Hi there, we were considering a ‘new build’ and I’ve read most of the comments...

Hi Lisa, No question is a dumb question, when you’re planning to possibly put your life savings at risk, and almost certainly enter into a year or two of hassle and worry, even if you’re experienced in this kind of thing, and it goes as well as it ever can. I have no specific knowledge of why they would make this kind of change, but on the face of it I would suspect it’s got something to do with distancing themselves and their personal wealth from the business side, in case things go wrong. Which may or may not be a red flag. You kind of started out by implying that you had decided not to get involved in the undoubted risks of a new build, but then found yourself unable to resist the temptation of having a house built to your own requirements. So if you go that way, I’ll repeat something I’ve said before. Before starting anything that involves giving them an amount of money you can’t afford to lose, remember if things ever go wrong your only hope of real protection is ‘exactly’ what it says in the contract. So ask to see the form they use, get it checked by a lawyer (or maybe QS) who knows what to look for, and if the builder says he won’t make any changes your lawyer requires then walk away. Even a wonderful contract can still give problems, but a bad one is worse than useless. And BS verbal reassurances (don’t worry, we would never do that) from a sales person or even the builder themselves is useless, unless they’re prepared to put it in writing as part of the contract.

Thanks for the reply Chris and clarifying their potential reasoning, that makes alot of sense. Also, I just realised I was a bit contradictory in my post. Prior to seeing this review site, we had been actively looking into new builds with the usual BIG group builders like the GJ Gardners, Navigation etc.. even checking out show homes and lots. Going with a big well known franchise gave us a sense of security (huh!). Then I happened upon this site, and hopes of building our dream home evaporated pretty quickly after reading all the bad experiences people have had with these so called ‘safer option’ established and well known builders. But, as you so rightly pointed out, I still couldn’t resist checking out independent builders, so off I went down that rabbit hole which led me to posting a query here, about one of my findings. As for the contract side of things, we are not ones to sign anything willy-nilly and would never accept verbal assurances, nor sign anything without a lawyer to look over it. Like you said, if it’s not in writing, it don’t mean nothing and that’s the mantra we have always stuck with. We had a big double garage built with a well know garage brand builder years ago. Our initial meeting with the manager went well, he agreed to all the changes we wanted to their spec plans. We get the final drawings to sign off, and find they hadn’t put in enough trusses to account for the high wind zone (he hadn’t realised..wow), and the stud height of where our roller doors were to be installed was not the higher height we asked for. He verbally assured us this would be done, but we refused to sign off until they changed the plans to the specs we agreed to. He got all huffy about it, but we stood firm and we recieved the corrected plans. Then came to the build, and all went smoothly until…you guessed it, their builder built the stud height of the roller doors 5 inches lower. He was so used to putting up these garages, he just went with their usual specs. The manager comes to investigate, and bemoans how much work it would be to re-do and why can’t we just leave as is. Umm, cos that’s not we wanted! We then reminded him of the plans we signed off, their contractual obligations, and we refused to make the next progress payment until it was sorted. He huffed and puffed again but the contract was king! so he had no choice, and in the end, we got exactly what we asked for, a solid and well built garage. We did our due diligence prior and also checked out the building codes for our property, which is how we picked up the truss issue. Anyhoo..sorry to rave on, but this site and everyone’s experiences reminded me of what we dealt with when building a pretty basic double garage 17 years ago, so obviously building a new house is going to throw up a hundred times more potential issues to deal with! After reading all these post with some horrific outcomes for people, it’s a case of having to educate yourself on everything in building construction, don’t sign anything without due diligence and even then there are no guarantees, trust your instincts and be prepared to walk away. Thanks again for the insights and advice I’ve read from you in throughout this forum. Happy holidays!