It's been a few weeks since we cancelled our initial contract appointment schedule and we've been waiting for our building coordinator to set our new appointment. She couldn't give us schedule that both my husband and I are free to attend, so we agreed that I will attend the appointment, sign the docs, pay the completion of 5% deposit and then I can bring home the docs which my husband can sign and express post back to PD. And that was what we did last Tuesday.
What's not to rave about?
- Despite the detailed checklist I provided regarding the updates from our tender appointment that I want to be included in the contract, they still missed updating our electrical, tiling and kitchen culture selections.
- They miss to add the bath mixer tap that we want for our bathroom.
- The plan for our facade render colours were not corrected as we had it approved by our DRP.
- They have not reduced our site cost based on the soil compaction report that they asked us to get from our developer
- Our main entry door cost $5000 which was way more expensive than the sales quote.
- Our timber laminate flooring upgrade went up to $10,000 from $8,000 because they forgot to add the family room in the price and they also added another $500 for floor coat. We decided to drop this timber laminate upgrade and do all our flooring post hand-over.
- Our BC has been very helpful in terms of guiding us in weighing which upgrades we should keep and which are best done after hand-over. She's been very understanding and patient about our concern for budget.
- She offered to facilitate sending a copy of our signed contract to our broker for loan approval.
- She's been very lenient to us about our changes even after the contract has been signed and very open to us having post contract variations without any charges.
- She offered option to lower our site cost by levelling our site down by 300mm, she said this will significantly reduce our site cost. This was a good option, but we turned this down as we prefer to have the more elevated house.
- Our six star energy rating cost was $3,400 only. Another great thing is this provides double glazed windows to our house except the bedroom windows and the picture windows in the kitchen and dining room. All the double glazed windows will also be upgraded to awning windows.
- Our BC told me not to worry about penalty if we will be late for the June site start as she will work out to have it waived.
- Our BC was very honest to tell me that their upgraded timber laminate flooring was very expensive and that I can find cheaper, better quality and choices from other suppliers. She said that this is easy to do post hand-over and they will leave the skirtings for us cut or un-cut based on our preference.
- Our BC thought that we are building a Lifestyle range house instead of Advantage range. She told us that the building process that we have been taking all along has been the Lifestyle process hence, the loads of accommodation regarding structural variations and changes with our colour selections. She should know this by heart but were just happy to follow the Lifestyle process!
A few days after this contract signing, our land settled after more than a year of wait! Woodlea has been very good in meeting their target titling date, we just got delayed by one month which was pretty good from what we have been hearing.
No major dramas with our settlement. Our broker, Loan Studio and our converyancer, Scali Conveyancing has been very good in making sure that we can settle on time and not worry about anything. We just needed to update our payslips and application forms with our broker.
A few days before the settlement, we made sure that our funds for our share in payment are available in our checking account. The day before the settlement, we brought the cheque to our conveyancer. It turns out that we need a bank cheque, not a personal cheque so we rushed to our bank to order a bank cheque.
Right after the settlement, our broker sent us a text message to congratulate and inform us that our land has settled! They also sent us an email with all the settlement documentations.
Mind the peg! We got rushed into checking that all our pegs are in place before the settlement. We've been visiting our block too often but didn't know what to look for. We just took this task seriously, the day before the settlement and we found one missing peg! This could have cost us $650 to $900 from what we've been told. We reported our missing peg to Woodlea and they have since confirmed that one was really missing and they will have it re-pegged.
3 Pegs at the front
3 pegs at the back
Missing Peg!
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