Re: New build nightmare
 

Are you sure you signed a full contract, if you did you would have copies of plans, enginering or soil tests, an encyclopeida size triplicate copy of what all the small print means etc..... Even when you have there are still clauses where the price can change, look at rock, machine and excavation for a start.

It sounds like you are using a display home bulder where they usually have a meeting with you and ask for a small deposit to do plans and engineering etc, the price here is the display home price which is then adjusted for your house on YOUR LAND, in other words with all the engineering costed, $20,000 is not unusual, but minus many extras such as retaining walls etc which will probably be your responsibility and of course all the stuff you need to do to finish the house! If theres a price rise in this period then its your baby too. This is perfectly legal and standard procedure with display homes.

Display home prices are very cheap, one particuarly hot summer we decided toiling away building ourself was ridiculous and went through the entire display home process (3 diff companies) to get at these cheap prices :rolleyes: Lets just say they didnt know I was a builder and some of what we were told and going to be charged for didnt make me a happy bunny ;) One lot even tried to pass off their turnover as their assets! totally amazing stuff. As I recall 2 had price rises during our finalising the figures too.

A few things you say concern me, if your plans are fully approved unless WA is very different from the States I am registered in, part of the process of approval is all the details, regos, licences and insurances of a registered builder who then has to use registered subcontractors, an unregistered anybody cant just decide to then go an build those plans. Most plans have copyright too, and rightfully builders sue for people nicking them, around $15,000 is what I usually get.

You can apply for an owner builder permit, check out resale restrictions tho, however before you do this get some australian quotes. I really dont think you are going to get very far at all with a budget of $100,000 even doing labour yourself, :confused: you will not have the bulk buying power of a display builder and $100,000 is a tiny tiny budget for a house, roof and roof trusses are best part of $20,000 these days alone. Dont forget many things will have to be done by australian registered tradesmen anyway.

Unfortunately cheap quotes will usually escalate because there is not really any way possible to build for such low figures.

Re: New build nightmare
 

Hi jad n rich,
thanks for your detailed reply

I'll try to answer a couple of your points,
Yes we did buy from a display home builder and they allocated around $3000 for all the soil tests etc, we were told it could be more but fortunately the $3000 covered this.
The plot we purchased already had the retaining walls and was leveled ready to go. I believe the term used at the time was 'titled'.

I have a letter from Wanneroo council saying the city has approved the building licence and the plans have also been approved and sent on to the builder.

What you say about the budget sounds fair, but dont forget Queensland is more expensive than WA (chippies earn almost double there, so I am told)

My main gripe would be that if they cant build a house for $100,000 they should not bloody say so!
There where lots of display houses on sale for around the $100,000 so I dont think its particulary cheap (there were cheaper ones).

I was not happy with how they dealt with the price rise either, a personal phone call explaining the situation would have been better than a cold hearted email.

Re: New build nightmare
 

I'm kind of curious how they got to plan approval stage without a contract.

A couple of points from the Lump Sum Building Contract:

Clause 22, d states that the owner may terminate the contract if the increase exceeds 5% but the owner will have to pay up for the work done so far.

Clause 22, e states that the owner can go to the Building Disputes Tribunal if the increase is deemed excessive or unjustified (which to me are the same thing?!?)

Sorry though, all that doesn't mean Jack if there is no contract. But doesn't it also mean there should be no work to date compensation ??

Best bet is to get yourself down to DOCEP on ST George's Tce and see if they can help. Probably wouldn't hurt to let the builder know that's what you're planning.

Best of luck

Re: New build nightmare
 

Just to let those of you who are interested know that I spoke to the house building company today and they have dropped the price increase to $8000.
I'm not exactly over the moon but to be honest I just want them to get on with it, I'm fed up of argueing on the phone.
At least they have been a bit more reasonable.
Thx to all those who have given their advice, I've also had lots of personal emails sent to me on this subject so it appears we are not the only people getting stung by this price increase business.

What makes laugh though is the fact that the salesman (to his credit I suppose) told us that the house would take between 14 and 16 months to complete. So as we are only 9 months in we are not even behind schedule. Yet they still put the price up.

Re: New build nightmare
 

''

Bloody hell thats a long time for a build 14-16 months we have been quoted 161 days from start to finish......it started last week :)

$100k is very cheap for QLD btw what size of house u gettin built? and does this price include all floor coverings etc?

ta
H

Re: New build nightmare
 

It doesn't sound as if they signed the final contracts. Here in Qld you sign all the plans in the final contract (pages and pages of it) , If they were still designing their home, I don't think they could have signed the final contracts, unless Wa is any different

I've built in QLD, it took us ages, around a year to sort out the plans.. We had the soil test done and paid a deposit at the beginning ( before signing the contract with our builders). At the end of the year, our builders were going to "hike up" their base prices, but unlike your experience, our builders told us of this in advance . I think they told us a month prior to the price hike. So we finalised the plans, and signed the contract before their price hike.

I agree with you when you say your house company could have told you about the price hike in advance. It is a bit unscrupulous of them not to tell you, but I doubt there is nothing illegal about it if you did not sign the contracts.

The thing about losing your land, this "law" is also in Qld for a lot of new blocks. I think it may be either a council thing or Qld gov brought in this rule a couple of years ago for some of these new estates here. It was to stop people buying up blocks of land , and just sitting on them for years ( for investment). You'll probably find it's the same in a lot of the other states, in these new estates

This did not apply to our land, it was not a "new release" plot in a new estate.. We did not have to built on it. We could have just kept it empty for years and years (for investment), if we chose to. The guy we bought it off had been sitting on it for years himself, and just sold up years later due to financial probs

Anyway there was no time restrictions on our land, but my mate ,who bought a plot in an estate in Morayfield ( new release plot) had some sort of time limit on it to build. I think it was something like he must start building on it within 12 , or it may have been 18 months ( can't remember the exact time, but it was definitely under two years that he must build on it.).

I suppose if you don't want to go with that same company now , seeing as they messed you around and haven't got off to the best of starts with them, you could see if you can get an extension of time to build on your land. whether you can do this , I don't know. Perhaps you should phone up your council and ask them for advice regarding this must build "time limit". Or just pay the $8000 and sign the final contracts.

Good luck.

I don't think they have floor coverings in that price, " pompeywill" mentioned they have excluded it from their home, among a few other things, and will be doing it themselves - Hence the seemingly cheap price.

The time they have been given 14 to 16 months , is probably allowing for delays ( They are just covering their own backs if there are any delays such as bad weather etc), it was also probably allowing for council approval too of the plans, and won't take anywhere near that time to be completed.

Re: New build nightmare
 

HI Pompeywill, just out of interest could you build the same or better with44,000 pound in England. I dont think $108,000 is too much for a roof over you head.
graderman

Re: New build nightmare
 

I think your entirely missing the point. The cost of the house is irrevelent, of course I could'nt build one in the UK for that price, but if I moved to Eastern Europe perhaps I could build six.....so what

If I'd paid $500,000 for a new house and they put the price up $8000 then I'd still feel just as cheated.

I really dont see where your'e coming from, should I feel grateful because I'm getting the house at that price? I dont think so, If my builder had been more competent with sorting out the plans etc then there would be no price increase.

Re: New build nightmare
 

No we took all the floor coverings, blinds and a few other bits and bobs out.
But we made the house about 1m longer than the original plan. (I wanted to get a pool table in :) )

btw I'm not building in QLD, I'm in Perth.

Re: New build nightmare
 

Pompeywill,
Cant add anything helpful to your thread. Just sorry you find your selves in this mess. Thanks for letting the forum know of the pittfalls we could all suffer. Just sorry it is at your expense. Your signature shows your location is still Portsmouth. Is this true?., I see that your proposed house will be built in Wanneroo. Thats where we will be heading in July. Perhaps meet up when we arrive and talk about old grey Portsmouth.

Re: New build nightmare
 

Hi,
Yes we are still in good old Portsmouth , coincedently we are also heading out in July (fingers crossed) we have tickets to see Oasis at the Rosebowl so we wanted to go to the gig first. (I doubt Oasis will play in Perth)
Also my eldest daughter has her GCSE's this term so we wanted to wait for that before we leave. (although she would be perfectly happy not to take them.)
Would love to meet up for a drink. Did you attend any of the Pompey meets?

Re: New build nightmare
 

Sorry thot u were in Qld :rolleyes: silly me....but still think that is an awful long time for a lowset build ..............anyways best of luck with it, and I would feal cheated at the price hike also........we r $190k for our house. so there is quite a price diff between Perth and Qld

Re: New build nightmare
 

Being in this industry I dont think its about Qld being expensive and Perth cheap to build in, many things in Perths actually cost more because of transport costs, I assume tho most builders try to buy stuff manufactured loacally tho.

What the problem often is, cheap ads. Most of the houses we looked at during our 'display exercise' were in QLd and in the low $100,000s, we knew being a builder we could not possibly build for that so sprung the brill idea of hey lets get the display guys to build them :rolleyes: of course as we suspected, many hidden extras quickly surface to cover the real cost of building. Much basic stuff was not included such as what we knew needed to go in to meet climate codes, council approvals, developers covenants, as for engineering, they can add as much as they feel is necessary according to the engineering, price rises are probably fair till you sign the contract because products go up constantly, steel and roofing have gone up 8 times in the last 15 months. Even when you sign there is still plenty of room in the fine print for price additions, you need to read these things with a microscope. Most display homes dont include floor coverings and blinds etc thats up to the owner, all you get is tiling to wet areas legal limits etc, the basic shell you finish inside and out.

Building time is interesting, say contract says 175 days, most people go oh right 6 months, its not! its 175 working days minus saturdays, sundays, Public hols, rain days, days for unavoidable delays, and those days are from approval, so whens approval ;) very openly worded, a year for approval would be fine on that wording.

If somebody can build a house for $108,000 I would be most interested, what size is it? Is the contract price finalised yet?? engineered?

I am still living in hope of finding this type of deal :D

Re: New build nightmare
 

$108000 sounds to good to be true........our price$190k is for a 230 sq m 4 bed house all completed, tiles, carpets, security screens all plans, engineering, council fees, insurance etc, except for internal paint wanted to do something ourselves.....so not a bad price in my books....completion in 161 days which includes bad weather days public holidays etc

Re: New build nightmare
 

Hi Pompeywill, why are you getting on your high horse with me i only asked if you could build a house in your labour infested rat hole for that sort of money, and yes you should feel gratefull because you cant afford what you are getting, and yes you should feel gratefull getting a foot into australia. You blame the builder for being incompetent how about you blame your self for the stuff up, if i was you cut your losses. Australia will be a better place without you or your practices GRADERMAN