Browse Forums General Discussion Re: building contract help 3Dec 24, 2019 7:19 am You need to ask your builder for proper variation documentation which will stipulate why is extra payment claimed or if adjustment to provisional sum what was original allowance inadequate. You should get help from experienced building consultant Foremost Building Expert in Australia,assisting with building problems/disputes, building stage inspections,pre-contract review advice for peace of mind 200 blogs http://www.buildingexpert.net.au/blog Re: building contract help 4Dec 24, 2019 8:16 am toanvo so in the contract his allowance was $24k now his actual is $42k You should have checked off all the engineering properly before you signed the contract here's why 1.Post contract come back for extra $s to clients can be huge for engineering. ie ( it's known as Building contract gouging) 2.The builders pricing and margins are always more competitive before you sign or hand over a deposit for the preparation of plans ( Always make sure the plans and ENGINEERING are properly Prepared) 3. In 2 above if he knows there's a possibility the client will walk away.. they will sharpen their quoting pencil 4.If the engineering and costings had been independently Scrutinised before 2 & 3 Above such anomalies would have been brought to your attention 5. Post contract engineering variations need to be re-certified and plans re-submitted to the Council 6.How do you know it's compliant-> non compliance needs to be checked and Certified by an Engineer and Building Surveyor 7.There's also the problem of substitution, poor workmanship, unqualified trades completing the work,etc,etc and no one the wiser toanvo is this possible? is this allowed? what do I do from here? Yes it's possible and allowed as builders and others make mistakes on PSs..It's funny how they favour them (hugely) financially after the clients has handed over a deposit or signed the contract As to What to do? -> see 5 and 6 above and then pay up or look into cancelling the contract, either way the building contract doesn't favour the home builder-> talk to a lawyer LOL, Builders can only charge an extra $100 on a door handle upgrade, as you have pointed out they can make $50K on the engineering (see other posts on homeone). Cheers Chris Designer,Engineer (Civil,Const & Envir),Builder,Concrete & Masonry Contract.Struct Repairs Re: building contract help 5Dec 24, 2019 2:13 pm I don’t understand how your parents could not have been informed of the extra cost prior to the work being carried out? As mentioned above, it would have to be written up as a building variation, and they would have to sign off on it. For example, we signed up with a ‘provisional amount’ for estimated site costs as our land had not titled, so no soil tests could be done yet. Once our land titled and the soil test was done, we were sent a variation form explaining the actual cost based on the engineering (which was slightly more than the estimate) and we had to sign this to agree to pay the correct amount. It sounds like you need expert building legal advice and to read through your HIA contracts carefully, especially clauses 12, 23 and 33. Second Time 'Round Re: building contract help 6Feb 24, 2020 6:52 pm building-expert You need to ask your builder for proper variation documentation which will stipulate why is extra payment claimed or if adjustment to provisional sum what was original allowance inadequate. You should get help from experienced building consultant I am new to this forum, hope I’m posting in the right place. I have signed a building contract with a volume home builder and am waiting to commence building. There is a provisional sum in my tender for traffic control as it’s a busy road. The builder has recently submitted a variation which is very open-ended and almost certainly will exceed the provisional amount substantially based on their estimate. As an example, they are stating $285/hr travel allowance each way for the traffic controllers who they have said are located around an hour away from my site. (I am based in metro Sydney, not a remote area.) The builder estimates I will need 25-30 call outs in total so that is over $14k alone just to pay 2 traffic controllers to travel to site, never mind doing any traffic control. Its not like there aren’t any RMS-accredited local traffic control companies but the builder said I can’t choose another traffic control company. How much of a right do I have to dispute the variation which I haven’t signed, if I believe the variation costs are not in any way considered reasonable? If I got quotes from an equally accredited service provider, can I make them use the provider (and they just add on their margin)? I don’t want any trouble with the builder or bog down the process but I just can’t accept paying extra tens of thousands above provisional sum for essentially no reason. Any advice would be much appreciated. Re: building contract help 7Feb 24, 2020 7:27 pm You should start a new post with a relevant title to get some more replies. Also look in the 'building a new home' as others there may know. Has the builder explained why this particular company is required? Re: building contract help 8Feb 24, 2020 9:19 pm luxbuild You should start a new post with a relevant title to get some more replies. Also look in the 'building a new home' as others there may know. Has the builder explained why this particular company is required? Thanks, will look to start a new post. The only thing they have said was that the company was RMS accredited, but so are local companies which aren’t hard to find. They have been very vague with responses regarding this variation and not surprisingly, they normally always respond by email except regarding this. Re: building contract help 10Feb 24, 2020 9:41 pm JacL Thanks, will look to start a new post. A new thread would have been good but this thread title is ok and your concerns have a better chance of being seen by the forum's professionals in General Discussion plus it will remain longer at the top of the page. The Building A New House sub forum is intended for building blog type threads. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: building contract help 11Mar 25, 2020 5:53 pm JacL building-expert You need to ask your builder for proper variation documentation which will stipulate why is extra payment claimed or if adjustment to provisional sum what was original allowance inadequate. You should get help from experienced building consultant I am new to this forum, hope I’m posting in the right place. I have signed a building contract with a volume home builder and am waiting to commence building. There is a provisional sum in my tender for traffic control as it’s a busy road. The builder has recently submitted a variation which is very open-ended and almost certainly will exceed the provisional amount substantially based on their estimate. As an example, they are stating $285/hr travel allowance each way for the traffic controllers who they have said are located around an hour away from my site. (I am based in metro Sydney, not a remote area.) The builder estimates I will need 25-30 call outs in total so that is over $14k alone just to pay 2 traffic controllers to travel to site, never mind doing any traffic control. Its not like there aren’t any RMS-accredited local traffic control companies but the builder said I can’t choose another traffic control company. How much of a right do I have to dispute the variation which I haven’t signed, if I believe the variation costs are not in any way considered reasonable? If I got quotes from an equally accredited service provider, can I make them use the provider (and they just add on their margin)? I don’t want any trouble with the builder or bog down the process but I just can’t accept paying extra tens of thousands above provisional sum for essentially no reason. Any advice would be much appreciated. My experience, traffic control is a minimum 4 hours and should be costing around $750-800 per visit, your builder seems to be using excessive amounts if he is calling out 25-30. Check your contract wording, I believe there is a clause which states you are allowed to use your own materials/trades if the builders ones are unreasonable. I am also under the impression with Provisional Sums, that you have the right to see the invoices from the TC company and then only the margin that is noted in your contract can be applied Re: building contract help 12Mar 26, 2020 11:02 pm GrahamB JacL building-expert You need to ask your builder for proper variation documentation which will stipulate why is extra payment claimed or if adjustment to provisional sum what was original allowance inadequate. You should get help from experienced building consultant I am new to this forum, hope I’m posting in the right place. I have signed a building contract with a volume home builder and am waiting to commence building. There is a provisional sum in my tender for traffic control as it’s a busy road. The builder has recently submitted a variation which is very open-ended and almost certainly will exceed the provisional amount substantially based on their estimate. As an example, they are stating $285/hr travel allowance each way for the traffic controllers who they have said are located around an hour away from my site. (I am based in metro Sydney, not a remote area.) The builder estimates I will need 25-30 call outs in total so that is over $14k alone just to pay 2 traffic controllers to travel to site, never mind doing any traffic control. Its not like there aren’t any RMS-accredited local traffic control companies but the builder said I can’t choose another traffic control company. How much of a right do I have to dispute the variation which I haven’t signed, if I believe the variation costs are not in any way considered reasonable? If I got quotes from an equally accredited service provider, can I make them use the provider (and they just add on their margin)? I don’t want any trouble with the builder or bog down the process but I just can’t accept paying extra tens of thousands above provisional sum for essentially no reason. Any advice would be much appreciated. My experience, traffic control is a minimum 4 hours and should be costing around $750-800 per visit, your builder seems to be using excessive amounts if he is calling out 25-30. Check your contract wording, I believe there is a clause which states you are allowed to use your own materials/trades if the builders ones are unreasonable. I am also under the impression with Provisional Sums, that you have the right to see the invoices from the TC company and then only the margin that is noted in your contract can be applied Thanks I will check particularly the right to see invoices for provisional sums. FYI the builder is charging over $1100 per min 4hr visit plus an additional $200-odd for signage/traffic board per visit. Re: building contract help 13Aug 20, 2020 10:14 pm Hi All Apologies, this is my first post and I am still getting hold of home journey. My land gets titled around March 2021, currently I am shopping around for builders and have shortlisted a couple. My question is - If a sign a contract with builder for example in October 2020, are there chances that when the land is titled/close to getting titled the builder might increase the site costs based on soil test results? Is there a way to fix site costs while signing contract so that builder does not waver later or do they always leave a caveat for site costs? Secondly is there any difference between the contract which you sign with builder( and pay 5% or 10% deposit) and HIA contract? Thank you for kind help Re: building contract help 14Aug 22, 2020 9:14 am pravven23 Hi All Apologies, this is my first post and I am still getting hold of home journey. My land gets titled around March 2021, currently I am shopping around for builders and have shortlisted a couple. My question is - If a sign a contract with builder for example in October 2020, are there chances that when the land is titled/close to getting titled the builder might increase the site costs based on soil test results? Is there a way to fix site costs while signing contract so that builder does not waver later or do they always leave a caveat for site costs? Secondly is there any difference between the contract which you sign with builder( and pay 5% or 10% deposit) and HIA contract? Thank you for kind help Pravven If the builders are bale to gain access to the site now (contour/bore hole) then they should be able to fix the costs to a degree. Problem with unregistered land is the final 88B document, although the parent lot can give you a very good idea, once subdivided the individual lots get their own document. Best thing to do is to allow for extra site costs up front (Saline soli, H Class slab for instance) then once the reports come back, if they are not required, the builder should refund you the amount You talk about deletions, are they variations or PS and PC adjustments? pleas list them 1 16690 I've decided, after a period of confusion (my building broker told me it's probably not worth it to use a lawyer, but others have said it is a must) that I definitely will… 7 27981 |