PD threw us off yesterday at contract. We were signed up for July start so I expect to have excavations done before July 31st. I will have to give them a call to tell me when site start actually is because yesterday they were unable to tell me, but they had no trouble in taking the balance of 5%. We could have held onto the money for a few weeks more to earn more interest if this was the case.
Technically all they have to do is either a site scrape or install a meterbox and they've started. But as Joles said, it really depends on council as to how long that takes. I'm in the same council as her and ours was approved within a few days.