Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 05, 2016 1:40 pm Greetings, Has anyone appointed their own building surveyor It appears that Carlisle put in place several provisions to discourage you from appointing your own independent building surveyor and the sales consultant tried to steer me to signing off with their preferred surveyor "DJM Building Consultants" Minimum requires for you and your building surveyor to meet before Carlisle Homes can build your dream home to our display home quality https://www.dropbox.com/s/9l57f16wt6un0 ... t.pdf?dl=0 Some of these clauses on the contract are questionable ... some are probably outright illegal. This contract is unfair, I doubt it will survive when challenged in the court. I'm also advised that Carlisle can choose not work with your appointed surveyor if they are not comfortable with. We, the homeowners pay a fortune to build a house - and we need to mitigate the associated construction risks by hiring our own independent surveyor and inspectors. I mean how is it up to the builder to have the final say which surveyor they want to work with? Would appreciate if anyone could shred some light on this? Re: Carlisle Homes - Appointing independent building surveyo 2Sep 15, 2016 7:56 pm hey Jazza, interesting contract but i think it's just covering the work safe and stuff. doesn't really say that they are not going to listen to the inspector though. what did you ended up doing anyway? Re: Carlisle Homes - Appointing independent building surveyo 3Sep 17, 2016 12:02 pm Hey thech_nerd, The main issue with this contract is about our surveyor having to rubber stamp and approve all alternative solutions - we discussed this with the sales rep but there is no workaround regarding these: (a) Stair Tread Height and Riser Consistency for Domestic Stair - This Alternative Solution relates to the construction of Carlisle Homes stairways connecting the ground and first floor of the building which have carpeted and exposed timber treads. (b) Damp-proof course / flashing setback distance on face masonry and rendered walls - This Alternative Solution relates to the construction of Carlisle Homes masonry walls and the location of the damp-proof course/flashing (DPC) to rendered walls and the face finished brickwork. (c) Construction of Wall Frame Overhangs - This Alternative Solution relates to allow a 110mm wide masonry wall and 90mm timber framed wall to overhang the concrete slab a maximum distance of 25mm. (d) Width of Masonry Veneer Cavity - This Alternative Solution relates to allow the brick veneer masonry cavity to be reduced to a width of 5mm in certain situations. (e) Masonry Mortar Mix - This Alternative Solution relates to allow the nominal mortar mix ratio used in the construction of masonry walls to be 1 part cement, 1 part lime and 10 parts sand. (f) Wet Area Construction - This Alternative Solution is to construct the wet area protection system in the Class 1 dwelling in accordance with the Acceptable Construction Practice described in BCA 1996, Amendment 13 and Carlisle Homes’ specification requirements. (g) Location of Damp-Proof Course in Alfresco and Porch Area (Landscaping and Paving Sloping Away from Dwelling) - This Alternative Solution allows damp-proof course/flashings to be installed level with the adjoining paving at the roofed alfresco and porch entrances and within 1m of the roofed entries, to be a minimum of 20mm above the adjoining paving level. Re: Carlisle Homes - Appointing independent building surveyo 4Sep 17, 2016 3:15 pm Hi jazzaddict, I have been wondering how this whole victorians appointing their own surveyor thing was going to play out. We are due to sign a contract with our builder in just over a week and so far they have not mentioned anything to us, I only read about it on here myself a few days ago. Clearly your builder is just making it difficult for you to not choose their own. I imagine this is how they will all try to handle it. By making the one they usually use the easy option nothing will actually change defeating the purpose of the new rule. I wonder how the vba feels about this kind of tactic? Have you spoken to any surveyors to see what they think about jumping through Carlisle's hoops to become your surveyor? They're certainly not making it easy. I assume like us you probably have a base price for your house that includes them appointing and paying the building surveyor. Have you been offered any credit back now that you have to appoint and pay for one yourself? Re: Carlisle Homes - Appointing independent building surveyo 5Sep 17, 2016 11:24 pm Hey Bank,
It's early days - the new legislation began 1st September - it is not clear if builders indeed have a say in rejecting your appointed building surveyor. Anyways, we are not going to sign off a contract with unreasonable clauses that hinders responsibilities, scope of work or completeness of an independent building surveyor's work. We had talks with several other builders - pretty much they are saying they are not going to work with a surveyor that they don't have a relationship with or if they feel uncomfortable with. No, at least for us - Carlisle is not going to refund any credits for hiring our own building surveyor. It's not right but I suppose it's understandable - The building surveyor that they hire pretty much rubber stamps stuff without due diligence Re: Carlisle Homes - Appointing independent building surveyo 6Sep 18, 2016 12:28 am A building surveyor has no choice but to rubber stamp a Performance Solution if the Performance Solution has been certified. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Carlisle Homes - Appointing independent building surveyo 7Sep 18, 2016 11:02 pm Thank you for sharing that document I was wondering how the builders were going to get around the new rule.Small independent surveyor will find it tuff with the insurance and time frames etc requirements. So that will leave the medium to larger companies that they already use and have influence over.Even though any changes will be signed off by a engineer approx 95% of new houses don't comply with site drainage requirements in the standards(Metricon v Softly was not a one off) and the hope was that the new VBA rules would stop that. Never under estimate the resourcefulness of a volume builder to manipulate the market in their favour. Re: Carlisle Homes - Appointing independent building surveyo 8May 21, 2017 12:06 am Hi All, I highly recommend NOT signing any tender or contracts with CH at the moment. They are accepting far more jobs than they can find workers or suppliers to complete them. This means they are hiring any Joe Blow as their contractors and are unable to deliver on the quality assurances that they are supposed to have in place. They have recently been on a desperate search for "framers". Their suppliers have been put under heavy strain. They should not be taking on the job if they can not provide the quality product they promise to deliver. Our house was a nightmare build and senior management are not taking the responsibily in not delivering the quality product or customer service they promised us via their display homes & customer service charter. They do not build to satisfy Ausralian Building Standards, they have instead paid a lonely countryside surveyor to sign off on their "Alternative Solutions" - which are an excuse to not follow Standards. In other words - a sick joke. I would stay away from this company at the moment. We have consulted solicitors showing them photos of the offences committed at our build and they agree. Stay away. DJM building consultants signed off our house and approved Occupancy certificate while there was almost a full size brick blocking one of our storm water pipes. Dont use them & dont use "Final Inspect" - Peter Limburg. CARLISLE - Milano 48 Slab pour: 21 Jan 2016 YES - a lot has gone wrong!! Lets hope they fix them all! Currently approaching completion - maybe: July 2016. That is a really good attitude Akin to you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. I do enjoy watching that tik tok inspector from Victoria but he does go a little… 12 81884 Carlisle use to sneak a water resistant "Performance Solution" into their contracts. Have you checked your contract for same? 4 10224 It is true that a builder can ignore your independent inspection report as it is not part of the contractual arrangement but that is stupid because he cannot avoid fixing… 9 46854 |