Who pays for clearing grass from vacant block?

lemgb · Jan 22, 2025 6:09 pm

Hi there, we are building in QLD and our builder (1 week before they are due on site) has just told us that we need to pay to remove vegetation and grass. We are more than happy to remove the shrubs and bushes + mow the lawns, but don't understand why we have to remove the grass?

If we give it a tidy up but leave the grass, they said it will be upwards of $1k + GST for them to remove. If we don't tidy up the site, it will be upwards of $3k + GST.

In our contract, there is no mention of the block not being able to have grass.

Should we just tidy and pay the grand, or is it worth pushing back on, given it's not stipulated in contract that the block has to be cleared?

BuildingandLegal · Jan 22, 2025 6:44 pm

You own the block!

lemgb · Jan 22, 2025 10:31 pm

BuildingandLegal

You own the block!

Obviously, but maybe I wasn’t clear enough.

The point is they have asked us to clear it as apparently it needs to be free from grass for them to start work, but this has not been communicated nor has it been stipulated in the contract.

We want to know whether it is on us to clear the site of grass for them to work, or whether it’s on them.

Ashington Homes · Jan 23, 2025 6:50 am

On topic, I was doing some research over the break on those farmers that have goats and you hire the goats for a couple of days and they eat everything in site. It looks like a great way to clean up a site.

I want to try it. These people are all over the country.

And depending on how long the grass is, it can be quite costing to bring a machine to site, scrape everything back and then dispose of the aftermath.

From your builder's perspective they can't build on a site covered in long grass. We do demolition 99% of time so we take care of it, but if your builder is just doing the home, margins are so tight these days that $3,000 is a lot of money for them to have to pay.

r_13 · Jan 23, 2025 11:27 am

We were asked to slash long grass and tidy the site to reduce the risk of snakes, etc. But it was sufficient to just mow and clear the long grass and weeds for Metricon to agree to proceed.

Our neighbour got Jims Diggers to scrape their backyard in preparation for landscaping, which removed all the grass down to bare earth. It was a surprisingly quick job with a bobcat. I'm not sure how much though. Possibly less than 1k...

lemgb · Jan 23, 2025 11:32 am

Ashington Homes

On topic, I was doing some research over the break on those farmers that have goats and you hire the goats for a couple of days and they eat everything in site. It looks like a great way to clean up a site.

I want to try it. These people are all over the country.

And depending on how long the grass is, it can be quite costing to bring a machine to site, scrape everything back and then dispose of the aftermath.

From your builder's perspective they can't build on a site covered in long grass. We do demolition 99% of time so we take care of it, but if your builder is just doing the home, margins are so tight these days that $3,000 is a lot of money for them to have to pay.

Yep that makes sense. When we have tidied it, it will just be normal grass. Do you know if having grass on site (normal lawn length) is appropriate for builders to start the site cut with, or do they have to have a dirt patch? Thanks!

lemgb · Jan 23, 2025 11:33 am

r_13

We were asked to slash long grass and tidy the site to reduce the risk of snakes, etc. But it was sufficient to just mow and clear the long grass and weeds for Metricon to agree to proceed.

Our neighbour got Jims Diggers to scrape their backyard in preparation for landscaping, which removed all the grass down to bare earth. It was a surprisingly quick job with a bobcat. I'm not sure how much though. Possibly less than 1k...

Thanks, I’ve reached out to them to see if they can provide assistance.

We will mow it etc but just unsure why they can’t start a site cut with grass on there at all.