Contract Signed!

Cordova Two MJH Classic Facade

We signed the construction contract with McDonald Jones Homes today. Initial date for signing the contract was set earlier for 31-Mar-2016. But they shared the soft copies of the contract only on 30-April-2016. We thought one partial day isn’t really enough to go through this very important legal document of nearly 100 pages, to get our feedback clarified and things corrected. We had to postpone the signing date by one week which is today (07-April-2016).

Meantime, we shared our concerns with MJH that few statements are not correct and some clauses are irrelevant. But they said this contract can’t be changed because it is a standard HIA contract. Our land is already registered and few survey reports are already available. But those are not reflected in the contract thus chances of increase in site cost are there!

So, we get our contract reviewed by a building & construction lawyer. And she mentioned that MJH can’t alter the text of HIA contract but surely can hand-amend items to reflect current situation. So we asked MJH so, and this time they agreed. Not sure why they themselves hadn’t suggested this earlier!

So, this morning we visited MJH office. Our concerns were taken into account and a few things were hand-amended in the contract. And we are finally happy. A big step indeed as this is our first home. It was nice meeting Kim who is working on behalf of our CLO Wendy.

However, there are two minor pending items. We asked for a slight change of location of alfresco water points. Also we have been asking for a hand shower installation option in bathroom and ensuite for last three months since we signed preliminary agreement, which is not resolved yet. Those will be fixed through post-contract variation. These items are already approved and wouldn’t cost any admin fee (usually whatever changes you make after signing the contract, there is an associated admin fee).

Now on MJH side, they will gather all required reports from different authorities; submit the plans to council (CDC for us). Looks like this approval process will take until end of May’2016. Then we need to provide Authority to commence construction (ACC) from our financial lender. And MJH will commence construction within 20 days of receiving ACC (may be around end June’2016). Our electrical appointments will be done sometime in between.

Looking at the timeline, it doesn’t look like we will be able to complete our home before Christmas. That’s too bad because tradesmen here are usually on leave in January L . Also bad weather is just starting. So, we will be losing two or more precious months. So at least ten more months to see the below floor plan to coming into live, fingers crossed!