Urgent bankwest construction loan q

Hi brokers and others who have built houses via bankwests construction loans. Needed an urgent response in regards to bankwests minimum fit out policies etc.

Can i get away doing my own window treatments post handover myself. Cash isnt a problem.

Same for painting and lighting. Flooring is done by builder, front landscaping and fencing are provided.

Can anyone confirm if bankwest require you to submit a build contract or external quotes for window treatments etc. My main reasons for asking is i wanted to save money by doing it myself than tradies. Given drilling and putting up a venetian should be simple. Same for learning to diy my own painting.

If it won't be allowed i may need to reconsider using bankwest.

Hi,

If you don't need the items included in your loan - no drama at all, you do need to show that you've thought about it & provide rudimentary quotes at least for window & floor coverings, driveway, fencing & grass to the curb - and show you have the cash to complete these. Slightly trickier of you want to borrow the money for these - you have to do the work then get paid for it after.

Yes you can do the window treatment yourself but you would still have to submit a quote for window treatment.

IMHO, it is better to include as many quotes as you can. I myself have included window treatments, flooring, alarm, smart wiring etc, so that I can get a larger loan. The bank won't be paying the tradies for you. You just notify them when you need the money and they will release it.

At the end of the day, even though you have provided the quotes to the bank, you do not need to go with them. I personally think it just helps to have a bigger loan(if you can afford the repayments), so that you have more cash at hand for emergencies.

Hi all can i just clarify that your above comments deal specifically with bankwest construction loan experiences rather than across the broad spectrum of banks?

So even if you include required quotes you can then choose to do this yourself or through another tradie and any cost above loan yoj haveto pay in cash yourself? Main poiny being they wont send a valuer in (bankwest specifically) or request evidence that quote was subsequently carried out by the provider of the quote and as per the item /specs included on the quote?

Speaking about Bankwest specifically, yes.

I've had a client have their quotes included in the valuation & loan - the catch being they had to pay the trades from their funds then send photos to evidence it being complete & have the loan surplus released. Bankwest are pretty good with this.

Thanks. So providing quotes means your locked in to using those trades? Can you end up using someone else and BW allowed funds to be released to new party?

Or can you not use them altogether and decide to DIY thereby not drawing down on any finance despite asking for the quote to be included in the loan previously? And BW would not blink an eye, or they'd still check fitouts were done by yourself DIY due to resale value issues?

Ok guys done some digging. So for anyone who's dealt with bankwest construction loans recently it appears minimum fitout policy is get a quote in for the window treatments to meet policy. You are then legally and justifiably allowed by the bank come handover to sack the quoted tradee so to say, and do it yourself.

Send through your bunnings receipts for venetians, pictures of finished product looking decent, then they will release the funds to you? Or will they reimburse you? i.e. how does the physical loan funds released get transferred to you personally?

But basically the gist is i am safe 100% in getting paintings, lighting fittings and window treatments all done after handover by myself (apart fron lighting which an electrician would handle). The only pre requisite is the bank wants to know a proper quoted cost to get it done and therefore if i can afford it.

They won't care or question or land me in hot trouble ifi proceed with doing it myself despite initially providing a quote for it?

I was concerned, finance aside, that banks assessed whether building would be livable or to a resale quality by having these things left out of the build contract...

Blinds and painting arnt exactly needed to be liveable, lights would be, but if you at least get the minimum amount and do the rest later you will be fine. To meet council requirements you'll need a proper lighting plan etc anyway.

But for reference I gave bw my tax invoice for blinds and they paid it. I bought online and installed myself

My construction loan is with bankwest and I heard about the minimum fit-out stuff but in the end I didn't need to provide any quotes.

I am not sure if this is just because of the broker I went through or because I am an existing bankwest customer and they can easily see my accounts and that I have enough money remaining after deposit to finish it all off without an issue.

My build includes the flooring and driveway, and the land includes front landscaping and fencing, but everything else I will do after and I didn't need to provide any quotes to get my formal approval via the broker.

Before I went with a broker though I met with the bank directly and the loan officer gave me the list of what I would need quotes for (floor coverings, front landscaping, fencing, painting, window treatments).

We used Bankwest. And after handover still had to do main area flooring, full lighting, carpets, window treatments. Was never and issue but we were required to get quotes during loan approval application stage to demonstrate what we were looking at cost wise to complete the build. After handover we paid the invoices for those after handover things and then just sought reimbursement. Sometimes that was within 48 hours but our last one has taken a week which is annoying

Ahh ok great. Yeap so it seems I can estimate the cost of doing it or get quotes, but at the end of the day as long as you pay and do it yourself , you can seek reimbursements for the cost of it that has already been factored into finance from the sounds of it.

I'm lucky in that flooring is done as part of the builder, and landscaping and fencing by the developers perks for building, so I'm not too far off with meeting those items. It's jsut the window treatments which will be a pain. Seems painting and soakwells don't come under this - did any of you DIY soakwells with an external party to save money post-handover rather than do it through the builder?

@oduen:

Yeap, my situation as described in my response above meets yours. Same estate as well so I also have the landscaping/fencing as i"ll be building within the usual prescribed times to take the developer's offer up. I looked at celebrations too vs my builders so fully aware the same was offere through them (included flooring and driveway/cross-over).

May I ask if it isn't too busy a body what sort of LVR everyone went with for Bankwest and the circa loan value and rate you got? I got a 88% LVR i'm gunning for , so a loan of circa $450-455k will most likely meet my estimated house and land completion requirements. Rate i got offered for their premium select home loan product was only 4.34% which is abit of a far cry from their 4.09% on their best product promo at the moment? Be curious to see what you guys got, particularly yourself oduen as your land and construction value will probably be pretty similar being in same estate and all...would be keen to hear Beazley and others too for some group comparison/Goss?

Supposedly pricing power is gone if your above 80% LVR though.... just wanted to see if it was true!

@nic and shell - would you be able to share where you used online for ordering your window treatments? Looking for suitable venetians and verticals that are affordable in the event it goes from a PPOR to a rental in the future (wouldn't want to splash out on expensive curtains in that case)!

So for yourself and beazley, did you both just finish the work, send in copies of invoices and you get reimbursed? I assume they just want pictures of the work done and don't come out to verify the work done before paying you back?

We used home Blinds Australia, but we had big troubles with them, missing things, one blinds wrong etc, they did sort the issues out though but yeh it didn't come without the hassle unfortunately.
But I just got the invoice from them, gave it to the bank, the bank paid and then the stuff got ordered.

ahhh ok thanks - looks like you wouldn't recommend Blinds Australia in that case?!

Sorry for the late reply, you might have better luck with them, we had issues but I was pleased with the customer service they always answered emails relatively quick. And they didn't try to disregard the issues, they got it sorted.