Hi
Our builder took possession of the site after we cleared all the trees within the building envelope. The builder has now come back saying we needed to have cleared outside of the building envelope where the HSTP effluent will be. The house frame and roof are on and the tree lopper is now having to charge extra to work round the house structure.
A copy of the HSTP report was provided to us and there was no mention on needing to clear additional area. The HSTP has been installed and the installer did not mention needing to clear more trees. The installer of the HSTP has come back saying it needs to be cleared of all trees so he can get his machine to build the mounds.
We questioned this with the builder who has provided a response saying "they assumed the site was cleared" we feel they did not do their due diligence and we could not have known what trees and how many would needed to have been cleared and there is nothing they have provided us to say we needed to clear trees outside of the building envelope.
We have queued it but feel we cannot dispute it as they could easily make up the costs for any provisional sums in the contract and we are really have to pay up to keep a good relationship.
We had another couple of issues where we have had to pay extra when we feel it was not warranted but have done to keep the relationship positive but I am really not happy with paying extra when the cost should be covered by the builder or his sub-contractor for HSTP.
Just posting here to see if I am being unreasonable maybe?