Please lay the rest of the road soon!
Can someone please tell me how far along this looks? The estimate we have been given for settlement is August, does this look like it's moving along well!? To the gentleman in the background.. Thank you for working on the weekend sir! We have movement people!
I'm no expert so I don't what stage of land preparation this is at, but hopefully in another few weeks we'll see the road finished! Still doesn't make our builder issues and dilemas any easier to deal with. Remember never trust the sales consultants, they are the smiling assassins! Finally some progress on the land, not a whole lot but good to see people are working on it. There are now some green pegs hammered into the land and the road is looking a little neater. :)
We are still 4-5 months away from the targeted settlement date. Fingers crossed they can progress more and be on time to settle. hopefully there will not be any major delays and that the legal documentation has been processed. We have gotten to the point where the decision needs to be made on whether to proceed.
After yet ANOTHER meeting with the consultant, we have now been made aware that the base price of our home has increased by 6k which is the equivalent of the 6 month penalty we are facing to keep the current price estimates. It just makes the decision harder. The builder has now identified to us a problem (which should have been told to us at the initial consultancy visits, instead we were not told until now) with the cooling where we cannot have the evap unit on the side of the house, it must be installed at the back. so surprise surprise, it just means that we have to pay another 10k to have refrigerated cooling installed to the home. Is this how builders get their costs back?! I'm so fed up with dealing with this builder! As one of the top 4 builders, you would think they had better processes and maybe tell the truth every now and then. We also went to check out some display homes for Carlisle homes over the weekend. I quite like the design of their homes, great use of space. We are thinking that it might be time to change builders?! It looks like there is absolutely no way forward with this builder. We are done with the games. It is a tough decision to walk away but they are just making this house building experience a nightmare and we haven't even begun to build. The experience so far has been horrid to put it lightly.
We were so excited at the beginning of the process but now it is now month 3 after we paid the deposit to lock in the estimate costs for our build and they are now asking for more money again to agree to the preliminary contract, which by the way we haven't even seen nor have we done colours or electricals yet. This is on top of the monthly penalty they are going to add into the contract because we can't make land settle any faster. I think it's safe to say we have both had enough of the salesman pitch of how much money we will still be saving. I'm no mathematician but even I can see that the so called "significant savings" we were getting are all but gone now with all these hidden costs that have crept up. All this of course is to ensure that the builder still makes money off you even if you choose to walk away from the build. Might be time to provide a little feedback on how they can improve their customer service and how to NOT drive their customers away. Pegs are in and we starting to see what looks like the road in our street. Hopefully we get some cooler weather so more work can be done to the blocks!
Well the variation document the builder advised that we DIDN'T have to sign right now.. we get an email the next day advising us to sign it today.
The constant change of stories is giving us whiplash and making us consider looking for another builder. This is just unacceptable and incredibly frustrating. It is January 2014, we are several months away from June 2014. WHY ARE YOU STILL HOUNDING US TO SIGN THE PIECE OF PAPER TO SAY YOU CAN PENALISE US EACH MONTH?!?!?!? Surely the business can not be doing that poorly that such an insignificant amount of money (compared to the overall amount) is so important.
We want to build with this builder, that is why we payed the holding deposit! We are not holding out on them for anything! I wonder how much worse it will get once we actually give them the money and it's up to them to start doing the job and building our house? Extremely disappointed so far! It is a little disappointing that there is No movement on the land at all. I guess a lot of wishful thinking on our behalf that the land could be settled early.
Oh and surprise surprise, sales people stretch the truth. The "oh others have been given extensions on their build price, you'll be able to obtain an extension. Just say this line and they will give you an extension." Less than two months later, it's constant knocking on our door asking us to sign this and that along with the story that it is a lot stricter now, so please sign this to agree to pay us for every month of delay." Yes I understand the penalty if we are deliberately delaying the commencement of the build, but being penalised for something that is out of our control (settlement of new land) is just disappointing and makes you think twice about whether to proceed with this builder or not. Be careful of the friendly smiling consultants! No truth ever comes from their mouth. :) |
AuthorJust two bee's building a hive Archives
March 2015
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