Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Feb 07, 2011 11:10 am hi all My plans have essentially been rejected by Council. They have noted that the front setback is non-compliant and also the size needs to be cut down by approximately 20m2. This is a project home with a major builder in NSW. I am still waiting on hearing from the builder as to what his response and proposal is. Would I be right in thinking that the builder should have been aware of these basic requirements before submission to council? What are my rights here in terms of cancelling and refunds? Would appreciate any comments so I am prepared for the meeting with them. the only cause I can see in the HIA Building Agreement (we have signed and paid approximately $20k to them already) is that I cannot 'unreasonably' refuse to sign a variation that arises due to council requirements. Not very clear as to what exactly that means. Re: Urgent help - Major changes by council -what are my opti 2Feb 07, 2011 11:46 am tintin Would I be right in thinking that the builder should have been aware of these basic requirements before submission to council? Absolutely. tintin What are my rights here in terms of cancelling and refunds? Would appreciate any comments so I am prepared for the meeting with them. Your contract will have something about this. You can likely cancel the contract and the builder will refund your deposit minus reasonable costs. Might be hard to do if builder doesn't want to play ball. tintin the only cause I can see in the HIA Building Agreement (we have signed and paid approximately $20k to them already) is that I cannot 'unreasonably' refuse to sign a variation that arises due to council requirements. Not very clear as to what exactly that means. This is referring to the build process and the builder having to spend extra $ to meet a build requirement which they will then pass onto you via a variation. Again, shouldn't happen if the builder has done their homework. Re: Urgent help - Major changes by council -what are my opti 3Feb 07, 2011 12:23 pm What a pain. We had to resubmit to council due to council requiring us to change our stormwater plan. This meant a variation for extra works required to meet the new design. eg more tanks,pits etc. In your case though I would think you should get a refund as a variation as your house is going to be smaller. I wouldn't see it as the end of the world, just an unwanted delay. Re: Urgent help - Major changes by council -what are my opti 4Feb 07, 2011 12:36 pm thanks for comments. Not the end of the world but still really inconvenient given the time and energy that has gone into this..Not to mention extremely disappointing. A good lesson that I should have read and educated myself on council rules and questioned builders on their interpretation before signing anything.. Mind you - I am still waiting on the official word from the builder as to his response on the council requirements Re: Urgent help - Major changes by council -what are my opti 5Feb 07, 2011 1:00 pm I can understand how disappointed you feel. Most councils advise a pre-lodgement meeting should take place to go over plans to pick up problems like this. I guess most project-home builders don't feel they need to. It would save so much time and effort. I hope you only have to tweak you plans slightly so you can easily resubmit. Who is you council/builder? Re: Urgent help - Major changes by council -what are my opti 6Feb 07, 2011 2:21 pm Just been through this with our builder. Had a chaim of evidemce from them demanding copies of the O&A on the block, the DAP and the covenants and yet they still made a basic stuffup on the solar setback. Just told them they made the mistake so they can redo the drawings at their cost. Re: Urgent help - Major changes by council -what are my opti 7Apr 06, 2011 8:56 am Just wanted to report back on this and say that the problem was effectively solved by my builder. They were very proactive in going back to council and dealing with the issues they raised. In my case it meant demonstrating that the 'spirit' of the rules were being met by the design even though the letter of the law was not necessarily met....all good I engaged my builder in December last year and we’ve been working on preliminary drawings for last couple of months. I got a call from the salesperson this morning… 0 558 Thank you @. Tried to play with the facade models but the exact colour is not matching up. 2 3269 Hi there, I'm a conplete newbie to this, but I'm looking to put a floor down in my 6x9m shed. It's currently sitting on a 100mm thick concrete perimeter (dirt floor… 0 6467 |