The Decision.....

Well I call up Monday and spoke to the GM again and questioned a couple of other things that were on the last variation letter that I thought should have been previously costed into the build of the house. He agreed and organised for those to be removed.

We decided on Sunday that we would move forward how it is, take the compensation, and get everything happening. We are pretty much over the whole paperwork side of it and really did not want to deal with anymore head against the brick wall moments.

They allowed my to go into the Office on Monday go through it to find out where we had to sign and initial and then take it home to my wife to do the same that evening. The only issue was that I didn't know that the signature had to be witnessed so with no JP available after 6pm at such short noticed meant either a trip to the Courthouse or the local Display Home the next day.

When I got home we went through the Colour selections booklet as the CSO had just put a post-it on the front to tell us to initial and date each page. As we went through it we noticed that there was a post-it on the page for the Laundry Benchtop saying we had to change the finish of it as that finish was not offered in that Brand Really not happy that we were not contacted about this earlier as it meant that on Tuesday my wife was at the display home deciding on either changing the finish or the brand/colour with me on the phone looking at the colours she wanted help with online (not ideal)

She had to leave the Contract's there and they were delivered to Head Office 9am today.

Around 10:30am I walked down to the office and grabbed my copy and headed back to work to scan everything to send to the lender. Got to the Contract page and no copy of our signatures, thought this was strange, called up to ask for a copy that we had signed and told no that will be fine for your lender....

Called the lender, nope need FULLY SIGNED and Witnessed contact (could be a photocopy or scan). Called back Allworth and was told that they had "Gone out of their way to help me get them signed" and that "If you had come into the office with my wife then I would have full signatures". This pretty much got me very upset due to the fact we had not come in on the Friday due to an issue we had not been told about. Rather than go NUTS down the phone I was a little short and ended the conversation.

After having a vent to a work mate I decided it was time to call the GM again to try to get exactly what I needed, I didn't want the full 40 pages all I needed was 1 page........ Spoke to him on the phone, explained that I needed that one or I was going to have to stuff around getting signatures certified etc and basically waste time. He told me he would sort it out and within 20 minutes I had an email with the scanned page I was after.

In that conversation he told me that he had noticed that I was an active member on the HomeOne forum, which I had a bit of a chuckle about as I have been pretty straight about everything I have posted there and on this blog and knew what he has viewed and could view in the future. He did agree with me that the worst part of the journey is usually the Office stage.

I personally hope they ALL builders read Blogs, Forums and very Product Review sites and use them to improve the aspects of the business that customers complain about.

Personally I think there would more than likely only be 2-3 small things that could have been done through the Head Office paper work stage that would have kept me happy and no venting required.

I have my fingers crossed that as soon as we start down the construction phase of the build we will have mostly happy things to report. I know that my 3 year old son is looking forward to seeing Concrete Trucks and "Diggers" at our site, so am hoping we can all have fun from here on in

Soory about all the text, should have some pics to post up in a few weeks

General Manager steps in

Got a call late today from the General Manager, did not think my email would head that high.

He was very embarrassed it had been missed at the start and also apologised after a member of the drafting team did not follow up on a voicemail that was left on my desk phone to contact them a few weeks back (i really should check them more often)

Basically told us they had no issue if we decided to send it back through council, it will cost them money to do so but not sure what would happen with the tender period as they have yet to work that out.

We have been offered some compensation if we go forward with the change to 1.5m which is better than nothing. So my current backyard is all spray painted to show the difference on both sides of the house so we can make a decision for Monday.

Cancelled the meeting....

Sent an email to them this morning with all our concerns and trying to work out if someone was meant to contact us and why they did not know about the regulations. Told them we are not coming into sign until we get answers

Hold the phone..... Problem number 2...

Not a good day today......

Due to go in to sign the Building Agreement tomorrow, called to ask if they had onsite parking and my CSO asked if she had sent the final variation stuff i said no so through it came.

First variation was Left side setback changed to 1.5m to meet complying development guidelines....... Now i had been told early Allworth required 1.2m even though i wanted 900mm. I let that go but to lose now a total of 600mm from the side has got my blood boiling.

On the phone to the CSO spewing about it, asking why I was not told about this 3 weeks ago before it was submitted.

To make matters worse if it went through council i would not be having the issue, or if my block was 17.99m not 18m exactly it would not be an issue under complying development.

The wife is upset as much as I am, CSO said we can go back through council but when we go past our tender period in 2 weeks we will be up for a $3600 increase and we would have to pay the costs to send it to council (no idea how much).

The final option would be lose our deposit and walk away.........

Not happy campers today and really do not want to front in there tomorrow and sign.....

Plans Approved!!!

After a false start last week, told it was approved a week ago and then a phone call that afternoon being told nope now has to go for Waterboard approval, it is finally Approved!!!!

Pumping the builder to get moving and have the paperwork finished for my RDO on Friday that I had scheduled.

We own a block of dirt!! Well Sort of....

Well it is official we own a block of dirt!! Well have a mortgage on a block of dirt to build our house on :)

Finally a step forward in the process.

We had a call yesterday and have to do a Bushfire Report as the corner of our land is officially in the Bushfire Buffer Zone. Basically the report will say we don't have to do anything to the house but $350 down the drain.....

The report was completed and our plans have been sent to the Private Certifier for the approvals and then we can sign the building agreement. YAY

Land Registered finally!!

Finally had the call we had been waiting for, the land has been Registered so now all the final paperwork begins with the conveyencor and builder to get everything rolling :) Settlement in 2 weeks