lottwozeroone
Is any one else about to have their building contract indexed due to the delays? I will be up for $1,500 per month for the next 4-5 months until the brains trust at australand get their act together. I assume I can't hand the bill to them each month?
Hi Lottwozeroone,
Can't believe I forgot to reply to your post! We were in the same situation with our builder and it was most frustrating. Due to all the delays in settlement for our land, our building contract signing process was delayed also. We missed the small print in their paperwork that basically gives them the right to charge us for delays after x months from 1st deposit as long as they're not at fault. They initially charged us 4months worth! The only way to minimise this cost was to identify periods where they caused a delay and back up with evidence. After a night of scouring through a mountain of paperwork and emails, we managed to compile a fairly good case for why our builder should take some responsibility for the delays. We brought the penalty down to approx 1.5mths. Very frustrating and pedantic process but worth it in the end. If you do manage to reduce the penalty try to negotiate it so that they won't index you again in a few months time if you encountered more delays.
... we didn't try to pass on costs to developer, though completely reasonable! It might have been our next course of action if our builder wasn't reasonable about it.
All the best with it!
PS: Sunny day today, hopefully lots of work on the estate. I'm sick of the sludge on our lot.