Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 17, 2009 6:58 pm Hi, To others building with M, I was wondering how many inspection reports M are supposed to share with me? For example, according to the process, M get inspections done at the framing and pre-plaster stage. Are they supposed to share these reports with us? They are about to start plastering and I haven't seen any inspection report copies yet. Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 2Sep 17, 2009 8:14 pm Hi Rinny, we are also building with M (nearly finished). They did either 4-5 inspections of the house. They used a company called checkpoint to do ours. The first couple of reports I rang the checkpoint secretary and she sent them to me by e-mail. On the other ones they got a bit hostile on the phone and would not send them to me and wanted to know who had sent me the original ones. They said I would have to speak to M about them. I didn't bother and got an independent inspection instead which I would highly recommend as their inspector didn't find anything we didn't already know about but our inspector found some major concerns. Our SS is not happy that we had the inspection done (he did a dummy spit today when he got it), but it's your right to have one and it's your life savings you are giving them for them to build your house so you can't afford to have mistakes made. Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 3Sep 17, 2009 9:07 pm Hi Rinny I'm building with M and there are only 5 weeks left of contract. They did a number of inspections and I didn't get a copy of the reports however I know the inspector picked up some issues that needed to be fixed, before my plaster could go up. My SS has been very good but I will be getting an independent inspection done myself before handover as like jspitz said its your life savings and I want peace of mind before I hand over the rest of my money! Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 4Sep 17, 2009 10:24 pm From what i understand, by law, we 'the owners' are entitled to see their inspection reports. You wont get them unless you ask. [b]Contract signed 3rd May --> Handover mid FEB Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 5Sep 17, 2009 10:30 pm I'm building with M and will be engaging an independent inspector (construction hasn't started yet). An inspector engaged by them can't possibly be unbiased. I know the company I work for (nothing building related) will always keep stuff-ups secret from the customers, and I expect no less from M. Metricon Riva 33 - http://herlihy-riva.blogspot.com Site start 15/03/2010 - Handover 23/12/2010 9 months and 8 days (284 calendar days) from site start to handover Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 6Sep 18, 2009 12:34 pm We also building with Metr1con and when we had Big Kev do our pre-plaster inspection few weeks back...he told me that Metr1con have sacked the company that does there inspections and there 'riding' out there contract.... yer our SS had no idea till Kev told him. Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 7Sep 19, 2009 8:33 am Thanks for your responses everyone. You've answered the question I wondering, which is whether it is common/normal/standard for M to give us copies of the inspection reports....which now appears to be not. Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 8Sep 28, 2009 11:08 am The more I read threads like these the more determined I am that I should employ my own independent building inspector. I'm building with M also, and having read a few blogs and a lot of posts, 'Big Kev' seems like the route to go down. I'm meeting with our sales consultant tomorrow to do the initial walk-through of a display home so he can draw up our estimate. At what stage in the process would people here recommend that I bring up the subject of independent inspections? Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 9Sep 28, 2009 11:42 am Rinny Thanks for your responses everyone. You've answered the question I wondering, which is whether it is common/normal/standard for M to give us copies of the inspection reports....which now appears to be not. Rinny, we just finished building with M in Brissie. We did not receive any inspection reports. I guess we could have asked for them. What we did receive for Occupancy Certificate is "Form 21" that was only a few days before handover. Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 10Sep 28, 2009 12:02 pm Generally builders don't hand out the inspection reports. Just about every piece of work that gets done on your house is inspected because the occupancy certificate will not be signed off by a private certifier or council unless every single inspection certificate is attached. This includes inspection reports right from the piering onward. They don't just inspect your build at the major milestones. We engaged an independent inspector as well but think about how it would look if your inspector came up with a major problem that the inspector engaged by the builder didn't come up with. It would ruin their reputation and would also have an adverse effect on the builders reputation. There's too much at stake for the inspector not to give an unbiased opinion. Also, if anything happens to the house as a result of a defect the inspector turned a blind eye to, they'd be in serious trouble. There's really no sensible reason why they'd overlook things just because a builder hired them. Stevep79 & Principessa Finished building Wisdom Homes Impression 33mkII in The Ponds, Sydney http://lilypadintheponds.blogspot.com Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 11Sep 28, 2009 12:10 pm Wouldn't requesting a copy of inspection reports after each stage be a prudent balance between having nothing at all and employing your own inspector? I worked (loosely) on a home building TV show in the UK and I think it's sullied my opinion of all builders, something I reckon I need to overcome. Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 12Sep 28, 2009 1:49 pm stevep79 There's really no sensible reason why they'd overlook things just because a builder hired them. I'm thinking the issue here is not that the inspectors are not independent, but that M intentionally keeps the reports secret from their customers so that they don't have to fix defects. So the only way to obtain an inspection report is to do one yourself. That's my impression from this thread. Metricon Riva 33 - http://herlihy-riva.blogspot.com Site start 15/03/2010 - Handover 23/12/2010 9 months and 8 days (284 calendar days) from site start to handover Re: Building with M - how many inspection reports do you get? 14Sep 28, 2009 11:46 pm btherl stevep79 There's really no sensible reason why they'd overlook things just because a builder hired them. I'm thinking the issue here is not that the inspectors are not independent, but that M intentionally keeps the reports secret from their customers so that they don't have to fix defects. So the only way to obtain an inspection report is to do one yourself. That's my impression from this thread. How many people have asked Metricon to supply a copy of the inspections reports? I think this might be something I'd include in my building contract. If I give them the choice of doing that or letting my get an outside IBI in, I'm sure they'd rather I see the report. It is true that a builder can ignore your independent inspection report as it is not part of the contractual arrangement but that is stupid because he cannot avoid fixing… 9 46873 4 6834 you need to understand the breakdown of warranties. 90 warranty is considered as minor defects rectification period where as the longer ones are more major/structural… 1 5351 |