Hi guys, my OH and I are in a slightly tricky situation with regards to getting our construction loan, and we need advise how to get the timing of certain things right. Here's some background:
We've purchased a block recently, and received formal approval for land loan pending issue of titles (in late Jan 2010). We've also signed a Pre-Contract Agreement with a builder, but they wont proceed with drawing up the formal contracts until the block as ready in mid Jan, as they'll need to do soil testing to fix the site work costs.
As we're expecting our newborn in March next year we'll go on single income from Feb onwards . Whilst we'll have enough savings to cope for the few months on a single income, we need to apply for our construction loan BEFORE our combined income drops, or risk being knocked back by the bank. But, we cant apply for construction loan until the formal contracts are done, and we cant get the contracts done until the land is ready for soil testing.
This is where our confusion begins. If we wait till land is ready in mid Jan, we might be cutting it too close to the maternity leave for the contracts to be ready and seeking finance. But if we get the builder to proceed with drawing up the final contract now, they cannot fix the site cost and will only include an estimated site "allowance". Plus once the contracts are signed, we have 45-days to get finance approval.
What should we do? My initial plan was to inform the builder in December to commence contract preparations, in the hope that it can be signed by mid Jan, and we can then lodge finance approval before Feb, just before we switch to single income.
Sorry for the long story, just very confused at the moment...