Hi there
We were all set to build however due to the market and financial reasons we needed to terminate our contract with our builder.
According to our HIA contract, we were able to terminate our contract but will lost money’s spent to day + 20% margin.
So far we had done the following:
- Paid 5% deposit ($18,989)
- Had draft drawings done with minor changes
- Had colour selection appt (2 hours)
- Drafts were then sent to developer
- Variations sent to us to sign (based on council wanting letterbox on plans etc. - no fault of ours).
Upon requesting to terminate, the builder sent us the following cost schedule:
Contract:
Drafting: $2,750
Estimating: $1,150
Administration(Building Co-ordinator): $1,050
Colour Selection Appointment/Documentation $1,250
Sales/Colour Commission: $3,022.19
6 Star energy: $330
HIA Building Contract: $19
Total cost to date including Builders margin @ 20% as per schedule 1, item 6 (refer 19.4) TOTAL: 11,963.988
Is this unreasonable for what we had actually done with them? I’m not sure about the commission... also $1,250 for a colour appt? We were there for 2 hours and the paperwork was sent to us that day! Nice pay for a few hours work.
Our mortgage broker suggests we are being ripped off and to go to VCAT.. our conveyancer says it’s about 3% of building cost and is kind of fair enough..
I am thinking maybe we shouldn’t poke the bear and be happy with our +$6k refund.. or should we go and ask some questions?
(Please note we are first home buyers and were mislead with our land, we were able to get out of our land contract and lost $1,500 to the land.. and the builder has been understanding and not argued with us at all, just sent us the cost schedule and said we could have a cheque for refund in 2 weeks).