Week 35 - Fences were up after 8 Months

All right so after 8 long long months, fences were up sometime last week and site seemed to have been 'scraped' as initial preparation!

I suspect this is more to do with preventing further 'illegal dumping' like what happened before so I may not classify it as official construction starts just yet - after all my CSR has not told me they have started already.

But at least it's some sort of real work being done on the block!

Among all the blocks sold at the same time as mine - end of Jan 2010, there are two other blocks that are ahead of mine. Those are their photos taken about 7 weeks ago!

And this is where those two houses were two weeks ago:

Meet the neighbours, and the dirts are gone!

Well technically I haven't face to face met my neighbour yet!

However this morning my SS rang and said somehow he managed to speak to a 'boss' of the real estate agent who sold the land next to my block. (Because those dirts were about 2/3 on my block and 1/3 on my neighbour's block.) The guy from the real estate agent managed to speak to someone else who then agreed to remove those dirts from mine and my neighbour's land without charging us! So that really worked out well!

It always helps to talk to the right person, doesn't it?

One other thing that I found out today was that my neighbour is going to build with Allworth Home. Allworth's Concerto is one of the final two optionss that I was tossing around, before I finally went to AV Jennings' Galleria 210. And yet it looks like there will be an Allworth home and an AV Jennings home sitting side by side anyway! Would be interesting to see who the neighbours are!

Met my Site Supervisor

Something maybe more positive is that when I went to site to look at the dumps, I happened to meet my site supervior Brian, who was also there looking at the situation.

He said he had ordered fences and was going to put them up and then he found out the dumps during his site visit on Wednesday(15 Sep).

First impression was that Brian seems to be very nice and helpful! At the back of his Commodore Wagon there are two file boxes with 20+ files, all nicely organised, for the houses that he is looking after.

Well a good SS would be a nice start!

Who was the litter?

Was told by my Customer Service Representative that someone has dumped some dirt at the back of my block.

Went to have a look this morning and unfortunately it's not insignificant. Apparently unless you catch them on the spot it's next to impossible to find out who did it and get them to remove it.

I was told it's gonna cost anywhere around $800 - $1500 to get them removed. Looks like I'll just have to cop the cost. One of those things you have to deal with I guess.

Construction Certificate Issued - After 33 weeks (7.5 Mths)!!

Got the Construction Certificate in my mailbox today! Hooray!! (But wonder why they didn't sent to builder directly?)

Anyway, so after a long 33-week since putting down a deposit for the land, builder has now got everything they need to start construction. Let's see when the real action will happen on the land!

More

Those pebbles are mine!

Got a confirmation from my builder this morning. Those pebbles were actually from them (sorry the builder next door!) They brought the pebbles last week so that the site can have 'all weather access', just in case in rains!

Surprisingly even thought the construction certificate has not been issued yet, they seemed to have been doing something already. My CSR also told me they are ordering some materials already ...

Well, let's hope the actual construction can start soon after CC is issued! Fingers crossed!

MORE

Something for nothing?

Went to site this afternoon and found out someone 'left' a small pile of pebbles on my block - there is no construction on my neighbour blocks. It might be from the house opposite the street?

Not much else to report as we still haven't got the construction certificate. The approval seems to take forever - so far it's taken:

• 12 weeks to go through Ponds Review Board;
• 7 weeks to get the Development Application through council; and
• 2 weeks into getting Construction Certificate (CC)

That is almost 5 months and still counting! It may still take another 1 - 2 weeks for CC to be issued and then builder needs to issue their work orders, construction drawings and order materials. So the actual site start seems to be 4 - 6 weeks away!

Hopefully the builder will get the paperworks done soon so that they can fence off the block and it won't become nearby builders dumping ground!

Back to home

Neighbour's house in a week

Have nothing to report on my own but was surprised to see how fast my neighbour's home is progressing.

Reward Home is a small builder too. Their website isn't even as sophisticated as some of the blogs but their building seems quite fast. This other blog I read also said another small builder on their street seems to do well too.