Post Contract Variations and Land Settlement Updates

After we've signed our contract with Porter Davis and our land settled, you'd think that things will go easy and quick, but no. Our progress has been very slow and painful,  the target June site start didn't happen. It's mid-July now, and I still don't see how we can start building this month.

A major change though has happened, I refused to continue working with building coordinator (BC). Our BC had done something which I consider very offensive and racist that I considered terminating our contract with Porter Davis.  I wrote a product review about this issue, but I gave PD a chance to resolve with me as I think my BC's action was an isolated case and does not reflect my whole PD experience. I've been happy with the response and so, you won't be reading about that complaint at Product Review website. I, instead, filed a formal complaint against her as advised by their customer care and this formal complaint has been escalated to senior management.

Some updates since our Contract Appointment and Land Settlement:

• We now have a new BC. She's still not perfect, she's still missing things and I'm still finding errors with her documents, but I'm Ok with that as long as she doesn't do what my previous BC did. 

• We have signed our Post Contract Variation 1 (PCV1) which deletes the timber laminate flooring in the ground floor, includes the surround sound pre-wiring pack and the $1000 sales incentive that we negotiated. The following items were missed and I was told will just be included in Building Variation 1:
• Electrical Variation. They have already updated the electrical cost and plan, but missed to include them in the PCV1 which will delete all external flood lights, alfresco fan and pendant in powder room and just include provisions for them  
• Bath Mixer in Bathroom. This was missed out in the contract and we have requested to have this included in the PCV1.
• Double glazed window to the master bedroom. We requested to have this added as part of PCV1 as the windows in the master bedroom were the only windows which were not double glazed as part of our 6 star energy requirements.  With this, all the windows throughout the house are now double glazed except the picture windows in the kitchen and dining area.
• Bathroom Accessories. We chose these Bastow Georgian toilet roll holder (powder, first floor WC and ensuite WC) double towel rail (first floor bathroom) and robe hooks (master ensuite) during our colour selection and then requested them to be deleted at Tender Appointment when the cost became too much. When we deleted the flooring, we want to have these added so we don't need to worry about installing them and ruining the wall and tiles in the process.    
• Tiling. They still need to delete the flooring tiles in the porch and alfresco, the wall tiles in the porch pillar and the galley splashback.
• Facade render correction. The facade render which we requested to be corrected during tender has not been corrected.  

• We are now in the process of signing of Building Variation 1 which covers what were missed out in PCV1 as listed above. There will be a BuildingVariation 2 for the following:
• Tiling: Tiling was not included yet as I found errors in the new plan that they gave me. The tiling variation will be included in Building Variation 2  as I was told. 
• Bath Mixer in Bathroom. They also made an error with the bath mixer in the bathroom so I am waiting for my BC to correct this or just include in Building Variation2.
• Projector pre-wire and extension of bathroom shower tiles to ceiling. While, she's working on Building Variation 2, I thought I will try and see if she can still include the following in our plan: projector pre-wire for the cinema lounge and extension of bathroom shower tiling to the ceiling. I'm still waiting for her reply.

•   Our render colour was not corrected.  

This is how we want our render and facade colours to be: 

This is what PD submitted to our DRP for approval:

We tried to have them to correct this drawing numerous times, but because of our useless BC, it was not corrected and we were not informed about this issue until we saw the drawing after the contract has been signed. We could have made it difficult for PD and ask them to correct this as we want it, but we just went back to WOS to ask for reassurance that despite the change in render allocation the facade looks OK. 

• They found an error in our master bedroom window. My new BC sent me an email to say that there was an error in our window as their supplier doesn't supply 1200mm high X 3780mm wide windows. We will instead have a 1200mm high X 3600mm wide windows with increased butt joint.

• Some update about our land: Our missing peg has been confirmed missing and has since been replaced for free by Woodlea. Thank God we found and reported this before land settlement! 

• Our block has been removed from the bushfire zone as shown on bushfire zoning map, but Woodlea advised that we still need to build our home following bushfire restriction as are block is directly in front of reserve area and it's a clause in our land title.

• Our broker advised that our land and building valuations were coming back as undervalued from several lenders. We tried to go to big banks and apply for loan directly. When I told my broker about this, he requested that we give him more time to look for other banks. He said that his director is helping him in getting good valuation for us. Eventually, he came back with 2 big banks with very good assessment and loan terms while the bank that we went to told us that they will still use the valuation that they gave my broker which was way under. And so, we will still do our financing thru our broker. We are finalising the loan application at the moment.   

• The base price of Forsyth 35 has now gone up to $270, 900 effective 1 July. It was $238, 900 when we signed up in August last year, but when the price increased to $246, 900  in October, we opted to switch to it so we can avail of the full render promotion.

• Woodlea just released Stage 31A and blocks our size is now worth $330K. We got our land for $242K. We've so lucky to get our block last year!

• Lastly, it's July now and we haven't started our building yet. I'm happy with this as we are not paying any late start penalty as the delays were not due to us at this stage. This delay is giving us more time to save money for the things that we need to cash out after the building.

My next update should be more exciting with building commencement, hopefully, fingers-crossed!