Building with Homes by CMA - Ascot 260

Valuation has come back and been accepted! Final payment is being made today!! C'mon CMA!


Building our forever home!

That is fantastic!
What are you waiting on now? With CMA?

I have my valuation booked but my bank will not pay until I have insurance, so I am sorting that out now.

I have asked Nadine to book a pre-handover day inspection (like you are having) to check everything has been fixed. As I am pretty worried about that. Like you said, I am also technically in no rush as I am currently staying with mum and dad rent free and don't need to be out any time soon. Although it would be nice to be in my very first home sooner than later haha.

How exciting, I am so excited for you. SO close, yet so far! (COME ON CMA)

We are waiting for ANY kind of communication from CMA. The electricity is now in our name, the final payment is cleared in their account. They have everything from us. They are on our dime now! The SS said to G on PCI to allow 2 weeks for fixes that way there is no disappointment. Well it's 2 weeks tomorrow and if it's not ready very soon, I'm going to be disappointed. We want the keys.

It would just be really nice to have any kind of contact to say this is what we have done and this is what is still left so that way we can organize our schedule. People can't just take time off work without prior arrangement with notice.

But we have been to the house so we can see some things but obviously not all. I know the painters have been through. Through reasons I wish not to disclose (lol) I know that they haven't completed everything (top and bottom of doors, paint splatter on the bag and paint, the back of the bedroom door.

They haven't fixed the ding in our roller door - the painters apprentice cleaned the sticker off - twice.

The tile under our island bench may have been fixed but we can't get a decent angle from the doors/windows to confirm. They definitely haven't fixed the overhanging tiles issue on the back patio that's then resulted in the tile capping breaking.

We can't tell if the place has been siliconed pretty much everywhere!

G mentioned to Lisa today that we want to get KSpec back through. We really can't organize them and waste their time if they haven't finished fixing ****.

It's just frustrating, the not knowing.


Building our forever home!

Ugh, how annoying! I completely understand. No communication and lack of compassion or organisational skills.
I am popping up to the house tomorrow to do some of my landscaping after work, so I will look then to see what has been done so far.

Have a look in your entire contract that CMA provided you. It actually says somewhere in there (I am pretty sure) that they MUST provide you with a handover date and time. I am going to quote this to them and then there is nothing that they can do because it is legally binding. I wish I did it with the whole PCI fiasco as that's in there too, oh well.

When do your build days end? My contract ends on September 10 (as in after that they pay penalty rates)

Keep going! We are both almost there.

Well I went into the office and my SS was coming down the stairs. Very convenient. The usual spiel, there was more on the list so it took longer. He assures me that it will be ready to go Tuesday though. He sounded confident but he does any other time too....

Fingers crossed they stick to their word.

You can only claim late completion damages if the builder doesn't reach practical completion by the end of the building period. I haven't come across anywhere that it says they have this long after PC to hand over... so they have crossed their T's and dotted their i's by booking you in this week...

So after I finished at the office I went to check out the damage to our new letterbox. The nice man delivering free dirt to us accidentally backed into it.... he gets extra brownie points for owning up to it and for telling me he will replace it.




Building our forever home!

This is the plan:

I've organized a pre-handover inspection with KSpec to make sure that the things found in the PCI inspection have been rectified. The earliest appointment they had was 7.30 Wednesday morning. I've requested the SS please make himself available and the meeting has been booked.

As much as I would love to get the keys right now, we would like a complete and finished house. We aren't restricted by rental contracts or specific timeframes so it won't hurt to drag it out a little bit longer. Hopefully not too much longer though.

I need to follow up with the fencing company next week to update the delivery address for our front fencing, organize 3 trucks of topsoil to go in before the fence goes up (I will not be carting 30m3 of soil in a wheelbarrow!), make contact with the new neighbours to see when the side retaining will be done now they have done handover, finish 4 assignments (2 I haven't started), find some time to sleep and remain sane. Oh and hopefully receive a new letterbox replacement...


Building our forever home!

Sounds like a good plan!! I wish I had held off on handover now, I was in such a rush... but I am finding non-stop issues.

Today we shoveled rock and dirt. Mainly rock. What a sh*t day. Even though we removed 2 small truck loads of rock, there is still at least this much to go and maybe more. It does look better but jeez there is a lot of bloody rock in our "clean" fill. We sure did get jipped on this.

We then dug out the sewer man hole and sewer inspection point from under our sandy loam so they are a little more obvious when they bring the machinery in to do the retaining. Our new neighbours confirmed they landscapers will be back on site Monday and Tuesday to do the wall. It will be great to see the finished product and how it all comes together! Then we can sort out the landscaping plans and visualize our space and how much work we have ahead of us...

Tomorrow is a new week. Hopefully it doesn't bring any new problems. Only 3 more sleeps til pre-handover inspection (take 2). While I was out there today I did find that they haven't plugged up the holes in the meter boxes that were on the PCI report. I think it's fair to say I'm not feeling very confident about a smooth meeting. I hope I don't have to yell at anyone


Building our forever home!

You've really done the hard yards, hope you have a positive week ahead with PCI take 2.

Oh no! Out of curiosity, what kind of things are you still finding wrong etc?
I also have a second inspection booked for tomorrow to check that everything has been fixed and now I worried I haven't looked hard enough.

I hope you love your new house though!

You are doing such a great job! Your house will look utterly amazing.
I to have a second inspection booked for tomorrow morning with my SS to check everything has been fixed and is as it should - fingers cross that entire carpet has been replaced with the HUGE stains. Bank says that the builders should have their final payment cleared in their bank by today (lunchtime) and it is go from there. So really, depending on whether the work is acceptable, I should essentially have my keys by at least Friday. Here's to hoping!!

I will however delay if it is not up to scratch, like you said, no rush and we have paid BIG BUCKS.

Good luck!

I'm certain we will love our new house when we are finally in.

We can only see stuff from the outside obviously but there is a downpipe that has a hole in it that wasn't fixed the last time we were out there. The glass door with a big scratch at eye height hasn't been replaced. The gas box with big holes that were supposed to be plugged up weren't. Paint splatter on the garage bricks, dent in the rendering out the back (they fixed 2 left 1), overhanging tiles with damaged ridge capping wasn't fixed. Our damaged letterbox is still in the wrong spot.

It just doesn't fill me with much confidence that the inside has been done if so much on the outside hasn't. I'm hoping I'm wrong and they have spent all the time focusing on the inside.

2.5weeks to fix stuff, I believe, is plenty of time.


Building our forever home!

I like the house, but there's a lot of little issues that could have been done better.

Painting is the worst, lots of marks, and paint splashed everywhere, on window frames, tiles, carpet, cabinetry..
The whole garage has to be resanded and repainted
The garage internal door, the gap cut for the handle is larger than the door set, so you can see a gap
Front door doesn't shut unless you slam it
Dent on the gutter on the front of the house
Paint on the roof (footsteps??)
Gutter might still be leaking, don't know how to tell about that..
Colorbond above doors is crap and paint is peeling there
Dirt/rust on some of the door handles and such
Garage floor is flithy and has giant cracks through it leading under the house (Suppose to be doing an engineering report for me)
Carpet is pretty bad in some places, its thin near the edges.. like its been pulled too tight, one spot in the bedroom the spikey bits are coming through (Stepped on one )
Scratches on the glass near the front door
Brick short under one of the window seals (suppose to be fixing that one)
NBN port doesn't work in the lounge room
Laundry sink is leaking

Not major stuff really, house is nice and liveable.. but definitely not the 'quality' finishes I was expecting.

I didn't notice most of this stuff till I started living here.. it will all be going on my maintenance inspection. They haven't been back to fix anything since handover like they said they would

I like the house, but there's a lot of little issues that could have been done better.

Painting is the worst, lots of marks, and paint splashed everywhere, on window frames, tiles, carpet, cabinetry..
The whole garage has to be resanded and repainted
The garage internal door, the gap cut for the handle is larger than the door set, so you can see a gap
Front door doesn't shut unless you slam it
Dent on the gutter on the front of the house
Paint on the roof (footsteps??)
Gutter might still be leaking, don't know how to tell about that..
Colorbond above doors is crap and paint is peeling there
Dirt/rust on some of the door handles and such
Garage floor is flithy and has giant cracks through it leading under the house (Suppose to be doing an engineering report for me)
Carpet is pretty bad in some places, its thin near the edges.. like its been pulled too tight, one spot in the bedroom the spikey bits are coming through (Stepped on one )
Scratches on the glass near the front door
Brick short under one of the window seals (suppose to be fixing that one)
NBN port doesn't work in the lounge room
Laundry sink is leaking

Not major stuff really, house is nice and liveable.. but definitely not the 'quality' finishes I was expecting.

I didn't notice most of this stuff till I started living here.. it will all be going on my maintenance inspection. They haven't been back to fix anything since handover like they said they would /quote]

I don't like that I only have an option to like this comment. Dislike a lot!

Apparently the house was a flurry with people today including the company director. That makes me feel a bit better about the inside for tomorrow. Stuff on the outside still hasn't been finalized but I will bring that up tomorrow.

They have also started the neighboring retaining. Apparently it's 5 sleepers high.... that means a 1m retaining wall. Then they will put a 1.8m fence on top.... so glad they chose concrete not wood. The bedrooms may never see the light of day again however. At least we will have our privacy.... maybe we will build a rainforest down that side...


Building our forever home!

So today wasn't as bad as I had thought. Still a few things but the major one with the tile had been fixed.

The private inspector still had a couple of things on his list as incomplete but nothing too serious. The SS is fixing some things for me now. The tiler is back again fixing the overhang (again!)

We are booking handover for 9am Friday morning!




Building our forever home!

YAY - well done!
I got my keys yesterday - couldn't be more relieved.
I wish you all the luck in the World for Friday

Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited for you, congratulations! But how did your keys come before mine? I feel jipped! It shouldn't have taken this long for us.

Now bring on the super fun landscaping job


Building our forever home!

Building our forever home!

It's today!! 2hrs to be exact!


Building our forever home!

Handover day !!!!!