Delays to Start Building

I signed with Clarendon Homes to build a home in Sept 2007. Clarendon submitted the drawings to council end of November 2007.

Council approval was done on 20 Feb 2008 and final approval (landscape drawings) on 20 March 2008. The point is my builder is so busy that they have not yet ready to go to site till today inspite of all approvals. To speed up matters our CSO asked us to pay our 5% plus all variations to which we did and agreed on monday 2/06/2008 by direct bank deposit. Till today we have not yet gone to site.

Is this normal ? in my opinion the council works much faster and more efficiently than my builder. The mortgage on the block meanwhile is at full steam touching close to 10% !!! anybody else has such experiences ? Do builders need 5 months after approval to even go to site ? I expected Clarendon to be efficient builder initially but I am having serious problems with their ability to build quicly and efficiently..

Lobo

It certainly does sound quite extreme.

I know that Henley started on our site approximately 4 weeks after all approvals were done.

I'm not sure about the 5% penalty imposed on you if the delay was solely as a result of waiting for approvals.

Hopefully this will be as bad as it get for you.

Lobo, fortunately, we didn't experience a slow start like yours after approval, although it ceratinly did take a couple of weeks longer than the '20 days' they state in all their literature.

Get ready for a slow ride because I can't tell you it gets any faster once they start.........our house just seems to sit there for extended periods of time with little or no activity. The work gets done in concentrated bursts - the labourers seem to work on one or 2 houses in the estate for a week, then leave those houses and move onto another batch. There musn't be enough workers to have concurrent work on all the houses at the one time. And the damn rain isn't helping either Our house is looking very sad and soggy and muddy and dirty - I just want all that ugly scaffolding GONE so it will start to look like a house!

hope you start soon

Lobo

is there anything in your contract that says they have to pay you compensation if after 20 days from council approval they haven't started on site? Ours was $50 a day where as the liquated damages is only $15

Anne

Lobo,

I can totally relate to your situation! I'm sorry that you are experiencing the waiting and waiting... I know of other people in the same situation (all of who are using the same builder).

I can say that of our time with our 'designated CSO' has been dreadful. On a scale of 1-10 for customer service - they'd get a -10 from us! I might add, our file still has to be handed over to the construction department as we are STILL waiting for things to be finalised by the CSO.
Since we have stated to build we have had really a positive experience with our Foreman (so far), and the contrators too. I can only hope this continues.

I have heard what I will say call 'hear say' from various sources that this company tends to do more for people builing new house in new estates! I can't be certain of this, but I have heard it from more than a few people. We are building in a older suburb of Sydney where there are many new homes going up (as knock down and re-builds) and these council areas can be harder to work in than those in the new estates - although we even had to pay a surcharge for the privilage!!!

I have been told that our foreman actually has 25 new homes under him in our area at the moment! Imagine the logistical nightmare of organising everything for that! We are trying to be as optomistic about the build - seeing as though our experience with people from head office has been nothing but EXTRA-ORDINARY!! The only way we've got through this so far, is to focus on the build and not the customer service crap... We are remaining positivie that the final product will make it seem worthwhile.

I've kind of gone a bit further into what you asked, but YES, I believe it is usual for things to take a LONG time with this builder. Our council approval was late JAN08. We had our peg-out completed 22APRIL. Excurvation started 15MAY and our Slab was poured 20MAY. We were scheduled to framing to start last monday, but due to the rain... more delays... for us and for everyone else waiting too...

I hope things speed up for you, keep us posted,
Good luck.

the 5% was not a penalty, but the CSO said if we pay our 5% downpayment early our file would get a higher priority within Clarendon and move quicker!

I will look into this, but as far I understand there is no clause for the builder to get moving.. my CSO from Clarendon says we will do it when we can ! or we are doing what we can.

For anyone thinking about building them please factor these delays in!!

Lobo

Thanks for all those who replies to my posts, small builders are definitely more efficient than a larger one, thats for sure !!!!

Also, when a builder is too busy (my CSO says they are), they are delaying going to site on other jobs , thats my rational !

So far the council who took 3 months to approve was the most efficient!! so if you are selecting a builder please factor in this one !

lobo

Did you receive your final plan and home warranty yet? They can not take the 5% until they provide the home warranty. then they should order the peg out, which is your contract start date.

Hello

the final drawings we are told by the CSO are not necessary for us to sign to go to site. She however said if we do not pay the 5% plus all variations upfront our file would get a low priority at Clarendon
The home warranty was posted some time ago .. I have cleared and scraped the site waiting for the builder to start now

lobo