Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 20, 2013 9:42 am Hi All, I am building a custom house. We signed the HIA Victoria contract and tender on 9th November 2012. At the time of signing, our custom house plan was ready in actual scale by hand. It is now late April. We are currently at a stage awaiting for the builder to provide their variation and plans in order to submit for final drawings. We are sure that it shouldn't have taken this long albeit it is a custom build and we continuously reviewed the plans and items for variation, we did them within the time/opportunity allowed in the process. What constituted to this was due to the builder's decision management to expand their business. Before that, their customer service was superb.Item quotes were provided in a swift, within a day or two, the most within a week; communication responses reactive and immediate. But now, there seemed to be an "Estimating" department, and the time frame stretched to "month". They have other issues such as moving office, mail servers problem resulting in emails not received..responses were not as proactive as before. Due to this, the rough cost estimation was up to two months of just "waiting for them". The draftsman was also very slow to churn out the plans and simple corrections takes week. May I know if this is a reasonable time frame from signing of contract to the building permit? How long did yours take? We are so tired of waiting (we are still waiting for the final official variation requested two weeks ago) that we are thinking of stopping the project altogether but we have already paid 5% deposit. Is this a good idea? With the HIA standard contract, does anyone know if we need to pay additional cost on top of the 5% to cover builder's profit margin maybe...? Would greatly appreciate if you could share your experiences. Thanks so much in advance! Re: How long does it take for plans and permits? 2Apr 20, 2013 12:26 pm My Time line for custom build was Contract Signed : 23/05/12 Colour Section : 13/06/12 Finance Approval : 28/06/12 Prestart : 10/07/12 Building Permit : 05/08/12 Hi Mofflepop, I would recommend finding a building designer to prepare plans, they should design to your specified budget. The benefit is you can tender the project out… 9 20417 If there have been changes, variations, during construction then the drawings should be revised, the building permit amended and the current, as built drawings given to… 2 4487 Congratulations! Nice to put that to bed before christmas, now you can relax 3 7180 |