Building house - is going to go over finish time stated in contract

in short the build hasnt even started but based on the time they have allowed for council approval and building im already a month behind.

i understand that theres a possibility that it can go over but i always thought more to bad weather etc.
is this acceptable?

apparently there were some holdups but tbh maybe a week if that and alot were cause by the builders themselves having to get the drawn plans changed because they gave incorrect information and in general not following up with emails for a few days. i reply within half a day if seems urgent otherwise within 1 day if not.

do i just have to suck it?
its costing me money holding loans with nothing happening and if its already a month out it may end up 2 months by the time the build is done!
will also put my current house sale too close to christmas so possibly have to hold that for longer too

 

Has the earth actually been broken? It's usually pretty standard for the clock to only start ticking from that point, and for approval and paperwork delays up to that point to be the homeowner's problem.

 

Are you building with a project builder? The longest part of the building process is the paperwork. For each of the times I've built I'm sick of the build before the temporary fencing goes up. On the positive, the build itself is the easy, less-stress part.

 

For my PPOR the clock didn't start until 20 days after the construction certificate was issued ( this was from the standard NSW HIA residential contract ). Check your contract.

What construction period is stipulated in your contract? For my 34sq PPOR it was 24 weeks.

 

You should have in the contract:
Time (no of days) to get to site and
Time (no of days) to completion from a certain point is site handover, building permit, slab down.
Also you could have put a reasonable penalty clause in there for breach of contract just like their 20% interest on late payments.

The paperwork side of things is bad, ground can be made up during the build if the orginisation is there.

Not worth stressing over this early on in the process, Something worse will pop up

 

only have a start and finish date in contact
start date was basically 2 weeks ago and waiting for council is apparently 2 weeks.

Great just what i wanted to hear! haha
i was just wondering if it was normal as i was told it would probably be finished before that date.

 

what are you building and how many days have been allowed? and how many for wet weather etc

 

Do you have liquidated damages in the contract?

If so and the builder does not complete within a given period (subject to valid extensions of time) then you would be entitled to make a claim for each day that practical completion was delayed.

 

Hmmm... that sounds unusual. Is this an established / large builder? What triggered the "start" date?

 

building my PPOR
126 days from start to finish

no liquidated damages in contract unless its standard.
first house build and no one really to guide me so no clue what im doing

yes,
start date was date written in contract

 

Very interesting. Most standard building contracts are written in the HEAVY favour of the Builder with defined terms rather than dates. For example it will say '20 working days to commence build' and that is then defined from when Council has approved building license and all services are available on the block.

 

Liquidated damages are pretty standard, but it's also pretty standard not to specify a particular stating date, so nothing about this sounds standard! I'm guessing you unfortunately didn't get precontractual legal advice. It may be time to get some, and figure out exactly what it is you've signed up for.

 

All projects cost more and take longer. Are your expectations accurate? Most contracts favour the builder and LD clauses fairly useless. Take bad weather as an excuse. Or.....

Most tax new devs get time, cost, taxes and strategy wrong through inexperience or failing to get good advice. Yes it costs money to save money. One of my work colleagues project managed his owner build home. All was good except one tradie who had to certify plumbing. Five weeks delay and no options..he saved 1k over next quote. Saved 50% on sink to delay trades three days for kitchen install and tiler. Extra cost 1200 to save 240. He blew his contingency budget on concrete he under estimated for labour and extra formwork.

 

@B-Man

Seems like it is project home builder contract.

If you read contract carefully, most likely it will say (along this line)

Start date will be 7/14 days once cc/building permits are issued.

As others mentioned, start date isn't the date you signed the contract.

 

If you want some non expert advice on the contract. Take a scan, edit out your identifying particulars and post it up on here and we can advise more accurately.

 

Are you fishing for a better (looser) contract WM?

 

Lol I like adding special clauses to the HIA contract to cover myself better.

 

understand this start date was 2 months after the contract was signed
heres the Building Contract with all personal info deleted

 

Yep, 11.3.14 gives them a right to postpone the finish date due to "any delay of the local authority".

 

@prep thanks for quoting exact condition

i am close to memorising MBA and HIA contracts.