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As far as I’m concern they organized an engineer to do a soil test (which we...

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Jurgen Banadera

As far as I’m concern they organized an engineer to do a soil test (which we pay) before the build and before they made the quote. Their explanation written below: (please note that they never advised us that there might be additional costs due to those changes) My arguments was; with all those changes how come they never advise us of the costs that may arise with those changes. They made us believed that even with those changes everything was covered by their quote. “As the dimensions and location of your home changed from original earthworks quote, our contractor is within their rights to re-quote and pass all additional costs on to you as per final plans. However, they are a very good company and offered to complete as per their original quote. Unfortunately they encountered a deeper level of topsoil at the northern end of your property than anticipated. They immediately ceased work and notified us of the extra cost of hard fill required to complete your building platform. They did not charge extra for the labour to compact the extra hard fill, just the extra to cover the unexpected extra hard fill. Due to your home design changing and moving on your site, the Electrician and Drainage contractors too have the opportunity to re-quote your job for you. We have spoken to them and at this stage they are happy to continue with the work as quoted unless anything unexpected occurs on site due to the new location of your home. We have attached the plans for your review along with the original earthworks quote. Sorry for any inconvenience caused due to the unexpected top soil depth on your site. Our purpose is to remove as much stress and make this an enjoyable journey for all, so we hope this email alleviates any misunderstandings. Our site supervisor and the earthworks contractor are still happy to meet with you and discuss the situation, however as you can see from the above changes you made we believe they have been fair and reasonable with dealing with your earthworks. Please advise if you would still like to go ahead with said meeting”
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James Simpson

I think this is fair due to change of location of building platform. The fact that no extra labour was charged is worth ticking off as a win. $1000 in the scheme of things is not big especially for footings and foundation. I’d advise to not make this a big issue given that as the build progesses you need to keep a good working relationship and there might be bigger issues down the track that need more leverage.
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Ralph

Seems fair enough to me – if something unexpected crops up, would be your cost – since it’s your house. Not always possible to identify everything that might crop up along the way. Really you need to have some resilience if your building as otherwise you will argue over every minor issue that will come up. That’s why you budget for an extra 10% etc.
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David

Yes, agree. We had a similar figure on our first build in Wellington, and in the scheme of things this is small, there were changes to layout that were not originally envisaged. You should have a budget of, in my experience, 4-5% sitting to the side as a contingency even on fixed price contracts for these types of eventualities (and for the inevitable nice-to-have upgrades you may want later, plus curtains and landscaping).
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