Browse Forums Building A New House Re: New Home Inspections, and any other inspectors in Vic? 27Nov 19, 2012 5:25 pm 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: New Home Inspections, and any other inspectors in Vic? 32Apr 29, 2013 3:59 am 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: New Home Inspections, and any other inspectors in Vic? 36May 21, 2020 1:50 pm I would really question the value of a full circa $2,000 'package' of building consultants' progress stage inspections for savvy new home buyers. I believe a typical approx. $400 pre-linings inspection report is critical. A professional inspector should identify and document any significant defects before they are covered up with plaster and hidden. Accompany the inspector to ensure everything is checked and you understand the issues, how they are fixed, and relative importance. You can visit with the SS later to confirm the defects have been rectified before plastering starts. If you don't check yourself you can assume they have not been rectified. Your SS won't check: "It's all good!" The value of the other stage inspections' in the circa $2,000 'package' deal is questionable, and very limited. The remaining $1,600 here is better spent elsewhere, particularly when you can easily see and check exposed surfaces carefully and slowly yourself. Private building consultants have no authority over the builder. Many builders have very little interest in, or respect for building consultants' reports, and these are not formatted for building tribunal cases therefore you might as well just do the other basic inspections yourself. For serious defects that he builder refuses to fix you need a beefier report that has legal credibility. You will need to pay extra for an expert witness report. Better to learn a bit about the relevant standards yourself, use a checklist, spend about $500 on some basic tools and protective gear at Bunnings that you can use to inspect yourself on your weekly 2 hour site visits, with the permission and / or assistance of your site supervisor. Take photos and document everything in the professional formats used in inspectors sample reports found online. The are good examples of professional defect report formats to be found on inspection company's websites. Re: New Home Inspections, and any other inspectors in Vic? 37Apr 10, 2021 7:24 am Up2nogood Hi folks! New to the forum, onto my third investment property in Vic! The first we had built in Point Cook by Serenity Projects. Not a bad house. Pretty good builder too, minimal dramas. Good follow up. Second is just a unit in Footscray, near Vic Uni. Third is currently under build in Truganina by Simonds. So far so good! But the time has come for a final inspection of the builders work and I need to (obvously) have an inspector go and make sure the builder's been a good boy! With Point Cook we used Kevin from New Home Inspections. We did, however, had an odd experience, so I thought I'd search on here for others' experiences with New Home Inspections. Here's what happened: Initial report was great! Kevin took the time to go through the issues and it was quite detailed. Sent the report to the builder to rectify the issues and then contacted Kevin to re-inspect. A dozen phone calls and emails later, no reply. I actually thought he was laid up in hospital, or something really bad had happened to him, as I could not work out why he had not responded and feared the worst had happened and he wasn't working anymore. So I left it and dealt with the builder directly and hope all was remedied. Since then, one of my friends had a report done by Kevin and showed it to me. Naturally I tried contacting Kevin again to discuss my original property. But no response. So I cc'd him in on the email I sent to my friend warning them of his poor follow up. Now I have found not only has he not attempted to get back in touch but he then bad mouthed me to another inspector, Darren Love! And now Darren won't do a report for me as he 'works closely' with Kevin! Has anyone else found Kevin to be an emotional mess and inclined to lie so he doesn't have to do (cheaper) follow up inspections??????? I mean if I had been rude, or even slightly abusive, I could understand his behaviour. But I was very impressed (well, not now) at the original job, so I have no idea why he's turned to ****** to colleagues? To clarify; he has told Darren Love that I refused to pay for a follow up inspection. But as I never had a return telephone call or email from him I can't work out when I had the chance to refuse to pay? I can't even work out why he has this odd idea, as if you wouldn't pay for a follow up inspection?? So after this experience, I am looking for other inspectors as I don't think it would do me any favours to deal with folks like that! So I've since found Final Inspect and also noticed the ad on here for Urban. Does anyone have any first hand experience with inspectors happy to do: * A detailed and quality report * Discuss issues with the builder * Happy to do a follow up report after builder rectification My friends and I have group bought 5 houses in Truganina. We need reports done on only four (as Kevin did one). Although I hope my friend doesn't need a follow up inspection............. Experience has proven this to be, shall we say, unrewarding! If you hire an inspection company, many of them have several inspectors working for them, so you may not end up with the person who runs the company. Get the name of the person who they plan to send out and run it through the VBA (or equivalent) disciplinary register. They may be an ex builder who was deregistered for poor workmanship. If they don't know how to build properly would you trust them to know how to do a proper inspection? Re: New Home Inspections, and any other inspectors in Vic? 38Apr 10, 2021 10:26 am Good idea. I just checked the public register and found some interesting comments on this topic by the VCAT tribunal member: http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/view ... s/vic/VCAT Re: New Home Inspections, and any other inspectors in Vic? 39Apr 10, 2021 3:22 pm Yes there's often useful information on austlii; it is worth noting that not all cases are published on austlii. These building consultant reports that are furnished for the courts are apparently supposed to comply with VCAT Practice Note 2, which can be found at: https://www.vcat.vic.gov.au/documents/p ... t-evidence and states "....it is important that the expert’s opinion is soundly based, complete, impartial, dispassionate, and within the scope of his or her expertise..........An expert witness has a paramount duty to the Tribunal and not to the party retaining the expert........ ..........An expert witness has an overriding duty to assist the Tribunal on matters relevant to the expert's expertise...... ...An expert witness is not an advocate for a party to a proceeding....." according to productreview.com.au, some clients of NHI have experienced poor follow up with questions about the report after it has been issued and payment made. in terms of looking for a good building consultant, would it be worth getting some recommendations from the Australian Society of Building Consultants? https://www.asbc-vic.com.au Re: New Home Inspections, and any other inspectors in Vic? 40Apr 27, 2021 7:39 am another mob in Victoria who claim that they only use currently registered builders as their inspectors is
https://www.yourbuildinginspector.com.au it isn't mandated in Victoria to be registered builder to be an inspector. Hopefully this means that yourbuildinginspector doesn't have any 'failed' and de-registered builders in their midst. If you are in Victoria you have a statutory right to your own building inspector regardless of builder's consent. No negotiations are required. However the builder will… 1 2943 I recently went through a similar renovation and move scenario when updating our family home. We also swapped some rooms around and tackled a major… 2 10051 That is a really good attitude Akin to you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. I do enjoy watching that tik tok inspector from Victoria but he does go a little… 12 81896 |