Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 05, 2009 6:48 pm Those of you building with M. I am concerned about the '150 days to sign an unconditional contract or a 0.5% charge per month applies' (in my case $1100 a month!! We have more than the 20% deposit, no extra valuations or anything like that, already have pre approval, and land will settle before xmas but im worried that M will purposely hold things up to make more money?? Should I be worried?? Or is this, as they say, a measure put in place to avoid people signing up and then not wanting to build for 12 months just to avoid in price rises. For those building with M, did all go ok, and is it safe to say we will have an unconditional contract in 5 months ( i would really like to have some building started well and truly by then!) Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 2Oct 05, 2009 7:08 pm We are building with M....and I would definately advise you to be warned and take this clause seriously!!! When we signed with the sales consultant, we were told not to worry about the 150 day clause and that it is meant to cover them in extreme cases where people chose not to build after signing due to extreme reasons, e.g a developer who has not received building permit approval etc (similar to what you have implied in your email). So we put down our deposit with the sales consultant and were told that we would be contacted by someone in head office to arrange our initial appointed. We waited and waited and did not hear anything for a long time. We contacted head office many times and they advised us our file hadn't been processed. After many weeks, we were finally contacted to come in for our first appointment. At this initial appointment, they calculated the steps required to achieve an unconditional contract and advised us it would not happen in 150 days and that we would therefore be penalised. I was flabbergasted!!!! We came in to meet them at the earliest opportunity....to be told in that first meeting that we would be penalised. Let's just say our house building experience didn't start on a good note. We challenged this and after they checked their computer system, they acknowledged that the delay was caused by their own staff, so gave us an extention on the 150 day. Moral of the story, take this seriously!!! Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 3Oct 05, 2009 7:45 pm Oh im taking it seriously for sure!! Thats what im worried about, them purposely holding things up to get more money. We have made a couple of very minor changes to our plan so I would hope they dont use that as an excuse. He said that now that the deposit was made we wouldnt hear anythign for a few weeks while they ordered the soil test and send the plans off for the minor changes. im already thinking right from the start I am going to be super annoying and ring at least once a week to ENSURE that everything is happening. I already have a bad feeling from other peoples experiences, which is not a great thing to feel so early on Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 4Oct 05, 2009 7:57 pm Makaboy, I don't think they would delay things on purpose....but wouldn't be surprised that things get delayed due to their lack of organisation. When you do call to followup, make sure you take down notes regarding who/when you spoke to, so that if things get delayed you can prove that you did your part and that any delays were due to M's processes. Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 5Oct 05, 2009 8:30 pm Wow, I just posted on this subject on my blog about 5 minutes ago! We have this immediate issue to deal with in the next few weeks. Our contract is meant to go unconditional by Nov 24 (150 days after 1st deposit). We've done pretty much everything up to now - prelim contract, colours, electrical, and have book our contract appointment for OCt 13. However, our CSC first said we had 30 days to provide proof of loan, and in an email this morning she said we had 14 days to provide it (according to the relevant clause in the HIA contract) We have a letter from the bank saying our line of credit had been approved subject to us receiving, signing and sending back the formal loan offer - that was 2 weeks ago and nothing in the mail yet! So I'm going to get on the phone tomorrow to chase that up, to make sure we know exactly when the formal paperwork will be received by us. I'm not realy keen on paying M $2000 a month on this clause! And FYI, that 150 days is not really the extent of the clause. The contract needs to be unconditional by then, meaning you have to have finance approved prior to that date. So if you can get your loan or mortage 100% approved prior to contract signing, you can sign on the 150th day. But if your bank or lender requires final plans prior to approving your loan, then you must sign the contract well before 150 days (probably at around 120 days) in order to allow the necessary time for things to go through admin etc. Anyway I'm calling the lender tomorrow to check what's happening, as well as my demo contractor, to try and sort things out. But we may end up pushing back contract signing a week back to Oct 20th depending on what the results of these phone calls tomorrow are! Tim Knockdown and rebuild - building Metr1con Nolan 41 (43) @ http://tim-and-tina.blogspot.com! http://www.verdantdental.com.au Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 6Oct 05, 2009 9:03 pm Hi Tim, I just had a squiz on your blog (love how thorough you are with your descriptions) and noticed that domolision is scheduled for 9-13th Nov. If all goes well, this timing should be fine, but just a reminder also that your contract will not be unconditional until the demolision is complete and the site is completely cleared and ready for M to build on. BTW, how many days is your building contract and when is the building completion date per your contract (just curious to see if it was as long as my 394 days) Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 8Oct 05, 2009 11:09 pm Lordy. . . these clauses scare me senseless. . . one of the big reasons we went with a local smaller builder. Why is it that banks and project builders seem to be able to do whatever they want? What happened to the customer always being right? Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 9Oct 06, 2009 12:30 pm Rinny Hi Tim, I just had a squiz on your blog (love how thorough you are with your descriptions) and noticed that domolision is scheduled for 9-13th Nov. If all goes well, this timing should be fine, but just a reminder also that your contract will not be unconditional until the demolision is complete and the site is completely cleared and ready for M to build on. BTW, how many days is your building contract and when is the building completion date per your contract (just curious to see if it was as long as my 394 days) Went by the house this morning, and surprised to find the gas and electricity meters had already been removed - yay! But I think the service lines are still in, so hopefully they'll be pulled out prior to demolition. We haven't go our contract yet (expecting an email with it this Friday) but I wouldn't be surprised if it's 365 days+. M tend to put long build times in, from what I've heard their single storeys complete well before, but not sure about double storey. Not as fussed as time to completion, as long as they do a good job! jodge Lordy. . . these clauses scare me senseless. . . one of the big reasons we went with a local smaller builder. Why is it that banks and project builders seem to be able to do whatever they want? What happened to the customer always being right? Well it's not as bad as it sounds, basically it's to stop people putting down a $1000 deposit and then expecting to start the build in 3 years time, at the price the house was 3 years ago! And as for the customer being always right, well that's always been some fairytale, hasn't it? Certainly that marketing idiom doesn't work in my industry. Reminds me of when I went to council last week, and an old bloke stormed in demanding to know why rates were "all of a sudden" $800, because when he first bought his house 45 years ago it used to be $35 a year Knockdown and rebuild - building Metr1con Nolan 41 (43) @ http://tim-and-tina.blogspot.com! http://www.verdantdental.com.au Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 10Oct 06, 2009 6:29 pm Hi Makoby, we have nearly finished building with M and we copped $3500 extra due to them not being on site within in the 150 days-mostly because of their constant delays in signing contracts and variations and ****** to us about what is and isn't allowed-the whole head office experience was horrendous!!!! Luckily it gets mostly better once they get on site-there is still dramas but if you have a good SS they are mainly sorted out. I'm very glad to be nearly at the end of it-it just does your head in at times. Although our house price has gone up by $23000K since we signed the contract so the 3.5K extra was annoying but not as annoying as the price of the house now and our land price has gone up a lot too. Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 11Oct 07, 2009 2:53 pm Hi jspitz, Why did you have to pay $3500 if they are the one who delayed and delayed? BTW where do you build? jspitz Hi Makoby, we have nearly finished building with M and we copped $3500 extra due to them not being on site within in the 150 days-mostly because of their constant delays in signing contracts and variations and ****** to us about what is and isn't allowed-the whole head office experience was horrendous!!!! Luckily it gets mostly better once they get on site-there is still dramas but if you have a good SS they are mainly sorted out. I'm very glad to be nearly at the end of it-it just does your head in at times. Although our house price has gone up by $23000K since we signed the contract so the 3.5K extra was annoying but not as annoying as the price of the house now and our land price has gone up a lot too. Waiting for 2010 Land registration.... Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 12Oct 07, 2009 3:05 pm hhmmm. from everything ive heard and been told, its not 150 days to be on site, its 150 days to sign an unconditional contract. Re: ** 'time limit' to have contracts signed....Question 13Oct 07, 2009 6:31 pm We could not get any appointment to see our CSC to sign the contracts for a few weeks. There was multiple mistakes on our drawings that had to get redrafted. We were never told that the 150 days included demolishing our house and needing to get a power pit done etc etc until the 150 days were almost up (we would have organised these things a lot earlier if we had been notified of this). The communication was appalling. It was always me ringing them and saying "when should we be getting this or that done" rather than them being upfront from the start and letting us know what we should be doing in what order. Looking back we should have demanded another CSC after the first meeting-we were naive first time builders. It would be very different if we ever built again-although the amount of stress we've had this year with the whole process-I will not be in a hurry to do it again. In NSW the maximum deposit for building work is 5% until the builder provides HBCF insurance 1 4934 MBA and HIA both have sub contract agreements, check them out 2 7423 Industry type domestic contracts are prepared by industry bodies for the benefit of the builders. This means that if you are the owner watch out. One of the points is… 0 3290 |