Big things have happened since our last update. When I last made a blog entry, we were still waiting for the contracts to arrive that Friday. Well....5pm Friday came and went, and we had all but given up on the contract when we received a phone call at approximately 8pm that night. Apparently there was a problem - a big problem...
I won't go into too much detail here, but suffice to say that there were some major issues in our original site cost estimations. Our house had been costed to go on a slab, when from day one we have said that we will need to go on stumps. We weren't happy, Onley wasn't happy, and Premier wasn't happy. After much consideration, we decided that it was all too hard and notified Premier that we no longer wished to re-sign the contract with Onley. We requested a full refund and left it at that.
Then on Thursday we received word back from Premier - they don't want us to go! They offered us Prime Construction instead, and offered to provide us with a 45 day site start. It seemed like a fair offer so we considered this, but when push came to shove, this still doesn't resolve the costing issue. And after all the delays we have experienced to this point, frankly we are a little bit over it all. So on Saturday we notified Premier that we were rejecting their counter-offer.
Where does this leave us now?
Essentially, we are back to square one - back to the drawing board. We had a meeting with Keogh Homes on Saturday morning to investigate what they can do for us. Keogh are a much smaller project builder, but they specialise in period homes and the quality of their work is outstanding. The designer gave us a lot of helpful points to consider in our new design, so we have been busy putting together an initial sketch of what we want. We have another meeting in two weeks so it will be interesting to see what he can do for us then.
We have also been looking at Highview Homes again, as it turns out they CAN build on stumps (they just prefer to build on a slab). They have some really nice weatherboard cottage style houses (the Seachange series in particular), and include a lot of the period features as standard. It just comes down to whether or not they have a floor plan that suits.
Stay tuned...
How disappointing for you both. Did your contract with Romeo specify stumps but it had not been priced? We would have been so upset if this was the case.
ReplyDeleteHad a look at the Keogh site, they do have really lovely homes. I can see how they would be a great alternative to the coventry.
We will stay tuned....
What a shame, I hope this doesnt set you back too much.
ReplyDeleteI think you made a good move though, it just started to sound all too difficult for Onley, and that refusal to speak to you, certainly did not endear themselves at all.
Will look forward to following your journey as it progresses.
Hi, we have recently started following your blog and are hoping to build with Premier. We have been quoted huge site costs for the slab as it has to be the greatest depth and requires root protection. We are considering changing to stumps and I was wondering if you could tell me what the price difference between stumps and slab was when this error in your costings was discovered?
ReplyDeleteHi there, from our discussions with a range of builders stumps usually work out as a more expensive option than going on a slab - many volume builders don't seem to like building on stumps and as such tend to steer customers away from this option.. Due to the slope and cut on our block we were always going on stumps, so we never got the slab option priced up. We were told to expect the stumps to cost about $15,000, plus the other site costs such as fencing, drainage and so on. The total figure was around what we expected so we didn't question it. However, when Onley took over the preparation of our contract they had put down in the specs that we were building on a slab. When we pointed this out and told them it was actually on stumps in the drawings and original Romeo contract, they reviewed the original coatings and found the error - supposedly the costs didn't include either stumps or a slab.
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