Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Nov 17, 2008 7:37 pm This is the first time my wife & I decided to build a new home & we picked Simonds as the builder. Initial deposit was paid, then they made us sign a sales quotation ($17,000 in hidden costs) and then we signed a tender document (hidden costs jumped to $30, 000). Expecting to sign a HIA contract any day now. Just wondering if anyone has any experience pulling out after signing the tender or after signing the HIA contract and what are the costs to be expected. Thanks. Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 2Nov 17, 2008 7:50 pm MVR, what deposit/s have you paid to date?
What does your documentation state about refunds at certain stages? It depends if drawings have been done etc. There will be some loss i would think if you're up to the contract signing stage i'd say? Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 3Nov 17, 2008 9:29 pm Yes we are at the contract signing stage. We've only paid the initial deposit of $1500. They've done the survey , soil test and I'd say that they have already ordered the drawings and other documentation. I note that they mention in their sales brochure that ''Costs incurred by Simonds Homes in preparing your HIA contract are not refundable''. I wish I had found out earlier what these cost are, we don't mind losing the initial deposit but we have no idea what to expect now should we decide to pull out.
The documentation we've signed so far says nothing about refunds. We did voice our concerns to the Sales person we have been dealing with that we might have to pull out. That was before signing the Tender document, and we had assurances from him that there was nothing to lose by signing the Tender document and going upto contract stage - I'm not so sure now. They didn't take any money from us at the time of signing the Tender. We just wish we had some idea of what to reasonably expect. Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 4Nov 17, 2008 10:27 pm MVR, all you stand to lose is your $1500.
And i'd be checking any terms or conditions on the receipt for that $1500 if there are any refund clauses. Put it this way, they cant ask for more now. If you're ok with losing the $1500, then pull out now before you pay another cent. At the end of the day check everything they have given you. We pulled out at the same time with AVJ on a house land package. We lost our $1000 deposit on the house, but kept the land contract. And we had already been given the HIA contract for the house, with drawings etc. We signed the first page to end it and returned it to them. Case closed. Just be up front and tell them, and do it in writing as well. Document EVERYTHING! For your own piece of mind. You'll be fine, i wouldn't stress. I'm sure they get cancellations often enough, all builders would. You would not be the first or the last to pull out, put it that way! Let us know how you go? Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 5Nov 18, 2008 11:55 am Wow, what hidden cost were they to add up to $30,000?!
I'm surprise that they only made you pay $1500 to get you to contract stage!! Idiots are fun, that's why there is one in every village! - Dr. House - Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 6Nov 18, 2008 12:01 pm A bit of this happened to us with one builder (we changed our mind due to the huge difference in the price we requested and price of the design they gave us). Luckily they agreed we could have the survey etc that they'd done, and we were able to give it to our current builder so there was no repeat cost incurred. Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 7Nov 18, 2008 12:15 pm We did this with one builder and lost the initial deposit of around $1500. In fact we had even signed the contract and were expected to make the first instalment payment of $5000 which the sales consultant agreed we could do by electronic funds transfer. After we had signed the contract we both had a serious case of buyers remorse - but I still duly went ahead and made the payment on-line. A few days later I was looking at my bank account on-line and noticed that the payment had bounced because I had entered the wrong BSB. Spoke about it with my husband, we still had some doubts about what we were doing so decided to pull the pin as it didn't feel right. One awkward phone call with the sales consultant, we lost our $1500 and that was that. They had no recourse to the $5000 as they hadn't done any work in the few days subsequent to our signing the contract (and it would have been hard for them and not really worthwhile to chase us for it anyway).
Anyway, seems like $1500 is your maximum exposure but get on to it ASAP. Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 8Nov 18, 2008 12:30 pm when we signed up to build with $imonds our sale consultant told us that the $1500 was non refundable for change of mind, cause he put our quote 'subject to finance' IF we hadn't of got that we were able to get our deposit back no problems!
The reason we were told non refundable was because of the spoil testing and other small things they do initially! That is a BIG jump in cost l would def want answers why it went up by so much! Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 9Nov 19, 2008 9:09 pm Thanks for all the information and you were right Phoenix, all we will lose is our deposit of $1500. I called the saleman and he got his manager to ring me as he didn't have all the answers. They are urging us to re-consider however and have offered to keep things on hold until mid Jan next year. If we do have to pull out in Jan we still stand to lose only $1500 so we decided to hold on and hope my job situation improves by then.
This time I made detailed notes of everything said during the phone call for future reference - it helps a lot for piece of mind. The jump in hidden costs were mainly due to the site fall they say of approx 1000mm over the building area - gosh it didn't seem that much ! The slab cost increased from $5000 to $17000. Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 10Nov 20, 2008 9:54 am MVR Thanks for all the information and you were right Phoenix, all we will lose is our deposit of $1500. I called the saleman and he got his manager to ring me as he didn't have all the answers. They are urging us to re-consider however and have offered to keep things on hold until mid Jan next year. If we do have to pull out in Jan we still stand to lose only $1500 so we decided to hold on and hope my job situation improves by then. This time I made detailed notes of everything said during the phone call for future reference - it helps a lot for piece of mind. The jump in hidden costs were mainly due to the site fall they say of approx 1000mm over the building area - gosh it didn't seem that much ! The slab cost increased from $5000 to $17000. Just a suggestion, write an email back to the person you spoke to saying what your understanding is, that way they can't denied it was said with a case of your word against mine GOOD LUCK! hope you job situation improves and you can start to build your dream house Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 11Nov 20, 2008 11:31 am We were going to build with Simonds, but the costs got to close to 35 to 40k extra from the addt'l quote to the time we got to contract stage.
We left before we signed our contract (despite a pushy contracts administrator doing his very best to make us sign it - "just start signing te pages and you can take a copy home to read" was said more than once!!). We weren't expecting much of our $1500 deposit back, but were pleasantly suprised as we were only charged about $400approx for the soil test and something else which escapes me. Speaking to a few people they factor in people walking away into their prices as its a pretty high percentage who do walk away. ICK So glad the building is over, never again. Loooove our house, but still not quite sure it was worth all of the stress they put us through! Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 12Nov 20, 2008 11:51 am Thats great to hear MVR, well sort of...you know what i mean???
You can now make your decision knowing exactly where you stand in regards to the money and what you stand to lose. It also shows them that you are not just the avg customer who is too scared to take their business elsewhere.... Good on you for speaking with the Mgr. The alternative is also to take your block information and walk into another builder and ask them to check on your block. We did that with Henley and they gave us approx costs for site etc... ours was a little higher (about $5K) than std, but not as much as yours!!! But we went from M class slab to H class. Hence the increase. Oh and make sure you have copies of their site reports etc. if you decide to leave them.. You paid for them, so make sure you get them. Let us know what you eventually decide to do?? Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 13Nov 21, 2008 12:15 pm I work as a Sales Manager with a major top 10 builder and can answer a lot of questions regarding costs etc... if it helps?
Some of you have picked up what a lot of the major builders do and keep everyone in the dark and I'm sure the days of this sort of work is surely due to finish as people are learning via blogs like this as to what really goes on. What a lot of the builders do is advertise cheap price and get their, what we call "margin retrieve" in the site costs and it was really formulated from a current major builder back in the early 90's. You take a deposit, and hold it against the buyer when you subject them to the margin retrieve which is usually in the form of site costs and then if you have, say, $1,000, then you have 1,000 reasons for the client not to cancel with you. My advice, get a clear upfront figure as to what is spent to acquire a fixed price quotation which any builder must give prior to signing a tender or contract. Also, don't fall for the "free $25,000 worth of goodies" that most of them are offering as you will get $25,000 worth of site costs! Still to this day I am perplexed with clients who have fixed tenders with my company who want me to throw something in because H3nley or S1monds are offering free this or free that and all I can say is go and get a fixed price quotation from them and do your reall apples for apples comparisons. Go find a consultant who has sold houses in the area where you're looking at building and find out from them what the expected costs are in the area as they should know. If they don't know, go find one who does - don't fall for the 'freebie' trap like many people do. Remember, there is no such thing as a free lunch! Re: Costs incurred in pulling out of contract with Simonds Homes 14Nov 21, 2008 12:29 pm Despite the fact that our returned soil tests increased our site costs by a total of nearly $10,000, I've been relatively happy with the site costs part of our experience so far. We were told that almost all the houses in our estate have M-Class slabs, and some have H-class, so when we were given a quote it was with an H-Class slab "just in case". Turns out that because of the underground conditions, we now need a P-class slab with additional piering support at the back, but I honestly believe the builder couldn't have known that when we were going through the initial sales process.
At least we were quoted the higher-cost option, which has significantly reduced our "OMG what do you mean our site costs are going to increase?" reaction. What I have found <i>most</i> irritating about this whole process has been the fact that nobody we've dealt with so far--with the exception of the Boss of All CSCs--seems to have the slightest idea what's really going on. They make guesses and try to get us off the phone ASAP. Hello? Almost half a million dollars coming your way...I think that means we deserve your full attention whenever we require it. Insofar as up-front costs, we had a $1,000 upfront cost for holding the land, and $3,000 at preliminary contract/tender time. Now that I think about it, the $3,000 certainly seems pretty steep. --Mike Everything I know, I learned from SBS. LATEST: Frame Complete http://metricon-mercer.livejournal.com Unless there is something in special conditions the builder does not have to give you timeline. If your demolition contractor has not removed Asbestos and it was found… 12 28800 You talk about deletions, are they variations or PS and PC adjustments? pleas list them 1 16550 Is anyone building with Mojo and have a recent site cost tender 0 15951 |