Owner Builder Requirements in WA

Hi,

Can anyone explain to me the Owner Builder requirements in WA or direct me to where this information can be found.

It was my understanding a course can be completed providing a certificate of completion which is required for the building services board for approval applications. However, my finance agent has said the banks require the build overseen and signed off by a registered builder or someone with master building certificate. Doesnt this defeat the the reason to OB?!?

Therefore was hoping for some clarity on the subject from those people who have gone down the OB route and required bank finance.

Cheers

Hi

We are currently Owner Building in Perth. We did the home base expo Owner Building Course. The requirements for owner builders are set out withing the Building license registration board.

Regarding finance I am unable to help you as we didn't finance our build.

Regards

AKB

Hi

We are owner building in Wa and completed an online course and submitted the certificate to the BRB. Was quite simple and painless. The Builders registration board has all he information on their website.

As for finance as above we did not finance but each bank would have it's own criteria and some won't deal with owner builders.

All the best with your build

If you do a search here in this OB forum or in the finance section there are quite a few posts on this.

Stewie

HI,

Same as above, we did the owner builder course at Homebase Expo, though I don't think it is a requirement in WA to have that training or experience like it is in other states. It does have some handy information though. Builders registration board is the place with all the answers in WA. BRB

For Home Expo

I have the files that normally cost $110 (in as new condition) and would swap for a case of becks , the course is $165 (or $55 if you already have the files)

Also I would highly recommend getting your plans to a quantity Surveyor/ estimator.

It cost us around $700 to have this done but was one of the best things we did as it gives you a breakdown of the costs of every aspect of the house. It meant that if you got stupid quotes (we got a quote for $95,000 for steel frame, we went with the $21,000 quote for exactly the same product) you could pick up on it straight away. if you got a cheap quote question their expertise and ask to look at previous work.

If you need to have your plans assessed for energy efficiency or 6 star I am a qualified Energy Rater and can help in this regard to get your house the energy compliance required

my Post (still unfinished):

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=62345&p=968325#p968325

Sorry forgot to mention finance!!!!

where do I start.

Westpac is pretty much the only bank who will still touch an owner builder now.

they will only lend you 60% of the total value of the house and land together.

you have to come up with the initial 40% and they won't give you a cent till you have exhausted every thing you have and even then it will depend on a valuation by a supposed third party valuer. so for our place home ($360,000) and land ($275,000) total of $635,000. they would only loan $381,000 (we already had a loan of 125,000 so they would only offer us $256,000 to build the $360,000 house to lock up. I would recommend having at least 50% of the total value of the house and land in cash before attempting to owner build.

To start with you have to get an estimate of cost of the total build by a qualified estimator or quantity surveyor. make sure it includes all costs to completion (if thats the agreement). We were told by the bank originally to get the house to lock up and then we have an asset that we can use to draw more for completion but at the end of the loan they told us that the money lent was for completion and not lock up. Yet they approved the estimate which only had the costs to lock up. so we had to complete the house for the cost of getting the house to lock-up, which is quite a difficult task indeed.

Also our house was not a standard double brick and tile house, so the valuer had trouble assessing completion costs because he was using standard valuing % guestimates instead of going through the estimate provided and ticking off all the done items and adding up all the remaining items. so we got to our 40% but the valuer was claiming that we had only done 25% and that we would need to spend another $60,000 before we could receive a cent of bank finances.........

when you have spent every cent you have on the house, where do you expect me to find a spare $60K, we were stuck in a bad place at this stage with a 40% built house and no funds to continue or pay the mortgage.

I asked to speak to the valuer as I had not seen him once in my whole time building the house (i think he actually drove to the bottom of the driveway 120m away and did his assessment from there, as all his estimates of completion were way off compared to the actual value of estimation that had been done and we were using to track our costs. We finally got him to the house and I went through the list one by one and ticked off costs versus remaining items. I finally managed to convince him that we had spent 40% and finally the finances opened up and we were able to continue.

In all it was a stress that wasn't required. I can understand their stance that a lot of owner builders go over their budget but why do they require an estimate of the building costs if they aren't going to use it to assess the costs to completion of the building, so that funds can be freed up.

the other painfull things are you need to actually install and pay for everything before you can claim it, which means if you have $30,000 worth of windows sitting there they will not release that $30,000 until it is fully installed in the house. this is the case even after you have spent the required 40%. our problem was that we had pretty much 40% of the value available to build so when it came to getting the first payment from the bank we had no cash to buy the start of the 60% items, the bank made us take out a $20,000 side personal loan (at 12% interest) to finance buys so that it could then be paid by the loan account?? this seemed unfair to me.

we are in our house now and it has been an effort on all fronts. but I think it has been worth it.

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=62345&p=968325#p968325

as much as we thank our bank for finally getting there we will be switching banks very shortly for better interest rates and just not having to deal with them anymore.

sorry the post is so long, sometimes its nice to have a vent, hope this helps as there are a number of things to be aware of

We used NAB for finance. 80% of the land value and same for construction costs.
Got 3 quotes for everything and took the middle one for the finance application then tried to reduce each item cost as it came up.
We went overbudget but not by much because we upgraded stuff along the way where we saved on other things.
Good luck. It's a great ride.

I'm owner building a townhouse behind my existing house at the moment.

Banks wouldn't lend to me. Owner building and dual occupancy (can only subdivide once house AND landscaping is completed) was a too had basket for them.

I increased my loan on the existing house to 80% LVR and am funding the house build from the available redraw and surplus cash flow from income.

It's easier this way, I don't have to show quotes, receipts, prove/justify anything to the banks.

I have about $50k redraw left and about $50-$70k expenses left to complete the house. After its subdivided I can get a loan on the new townhouse.

Now, what rates are people getting for loans for owner building loans?