Site cut started

Notified the builder that plot was ready.

They started the site cut this week -15th September

Cleaning our plot

After submitting the building permit/home warranty insurance to the bank we were contacted by the builder. They had inspected our plot and had requests.

1) the drainage inspection pit cover on the easement was broken and needed to be fixed

2) there was too much grass on the plot

3) there is rubble on the plot that need to be cleared

Now when we bought the plot we were aware that there were two piles of soil on either side of the plot at the far end...

On the 5th/6th Sep weekend we started to clean the plot.

We were amazed by what we found.

On saturday morning we got to our plot.

The grass had grown up to our knees.

There was no way were going to be able to lawn mow the plot because we werent sure what was beneath the grass.

Off we went to bunnings, and got ourselves a wiper snipper.

We wiper snippered and then discovered what was dumped on the plot. There was piles and piles of timber under the soil, there were broken bricks, roof tiles. There were plaster mixtures and metal rods and wires buried under the soil.

There was concrete that had hardened and was too big for us to move.

Some how we did some work our the weekend and the week and ended up taking one trip to the tip.

We piled the concrete and wood in two piles on the corner of the plot.

Finally Building Permit

Permits issued on the 13th August BUT....with
Errors in our names in the building permit & Home warranty insurance.
Errors also in some variations we wanted

All submitted now to the bank for construction loan approval.
Waiting....

Contracts to Colour selection

Finally recieved the contracts and signed them early July.
Then came the colour selection day on the 17th July.
Went to meet with their "colour co-ordinator" who was also the customer relations officer. Thought she was going to give us advice on mixing and matching.. but there was no such things..
We pretty much had to put things together ourselves. Lucku for us that hubbie had given it some thought and we had discussed it.
Anyway decided to go with dark colours for the roof, fascia, gutters and red/cream -brushwood from Boral bricks.
The other shocking news was that the wood work around the planter box which the sales person said was included apparently was OPTIONAL.
I mean we specifically asked the sales person when we did a walk through of the diaplay home regarding the wood work and she said it was included.
Now ofcourse we didnt get it in writting. So it was our word against theirs.
We called the sales person to sort out the issue and she lied through her teeth.
We were very disgusted at this incident.
Anyway ended up not getting it...and we thought of putting our own woodwork or tile work for the extra price.
It wasnt really that it was really expensive we were just really annoyed at the incident.

Our own research...

The next day... off we went to the local council's building department.
They were very helpful.
We found out that
1) It needs to sit 1m away from the boundary only if it was a carport i.e. it is not a solid wall.
2) that we dont need dispensation from the neighbours since we are building within normal building regulations.
3) There was a good chance that the council will give us permission.

We then did research as to what was contained within the easement, by phoning the relevant authorities and "dial before you dig".
Finally decided to tell the builder all this information and build a double garage to the boundary.
So we met two days later with the builder and the drafts person,
There was disagreement as to whether we need permission from the neighbours and the builder said we did, even though the council said no.
The builder again said well the council might not given permission as we need to make a site cut.
After lots of repeated statements and this and that we decided that this may cost us more than we want and to build a single garage.

Then came the issue of prices.. we felt that we needed to be reimbursed for the floor area we lost, but the builder felt that the area had gone in to the garage, never mind the fact that we were paying separately for the garage.
Again after lots of going back and forth the builder agreed to reimburse us -

We left the office informing him to draw the plans.

Meeting with the builder No.2

After asking "E" to redraw the plans to accomodate a double carport so that we will get back the area we lost, we were contacted by the head office for a meeting.
The meeting was some what a repeat of the first meeting.
We said well we should have been informed of the change at the time and asked if that was ok. the argument was that it was ONLY 30-40cm's but nevertheless they should have checked with us.
So at the meeting we were informed that
1) If we want the double carport, we will need permission from the council to build over the easement - and from the relevant authorities - (which we knew)
2) We would need to apply for dispensation from the neighbours (permission) - from all three of the neighbours because we were building over an easement (which we were surprised with & was going to cost us extra)
3) We had to build it 1m away from the boundary because we were building over and easement.
4) After all this trouble if the council said "no" we would have to go back and redraw the plans which was going to cost us..
So we went away from that meeting not deciding and telling them that we would get back to them.
I must clarify when we said double carport our impression was the same as a garage but with no wall at the rear of the structure.

Getting our plans and contracts - the first time

So about a week after the go ahead, we got a call from "E" to come and pick up our contracts,they were ready to be signed.
My husband went and picked it up but to our surprise there were a few issues
1) the total residence area was small - when asked as to how that came to be - they had to take 30-40cms out of the house to accomodate the single garage so that we wont be going into the easement. - were we told about this? NO
2) the names - now true we have long names but we specifically wrote them down so that they could get the spelling right
3) The porch was not according to original template
4) Other small spelling mistakes.

So we called up "E" and said look this is not right - there is some area taken out of the house and hence we want to go back to a double carport.
We were asked to repay for the contracts and drawing up the plans again -
This was no fair we were not told about loosing the area out of the residence and we should have been asked about it when the plans were drawn, hence after much debate - they agreed to redraw the plans