should we sign the Contract? 4Oct 06, 2022 1:59 pm you will probably forfeit most/all of it. don't feel pressured into signing the contract, your tender should've had expiry date (like 90 days from original tender date or something), so that should hopefully give you some time to think. Re: Should we sign the Contract? 5Oct 06, 2022 2:56 pm welcome to building in 2022. If you have entered into this process and are extended to the absolute max, you are in for a rough ride. If you have taken the sensible approach and considered buffer or have savings to weather more increases (say up to 10-15% of your contract), just grit youre teeth, bend over and present, and you might get a house you're happy with at the end. Riverwalk is nice, but if i was looking to buy/build today, I would be buying established there. Any savings on stamp duty from building are likely to materilise as variation costs. Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Should we sign the Contract? 6Oct 06, 2022 5:02 pm Thank you strannik and noname for your responses. This is our second home and we want to build as per our desires in terms of floor plan and furnishings. Hence have chosen to go with a custom builder. Also, I dont think we will be getting any stamp duty savings. Our first home was bought 8 years back and was a turn key. So, in one way this new build is more to our taste and aspirations. Since first meeting builder, we have had base price increase that we agreed to as well as requoting of few items that we agreed. So, it is not that we were not receptive to dollar change. But the recent price changes and email looks as if the builder has decided the project is not viable and are looking at a way out. We were expecting contract documents and were instead given a further price increase email. All the more reason for us to rethink on proceeding to contract. I looked up this forum for feedback on Orion Homes and came across just a couple of old threads that did not present a favourable opinion. Any recent experiences with Orion Homes as builder? Also, any recommendations on Custom Builders Re: Should we sign the Contract? 7Oct 06, 2022 5:26 pm you sound like my twin we're also building a second home with the first one being standard turn key home built 8 years ago, and this one packing most of the comfort/luxury items we wanted based on our experience living in the first one. we were in the same position as you are in, got a price increase just as the contract was close to be signed (and to be fair it was a month past the tender validity date). we've managed negotiate it away at that point, but still got hit with a small price increase just before actual construction start, with builder using one of the contract clauses to do it. we've chosen a medium sized builder who were happy to accept a custom plan drawn by us. when we got sick of the communication issues and slow progress, we did engage a custom builder to get a second quote on it, and they came out about 10% more expensive (even after the price rise), so we proceeded with the original builder. granted, they have fixed most of the communication issues. the silver lining is that the quality seems to be good so far (as far as i can tell), which is the reason we chose this builder in the first place. i would check how many houses your builder is currently building compared to say 2019/2020 chances are it's double, hence all the delays and communication issues, because they probably didn't double the number of staff to go with it. that would be a common story across most builders. 1 3027 I've decided, after a period of confusion (my building broker told me it's probably not worth it to use a lawyer, but others have said it is a must) that I definitely will… 7 27972 Hi All, I just wanted to close this topic out with an update. 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