Bathroom renovation , home warranty question

We’re in the process of organising a new bathroom . Buying our stuff through Harvey Norman and using one of their renovators who they have a long term relationship with . He’s lisenced , but not for work requiring home warrenty insurance . No complaints on record .

We’re using a certifier and becuse the initial quote was over 20 k we need home warrenty insurance , but ....

Total price around 26 k

Part of the job involves moving a door , which could be legally done outside the scope of the bathroom . So my thinking is we split the job into two parts ( quotes ) . One moving the door ( around 6 k ) and the other for the Reno at 19,999 ..

This way we should can still do the bathroom under the scope of the certification ( which we want to do for various reasons ) .

Suggestions / thoughts ?

@Scott No Mates , @Propertunity , @euro73 , @skater , @D.T.

 

Sorry Seech, I'm not a lot of help on this one. I'd just get Hubby to do it, and only get a tradie in for the smallest amount of work. As you don't have a Hubby, you can't repeat my method.

 

I've heard of builders doing this a lot as in pricing <the threshold. Not sure about split the quotes though - he's comment was extremely common.

 

Not able to undertake jobs requiring HOW - all the contractor has to do is to apply to get a change of licence category. My licence says the same. If I need insurance for a larger project, then I put my balls in the noose with the insurance company, declare my assets and get coverage. (HOW is not insurance it is a risk mitigation scheme from the insurers to ensure that they won't be out of pocket in the eventuality that a successful claim is made through fair trading (that the builder has gone bankrupt or died or committed some grievous act of fraud etc under the contract)). The insurer will have a secured right over the builder's assets. IMHO, HOW is BS. (can I use any more abbreviations in a sentence ).

How much is not paying for HOW insurance going to save in the scheme of things?
Does the contractor's licence allow him to undertake structural work?

 

Is this for your PPOR ?

Why do you want a Certifier involved for a bathroom Reno ?

All of our major Renovations have somehow been under the threshold.

 

It's not a bathroom reno . Its turning an existing study into a bathroom which is meant to be a certifiable development . I know a lot of people would ignore it , but it involves make a new plumbing connection and for various reasons we want this documented and certified .

Cliff

 

Extra work is just moving a door way , so nothing significant .

We do have to remove a wall in another part of the house which has required an engineering plan . The engineer said we didn't need an engineering plan for the door move .

We were using this as a trial for the other work but given the run around , we'll probably use someone else we know ( who wasn't available at the moment for this job )

Cliff

 

Do you hire a hubby ?

Cliff

 

He needs a passport to get to your place

 

No , Just the password , They're gonna Build a wall between The west and the rest ....
though it's mainly aimed at Datto ....

Cliff

 

Hi Cliff. If you’re planning to sell within 6 years you are going to need a HOW insurance policy. If no plans to sell then you can always come up with schemes like splitting the quote as you have. I don’t know why you’d want to though. There seems to be more in it for the contractor than for you. Maybe there’s more to it than you’ve mentioned?

 

We didn't have those issues before they'd built the F4 (yes I'm that old). Better roads only serves to encourage the riff raff - they obviously didn't listen to the Village People and 'go West'.

 

I think the issue is that the vast majority of the work , maybe all of it , is normally reno’s and for that it doesn’t need to be certified , and probably most people don’t worry about asking for HOW so it hasn’t come for a while . They told initially it only takes a a few days to get HOW , but it took much longer than that , and eventually didn’t .

When we originally checked their license , there was no comment about only being able to do work not requiring HOW , but there is now .

Cliff

 

Hey, I'm happy to hire him out.........he, on the other hand may have a different view.