Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 23, 2009 12:17 pm Hi All, I had paid my initial deposit with builder CH. Would anyone be able to tell me the steps before signing the contract. I am assuming the steps as below: 1. Get the sales quotation 2. Get Colour browsing appt. 3. Finalising colour selection 4. Tender appt. 5. Tender review with conveyencer 6. Finalise the tender 7. Finalise contract and review with conveyencer 8. Sign Contracts I am not making any major floor plan changes apart from changing some door location and swapping oven and sink in kitchen. 1. Are there any other steps I need to be aware of? 2. Till when can I change my mind regarding changes and selections 3. If am not happy with the the service, till when can I pull out ( and still get my initial deposit). Any insight would be helpful. Thanks Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 2Apr 23, 2009 12:31 pm Triple check everything on the plan. Our builder stuffed up the location of some points, for us the change is 'meh', not important, but for others it could cause troubles Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 3Apr 23, 2009 12:54 pm Thanks for the heads up. Our tender appt is in June. How long does it take from getting the initial tender and signing the contract? Not sure whether I will be able to meet the 30th June deadline.. Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 4Apr 23, 2009 1:01 pm Hi Mishti Which CH house are you building? I'm not too sure about the process yet as i'm only up to tender, but here is what i've been through: 1. Sales quote, add all inclusions which i want or quoted on 2. Colour browse to get a fair idea of what colour theme i wanted, and what standards they had 3. Colour selection - took us about 3 hours 4. Tender appointment - we didnt sign that day as they made many mistakes *this is where we are at atm* I would presume that once tender is done correctly, we will sign it off and pay $4k deposit. Then we wait for HIA contracts to be done up along with drawings of all our changes. I'm not sure what the review with the conveyencer is, maybe because our land hasnt settle yet so thats why we havent done anything with our conveyencer. You can make structural changes up to tender. Once tender is sign, any variations will incurr $100 - once contracts are done up, variations (if they let you) will cost you $500 per variations. Hope that helps Idiots are fun, that's why there is one in every village! - Dr. House - Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 5Apr 23, 2009 2:51 pm We are building Pagoda 32. Our CLE has given one appt. for both tender and HIA contract signing . The date is in June . He is saying that if we don't sign the tender the same day, they will not guarantee another day within June for tender appt. and that will make us ineligible for FHOG. They guaranteed the contract before june 30th when we paid the deposit.Not fair!! I think we don't need the conveyencer as well as out land is getting titled only in August. Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 7Apr 23, 2009 4:27 pm I didn't think you could get your deposit back after the 3 days cooling of period. A quick tip i got caught on is i added A/C, flooring and a heap of other things to my original quote then took it off at colour selection. But my progress payments is based on my original contract and not final costing. (go figure) So the original quote get prices from them and only add thing you have to, eg structure that needs to be drawn up, then spend at colour selection. then you wont have to pay $25k extra in progress payments. Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 8Apr 23, 2009 4:36 pm our steps quote - payed deposit recieved drawing recieved soil report and footing costing colour selections final costing Got the ok to start date - this was are last stage we could pull out sign every thing subject to bank approve of your own lender if they say it wont be a problem ( e,g pulling out or changing something later) then get them to put it in writing Also we got caught on the rise and fall clause because our land wasn't ready within 6 months got slugged an extra $3000. Try your best to change anything in the contract to your favour. Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 9Apr 23, 2009 10:31 pm mishti Wonderland, If u don't mind me asking, may I ask what is your site cost since your land is not titled yet as well. Thanks Mishti, our land wont settle until Aug/Sep also. We were able to get a capped fixed site cost $7600 before they even did a soil test. So if they hit rock, they will have to cover it. slegger10 But my progress payments is based on my original contract and not final costing. (go figure) So the original quote get prices from them and only add thing you have to, eg structure that needs to be drawn up, then spend at colour selection. then you wont have to pay $25k extra in progress payments. I dont quite understanding. Are you saying that the bank is charging you progress payments on your sales quote and not your HIA building contract? But that cant be right, the sales quote was just that, a quote. Its not a contract until you sign the HIA building contract. Idiots are fun, that's why there is one in every village! - Dr. House - Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 10Apr 23, 2009 10:48 pm double post... oops Building Monaco32 with Carlisle Homes in Alamanda Estate 20/08/2010 - HANDOVER 24/8!! Blog - http://ourmonaco32.blogspot.com/ Thread - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=14415 Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 11Apr 23, 2009 10:49 pm We are also building with CH (Monaco 32) Our steps: Sales quote Electrical appointment (if you could call it that) with sales guy Colour browse Colour selection Tender about 2 weeks later Contract (was told that the contract appointment is always 3 weeks after tender) I guess things will be getting busy in June though with the FHOG ending. We have been told that Carlisle is flat out at the moment. Currently the earliest start date on offer is November (apparently) Btw our land does not title to July/august and we were offered approx $12k fixed site costs (Point Cook has lots of rocks) Just one other thing to keep in mind (giving you a heads up), CH may come back and tell you that you can't change plumbing on the kitchen (ie sink and oven stay as they are) we said originally in february that we were changing them when we put down initial deposit. Day before tender they rang and said we couldn't change. Got approval from Sales Manager as we signed before this change was put in place (April 1). So just make sure you have something confirmed about the change on paper (even just sales quote) and hopefully things will work out fine!! Building Monaco32 with Carlisle Homes in Alamanda Estate 20/08/2010 - HANDOVER 24/8!! Blog - http://ourmonaco32.blogspot.com/ Thread - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=14415 Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 12Apr 24, 2009 12:34 am Hi all for me its as follows: Select house Soil test ordered. Make a wish list of the things you want to add & change inc. structual. Get a formal quote back, with site costs. Accept it or reject the quote. Possibly change a few things. sign it off. Wait 2 or 3 weeks for a HIA contract. Order preliminary drawings. Make changes to them Get them back and sign off on them if there OK. Then wait 9 months for them to build my house. Simple isnt it........... Cheers KW......... “It's just as unpleasant to get more than you bargain for as to get less” George Bernard Shaw. Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 13Apr 24, 2009 10:30 am No it wasn't the bank that charged us it was the builder. After we got the quote and was happy with it we payed a deposit and signed the HIA contract agreement. The deposit was for them to draw up our plans, do soil test and a engineer to draw up our footings and the cost. We then got the cost for the footing then agreed to continue (or pull out if be the case). After that we went to colour selections took off a alot of the original items on the quote (P.C items like flooring and A/C) and add a few new one on. Then got final costings then we could continue or pull out. We still had the option to pull out up to the ok to start date. But if you read the HIA agreement there is a clause that if the contract period exceeds 4 months from signing contract to the ok to start date the builder can charge you rise and fall on you contract price. I know may people stung by this. Also our progress payments are based on the HIA contract agreement and not the final costing which is about $30k less than our HIA contract agreement. Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 14Apr 24, 2009 10:48 am slegger10 No it wasn't the bank that charged us it was the builder. After we got the quote and was happy with it we payed a deposit and signed the HIA contract agreement. The deposit was for them to draw up our plans, do soil test and a engineer to draw up our footings and the cost. We then got the cost for the footing then agreed to continue (or pull out if be the case). After that we went to colour selections took off a alot of the original items on the quote (P.C items like flooring and A/C) and add a few new one on. Then got final costings then we could continue or pull out. We still had the option to pull out up to the ok to start date. But if you read the HIA agreement there is a clause that if the contract period exceeds 4 months from signing contract to the ok to start date the builder can charge you rise and fall on you contract price. I know may people stung by this. Also our progress payments are based on the HIA contract agreement and not the final costing which is about $30k less than our HIA contract agreement. I'm a bit confused by this, I thought that the contract would have the final costing? Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 15Apr 24, 2009 11:07 am Me too. It might be different in your state, I'm in SA. check out this forum it happen to a few of us. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=13728&hilit=georgia P.S it might be 6 months not 4 month check your contract. Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 16Apr 24, 2009 11:27 am Slegger, are you talking about the price rise if you dont start building within 6 months of putting down your initial deposit? If so, then I kinda know what you're talking about. We were told by our builder that when we put money down to lock the price in and start up the progress, they will hold the house price for 6 months. Once we go over the 6 months, we will pay penalties of $1k every month it goes over. All builders do this, that's just how it is. Are you saying that you have to pay $30k of penalties? That's quite alot, can you tell me why? Idiots are fun, that's why there is one in every village! - Dr. House - Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 17Apr 24, 2009 11:45 am Thanks for all your input. Just got the email from my CLE that my tender appt. and HIA contract appt. is on the same day. HIA contract will not have any drawings. I have been told it will have plans as per the tender doc. They said we have to sign the HIA contract in order to get the FHOG. The final drawings will be provided only after the soil and survey is completed.( which is in August for me). with the final contract. So, in our case it is like: Tender signup HIA contract signup (same day as tender signup) Final contract(will have the drawings prior to CH commencing on-site) Can anyone tell me the duration they specify in contract from site start to completion. Also, about the liability if they don't complete on-time. Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 18Apr 24, 2009 11:55 am That is strange, I'm also building with CH and i'm about to sign my tender contract. But when I get to HIA building contract, there will be drawings for me. And my land doesnt settle until Aug/Sep also. Idiots are fun, that's why there is one in every village! - Dr. House - Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 19Apr 24, 2009 12:04 pm I think that is their normal process. But, due to FHOG expiring in June they are rushing to cater for more people. Hence the tender and HIA contract sign up on the same day. The said they are allocating whole day for tender and any chnages will be made the same day. Re: Steps before signing contract with the builder 20Apr 24, 2009 12:20 pm No wonderland not paying $30k of penalties. My original contract was $210k but i took off $30k at colour selection for the P.C. items so my final costings were $180k, but my progress payments are based on the original $210k not the final costings of $180k. At the end on the construction im still only paying $180k so this means my last progress payment will work out to be $800. But because im borrowing some of the money for the house im paying more interest then i need to because of the extra $30k. Been in a similar position and we decided to let the builder go. Some of the PSA money goes to engineering so we at least got those documents and they actually refunded us… 2 6013 Following these simple steps will help you mitigate unwanted costs, have your expectations met and give… 0 4519 You talk about deletions, are they variations or PS and PC adjustments? pleas list them 1 16455 |