Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 11, 2012 6:32 pm Hi Everyone. I have recently signed a pre quote contract with redInk and have managed to spend over 40k from the base plan. I didn't think I added that much extra please help. can i still make changes to the plan at this point? Im not too sure what can be done cheaper through the builder? Also when signing the pre quote, we eliminated some stuff but the quote didn't show any credited items, should that also have been on the quote? Any help is appreciated Thank you Re: Need help. Spent too much 2Apr 11, 2012 8:12 pm Hi you can usually change structural things with no charge until they have started doing the pre-construction things like drawing up plans, engineering reports. The things you definitely want to get the builder to do are structural things and internal wiring i.e. power, telephone, data, tv points as these are a lot harder to add after. Things like joinery and robe fitouts and extra cupboards can be done easily later. When you delete things it does not mean they will credit them for you, depends on the item and the builder it is really something you have to take up with them, but these are things you really need to have queried before you signed any contract. Re: Need help. Spent too much 3Apr 11, 2012 8:21 pm Hi Jess83, obviously I haven't seen your contract, but with ours we could definitely remove things to reduce the cost, our contract came in 20K over our initial budget and we were able to delete items and change a few things. Things that could be changed were awning windows to sliding windows, cladding balcony to aluminium balustrade, you could change a bi fold door to a glass sliding door etc. The best thing to do would be tell your sales person immediately, ours also gave us a discount on site costs as our site costs had come back a lot higher than expected. See what you can do with the builders permission but external to the builder, we saved a few K by getting the ducted air through an external contractor as opposed to going through the builder. Our deleted items did indeed show as credits on our contract, I would definitely question this with the sales person. If you are just at contract stage and no colour selections etc you still have a loooonnngg way to go, perhaps re-evaluate your budget and see if there is a way to extend it or perhaps re-consider the builder? Good luck with it all My building blog is here: http://metriconcedar32.blogspot.com.au Re: Need help. Spent too much 4Apr 12, 2012 9:56 am yeah basically a pre-quote contract means nothing. All they can do is keep any money that you have given them as a deposit (usually $1k). The thing is that if anything you will only add alot more onto the price of your house for new things as you go along and realise they're 'not included' in the pre-quote contract. Its amazing the things they leave out of the tender until you get so far along with them and then when you're shown the final contract that they throw things in at the very last minute, that they knew about all along. Most builders will give you a discount for things taken out of the plans, although not if they're part of a promotion. However if your already over budget at the prelim stage my suggestion would be to seriously look for a smaller house or another builder altogether. Not sure if that works? I was told the issue is the headspace clearance requirement on step 4. My builder is proposing shifting the beam 310mm towards the kitchen...I'm… 2 2526 It will be neat but you won't have much freeboard. At least they are not weep holes. Are you in a high intensity rainfall region? The regulatory slope is only required… 3 8264 Firstly, if your house is still under builder's warranty (10 years in Victoria) you should have no need to crawl into roof space but let the builder handle it, unless you… 3 5638 |