Porter Davis homes

Waldorf_Grange_Build · Jul 07, 2017 7:09 pm

Hurrow

Waldorf_Grange_Build

This sounds incredibly frustrating and we also encountered developer rejecting our facade. In the end we went back and forth with the developer, tried to show them similar houses already approved etc but to no avail. We just had to accept the changes to proceed.

- View my blog at http://www.waldorfgrangebuild.wordpress.com

I remember reading about your issues with the developer and thinking that seems stupid, but at least with our house design we shouldn't have any issues. How wrong I was. And yep, it doesn't seem like there is a whole lot we can do about it except fork out several thousand dollars more and accept a multi week delay in starting construction.

BTW how did your meeting with the SS go to discuss the list of defects from Darbecca?

The meeting went okay.

They agreed to fix more of the defects than what they had originally and some were even done before we arrived. They argued that some they disagree with in regards to what Darbecca are saying was a defect, others they said will be done at a later stage in the build because of the order they do things. Some they said they don't understand what Darbecca are saying, which is frustrating because the Site Supervisor intentionally doesn't turn up for the Darbecca inspections because he will just "argue with them".

Us calling the face to face meeting meant more things got fixed but still frustrating that everything on the list is not going to be addressed. And because we have already paid the invoice for that stage of the build we can't do much more to get the whole list ticked off.

Our site supervisor is away this week and the replacement has at least called us numerous times, arranged another meeting on site and explained everything. We have appreciated the communication which is more than what we got over the last month.

Dani_J · Jul 07, 2017 9:48 pm

Yep I agree with above. Can't hurt to talk to the developer yourself and get the low down directly from them in case something has been lost in translation.

At the end of the day it is your house. You are the owner and PD is dealing with them on your behalf... but that's up to you. Developers can definitely be a pain in the butt, I certainly know, as we also had to make changes to get approval! As the owner, you can play the sympathy card and are in a better position to appeal things than the builder is. Good luck.

Our 37sq Custom Hamptons Inspired Home:
http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=86931

Hurrow · Jul 08, 2017 4:20 pm

I think we'll try and have a chat to the developer directly next week. So far everything is third hand information from the BC version of what the permits dept is saying Villawood have said, and it'd be good to be able to ask directly why we should have to pay several thousand dollars more just because they don't like the look of the facade or the roofline or whatever. From the guidelines I've seen there is nothing that we are contravening so I don't particularly want to pay a bunch more money and delay our build for at least a month on no account.

Hurrow · Jul 08, 2017 4:22 pm

Waldorf_Grange_Build

The meeting went okay.

They agreed to fix more of the defects than what they had originally and some were even done before we arrived. They argued that some they disagree with in regards to what Darbecca are saying was a defect, others they said will be done at a later stage in the build because of the order they do things. Some they said they don't understand what Darbecca are saying, which is frustrating because the Site Supervisor intentionally doesn't turn up for the Darbecca inspections because he will just "argue with them".

Us calling the face to face meeting meant more things got fixed but still frustrating that everything on the list is not going to be addressed. And because we have already paid the invoice for that stage of the build we can't do much more to get the whole list ticked off.

Our site supervisor is away this week and the replacement has at least called us numerous times, arranged another meeting on site and explained everything. We have appreciated the communication which is more than what we got over the last month.

Sounds like they came to the party at least part of the way then, frustrating that the site supervisor is sabotaging it by not coming along to the meeting though.

Hurrow · Jul 10, 2017 2:46 pm

So we spoke to the developer this morning, mixed news. The good news is that although PD have been a bit slack/selective in relaying information to us and their internal processes could definitely use some work they have actually been playing us straight so at least we don’t have to worry about that. The bad news is the developer basically said they don’t care about what hassles they are causing. They don’t care that they’ve approved the plan in the past, they don’t care about what the extra stuff costs and the delays associated with it, they don’t care about the fact that they made all sorts of suggestions about what could be done to get it approved and then said no after we followed all their suggestions. We either build a house which pleases them architecturally or we don’t build one at all. It kinda made me think of ivory tower academics, they were just utterly detached from what things meant in the real world and everything had to meet their pure model of What Things Should Look Like. So it seems like we’re stuck with the extra costs and delays.

I’d like to think that building a house gets better from here but if I’ve learned anything from spending time on this forum is that it won’t and that more than likely things will get worse.

Dani_J · Jul 10, 2017 2:58 pm

That sucks Hurrow! I really can't understand how they can change their mind about things. Are they now insisting you do things that aren't stipulated in the estate guidelines/ covenants? When you sign your land contract, you sign that you'll agree to follow the guidelines. If they are asking for something else/more than stipulated, perhaps you have grounds to take it further?

Hurrow · Jul 10, 2017 3:08 pm

Dani_J

That sucks Hurrow! I really can't understand how they can change their mind about things. Are they now insisting you do things that aren't stipulated in the estate guidelines/ covenants? When you sign your land contract, you sign that you'll agree to follow the guidelines. If they are asking for something else/more than stipulated, perhaps you have grounds to take it further?

It's not that the developer has changed their mind about things, the estate guidelines are basically written so broadly that it essentially can be used to approve or deny whatever they feel like. They would have only received our plans recently when PD submitted them, what they've said is that they make suggestions about what might help a house get approval but isn't a guarantee. Which is presumably technically true but you'd think they might try to only suggest stuff if they will then approve it. I spoke to them about potentially changing one or two other things on the new facade and he said he'd need to see it on a drawing, I mean you'd think if anyone could visualise things it would be these guys but apparently not. There was absolutely zero sense of caring about being helpful or any concept of what it meant in terms of cost, time etc.

It's possible that if we keep fighting them on it then we might eventually win but I don't even know what we'd have to do to escalate it. And given that every delay means it is longer until we are in our new house and more rent we have to pay in the meantime, it's probably going to be cheaper to just do what they want.

Dani_J · Jul 10, 2017 8:01 pm

Hurrow

It's not that the developer has changed their mind about things, the estate guidelines are basically written so broadly that it essentially can be used to approve or deny whatever they feel like. They would have only received our plans recently when PD submitted them, what they've said is that they make suggestions about what might help a house get approval but isn't a guarantee. Which is presumably technically true but you'd think they might try to only suggest stuff if they will then approve it. I spoke to them about potentially changing one or two other things on the new facade and he said he'd need to see it on a drawing, I mean you'd think if anyone could visualise things it would be these guys but apparently not. There was absolutely zero sense of caring about being helpful or any concept of what it meant in terms of cost, time etc.

It's possible that if we keep fighting them on it then we might eventually win but I don't even know what we'd have to do to escalate it. And given that every delay means it is longer until we are in our new house and more rent we have to pay in the meantime, it's probably going to be cheaper to just do what they want.

Mmm yes sounds like you're caught between a rock and a hard place, really feel for you. Of course they can make suggestions but like you said why would they bother suggesting stuff if they're not going to approve it anyway?!

I guess it's going to come down to how important the overall facade is to you vs costs vs time factor. What's your priority? If it's time, then just get PD to do whatever they reckon will get it over the line, and wear the costs. If you can afford some time then stick it out a bit/ try to negotiate. It will also depend though on how on board PD is with it and can get the drawings amended for you and re-sent to the developer. If they drag their feet with it, which is likely, then you could be looking at a bit of a delay. Don't suppose you can mark up some changes to the drawings yourself just to send to the developer so they can see what you are talking about? If their response is positive then you can ask PD to properly revise the drawings

walks · Jul 10, 2017 8:43 pm

Hurrow

Dani_J

That sucks Hurrow! I really can't understand how they can change their mind about things. Are they now insisting you do things that aren't stipulated in the estate guidelines/ covenants? When you sign your land contract, you sign that you'll agree to follow the guidelines. If they are asking for something else/more than stipulated, perhaps you have grounds to take it further?

It's not that the developer has changed their mind about things, the estate guidelines are basically written so broadly that it essentially can be used to approve or deny whatever they feel like. They would have only received our plans recently when PD submitted them, what they've said is that they make suggestions about what might help a house get approval but isn't a guarantee. Which is presumably technically true but you'd think they might try to only suggest stuff if they will then approve it. I spoke to them about potentially changing one or two other things on the new facade and he said he'd need to see it on a drawing, I mean you'd think if anyone could visualise things it would be these guys but apparently not. There was absolutely zero sense of caring about being helpful or any concept of what it meant in terms of cost, time etc.

It's possible that if we keep fighting them on it then we might eventually win but I don't even know what we'd have to do to escalate it. And given that every delay means it is longer until we are in our new house and more rent we have to pay in the meantime, it's probably going to be cheaper to just do what they want.

Where are you building? Who is the developer?

Hurrow · Jul 10, 2017 9:15 pm

Dani_J

Mmm yes sounds like you're caught between a rock and a hard place, really feel for you. Of course they can make suggestions but like you said why would they bother suggesting stuff if they're not going to approve it anyway?!

I guess it's going to come down to how important the overall facade is to you vs costs vs time factor. What's your priority? If it's time, then just get PD to do whatever they reckon will get it over the line, and wear the costs. If you can afford some time then stick it out a bit/ try to negotiate. It will also depend though on how on board PD is with it and can get the drawings amended for you and re-sent to the developer. If they drag their feet with it, which is likely, then you could be looking at a bit of a delay. Don't suppose you can mark up some changes to the drawings yourself just to send to the developer so they can see what you are talking about? If their response is positive then you can ask PD to properly revise the drawings

Exactly, if you're not going to approve what you are suggesting then just don't suggest it! We talked about whether or not they would approve other stuff and he kept saying he'd need to see a drawing. I kept thinking to myself, you're an architect surely you can think about what it looks like in your head or god forbid print out the document and draw over it yourself to see what you would say?

From the conversation I had it doesn't sound like there was much chance of their position changing so more than likely we will just have to go with the new facade which they've agreed they will probably approve. It's another couple thousand bucks on top of the other changes we have already had to make which is extremely annoying, but the longer we delay the more it will cost us in rent with absolutely no guarantee that anything would change.

We don't love or hate either our original facade or the new one, the only reason we went with the original one was because it was a couple thousand bucks cheaper. Which as it turns out it will probably cost us another month or more worth of rent and a lot of frustration so we would have been better off going with the new facade originally!

Hurrow · Jul 10, 2017 9:16 pm

walks

Hurrow

Dani_J

That sucks Hurrow! I really can't understand how they can change their mind about things. Are they now insisting you do things that aren't stipulated in the estate guidelines/ covenants? When you sign your land contract, you sign that you'll agree to follow the guidelines. If they are asking for something else/more than stipulated, perhaps you have grounds to take it further?

It's not that the developer has changed their mind about things, the estate guidelines are basically written so broadly that it essentially can be used to approve or deny whatever they feel like. They would have only received our plans recently when PD submitted them, what they've said is that they make suggestions about what might help a house get approval but isn't a guarantee. Which is presumably technically true but you'd think they might try to only suggest stuff if they will then approve it. I spoke to them about potentially changing one or two other things on the new facade and he said he'd need to see it on a drawing, I mean you'd think if anyone could visualise things it would be these guys but apparently not. There was absolutely zero sense of caring about being helpful or any concept of what it meant in terms of cost, time etc.

It's possible that if we keep fighting them on it then we might eventually win but I don't even know what we'd have to do to escalate it. And given that every delay means it is longer until we are in our new house and more rent we have to pay in the meantime, it's probably going to be cheaper to just do what they want.

Where are you building? Who is the developer?

We're building in the Armstrong estate at Mt Duneed just outside Geelong, the developer is Villawood.

Doc Freeman · Jul 12, 2017 12:29 pm

Hurrow, depends on how far you want to take it, but may be worth lodging an application with VCAT.

A number of houses in our estate were designed clearly with (minor) breaches of the developer's covenants and were not approved.
One of the builders challenged the subjective terms of some of the design guidelines and took it to VCAT. The developer obviously thought it wasn't worth their time defending their assessment and didn't even appear at the hearing.

Hurrow · Jul 12, 2017 12:43 pm

Doc Freeman

Hurrow, depends on how far you want to take it, but may be worth lodging an application with VCAT.

A number of houses in our estate were designed clearly with (minor) breaches of the developer's covenants and were not approved.
One of the builders challenged the subjective terms of some of the design guidelines and took it to VCAT. The developer obviously thought it wasn't worth their time defending their assessment and didn't even appear at the hearing.

Hi Doc,

I don't actually care that much what the front of the house looks like, for me it's just about not having to pay more money to change things and the additional delays as a result of making the changes. So if it takes more than a couple of months to go through VCAT, which I'm guessing it will, then it'll cost me more in additional rent than I'll save anyway.

One of the annoying things though is that there are plenty of houses in the estate which clearly aren't meeting the developers requirements for landscaping, but nothing seems to have been done about them. I've also got no idea whether other houses have not met the requirements for the facade of the house but my wife tells me some of them are pretty plain and ordinary with no changes in colour/material etc so I'm wondering how those got through.

We've decided that we will just go with the new facade to get things moving, it's extra money but we're probably going to have to pay it anyway and we'll get in our house sooner this way and stop having to pay rent as a result. It helps that the new house is going to be much bigger and nicer than where we are renting so the sooner we can make that happen the better.

AnnPerkins · Jul 12, 2017 8:58 pm

Hurrow: that sounds incredibly frustrating. I hope this is your only big delay and it goes smoothly after this.

We now have the keys to our house. We can't move in for a while though, because of landscaping, driveway and flooring installation. We found ourselves with an awful lot of excess earth after the cut and fill process, so it is costing us to get that removed. We will also need to get a retaining wall done. All of this will take a month, so that's another month of rent and living in a tiny house!

We are also having to sort out damage to the footpath and crossover. PD are going to cover some, but we have to pay the rest.

We had Darbecca do a PCI inspection. All the issues they identified have been rectified so I was happy about that.

Hurrow · Jul 12, 2017 9:27 pm

Ann: We've managed to resign ourselves to it now and as you say hopefully it's the only hassle we have to deal with.

It's great that you've got your keys now, annoying that there is still more to deal with but at least the house has been handed over and the rest of the stuff shouldn't take too long! Have you got pics of the new place?

GemmaGregJack · Jul 13, 2017 8:41 pm

Hi ive not written much but ive been reading for a while. We just had WOS and i realised there was an oversight on the plans. Apparently to have eaves the windows have to sit directly under them meaning no bricks between eaves and window. Has anyone got this on their house? If so what does it look like? Im seriously considering paying the fine to change after tender as the image in my mind doesnt look good. Any advice or photos would be very helpful. Thanks.

SomervilleBuilder · Jul 14, 2017 12:24 pm

We are building the Somerville and I know that the PD Somerville website has some pretty clear pictures under 'Facade Options' that show windows directly under eaves.

Waldorf_Grange_Build · Jul 14, 2017 1:01 pm

GemmaGregJack

Hi ive not written much but ive been reading for a while. We just had WOS and i realised there was an oversight on the plans. Apparently to have eaves the windows have to sit directly under them meaning no bricks between eaves and window. Has anyone got this on their house? If so what does it look like? Im seriously considering paying the fine to change after tender as the image in my mind doesnt look good. Any advice or photos would be very helpful. Thanks.

We were told at Tender that we would most likely have to have the windows right under our eaves but in the end they were not drawn that way in our final documents.

- View my blog at www.waldorfgrangebuild.wordpress.com

priya2015 · Jul 14, 2017 3:41 pm

Hi all,
I am pretty disappointed with PD at the moment.We had a slab pour booked in for today and since yesterday there was no activity in our block.My partner took 2 days off so that he could be there at the time of the pour but nothing has been done.We tried to contact the slab manager yesterday morning but he didn't answer his phone and so today we wrote to our BS asking what the matter is .The slab inspector at last got back(he wouldn't have if we didn't write to BS i am sure as he didn't take our call until then)and said that there was delay in the delivery of the steel.My question is though we know there can be many factors like material,labours or the weather causing such delays isn't it the responsibility of the builder to communicate clearly to us about it?I have been told that the dates are strictly adhered to like it hardly gets deferred and in such cases the reason for such delays are throughly discussed but it didn't happen to us.We were completely left in dark and we found out that there will be a delay only after we went to have a look at the block.I think its very unprofessional behaviour and i feel my partners holiday was wasted as we didn't even plan to go anywhere thinking we will be around when the slab will be poured and Nothing happened.They now told us that it will be poured on tuesday but they have still not boxed it only the plumbing is done

Naama · Jul 14, 2017 6:28 pm

priya2015

Hi all,
I am pretty disappointed with PD at the moment.We had a slab pour booked in for today and since yesterday there was no activity in our block.My partner took 2 days off so that he could be there at the time of the pour but nothing has been done.We tried to contact the slab manager yesterday morning but he didn't answer his phone and so today we wrote to our BS asking what the matter is .The slab inspector at last got back(he wouldn't have if we didn't write to BS i am sure as he didn't take our call until then)and said that there was delay in the delivery of the steel.My question is though we know there can be many factors like material,labours or the weather causing such delays isn't it the responsibility of the builder to communicate clearly to us about it?I have been told that the dates are strictly adhered to like it hardly gets deferred and in such cases the reason for such delays are throughly discussed but it didn't happen to us.We were completely left in dark and we found out that there will be a delay only after we went to have a look at the block.I think its very unprofessional behaviour and i feel my partners holiday was wasted as we didn't even plan to go anywhere thinking we will be around when the slab will be poured and Nothing happened.They now told us that it will be poured on tuesday but they have still not boxed it only the plumbing is done

Hi.
Was also supposed to have the slab poured on Friday and it moved to Tuesday. I keep in contact with my slab supervisor so I can book in the pre-pour inspection so I texted him on Wednesday to see if the slab pre-pour will be done on that day like he said it would but he told me that it is pushed to next week.
He NEVER answers my phone calls so every time I need something I just text him, I texted him a day before to see if the pour is still on and he called me back to say it's not. Take into consideration that the slab pour is the one thing that get moved around the most in a build. The slab supervisors are super busy with tons of houses to do at the same time. The only way to get information is by being proactive and asking. sending texts and emails are the best way because you have evidence that you asked them, not like phone calls that they can say "oops didn't see your call... 100 times..."
We had such bad luck with our build so far that moving the slab pour doesn't even bother me, as long as we will eventually get a house by the end of the year...