It’s been a long time between posts.  Our revised, revised, revised preliminary contract price that was supposed to address all of our issues came through a few weeks ago.  I had hoped that after the positive site visit that this revision would finally address all our issues, but unfortunately not.  So we’ve been trying to work out what to do next.

 

The revised pricing is still filled with TBAs and un resolved issues, and yet our Design Consultant sent it through with the question is it OK to go to contract stage?  Is it just us?  Is everyone else happy to go to contract stage without knowing what they are getting or how much it will cost?  To their credit, the builder has done some research on the low VOC solvents and even included low VOC grout for the tiles which we hadn’t asked for, but I don’t understand why they couldn’t have contacted us for more details or help with the outstanding items before finalising this to send to us.   More annoyingly, the only agreement from our site visit that has been included in the schedule is that we will relocate the water tank.  What was the point of sending the project manager to talk through and resolve all the issues if they weren’t going to put them in the contract schedule?

 

The price is also becoming a concern.  We take things out of the standard design and get a tiny little credit back.  We make a change or add something in and the price climbs higher and higher.  The price of the low VOC paint has not changed since the last pricing schedule.  The low VOC grout and finish on the timber floors were no charge, so why is the paint still so much?  We’ve spoken to a professional painter, who also does estimating, and his advice was that the price difference between using the low VOC paint and the standard trades paint was not what we are being charged.  We still haven’t received a credit for the electrical pit which was accidentally included included, when they corrected their mistake the price did not change.  And we have been credited for the tree root protection (more about that next), but not the portion of the extra concrete pump cost associated with it.

 

But it’s the tree root protection that is really disturbing me.  In the current pricing schedule we have been credited the cost of the tree root protection on the basis that we remove all trees on the property (this is at odds with the site visit agreement) and a tree in the adjoining property (news to our neighbours and which one?) and the builder will relocate the tree near the alfresco to the adjoining yard (I think they are referring to the incorrect position of the trees on the site plan, or maybe our neighbours are going to get a free tree!).  And most importantly, this statement is still does not answer our original question – which trees are triggering the tree root protection?  It’s a simple question and if they did an assessment they should know the answer.  The fact that they’ve avoided answering it on three occasions now really makes me wonder what on earth is going on?

 

We’ve told themthat we don’t wish to proceed and have explained why, however they still want to try and work through the issues and one of the Director’s wants to meet with us , and we’re open to this.  However, for me personally, I want an answer to that simple question before discussing any of the other issues.  If I don’t get an answer to that question I won’t be signing a contract, so there’s no point discussing anything else.  We have also started revisiting our other options; but for now we are fed up and exhausted, so will be taking a little break from it all until next year.

Interestingly, we had a phone call from the previous builder we were dealing with today.  There is a new sales person there and the Managing Director would like to meet with us to look at our proposal again.  So who knows what the new year will bring.

 

Credit for Feature Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net