It's a Miracle, we got handover!

Yes we thought there was no way in the world we would get handover today especially as nothing much was done by 3:30 yesterday. Anyway we went to the appointment at 10:00 not expecting anything but just to see what happens. Almost everything had been done and the things that were not were the cabinets and the cleaning and they arrived and finished it while we were there!

After we waited for the cabinets to be finished we went off to the Berwick office and got the keys!!!!!

There are a few little things that still need to be done like a missing flyscreen, a missing roof tile, Renani hot water controller not working and the keys we were given only open one of the doors so we have no keys for the other ones. But WE HAVE A HOUSE, YAAY!!! We thought it would never happen but our SS managed to make it happen.

Will write more we I have time, lots to organise now.

Can't see handover happening

David and I went to the house today at 3:00 (handover is meant to be tomorrow morning) and we could see the downpipe has been fixed but the cabinet makers have obviously not come nor had the painters. The flyscreen laying in the backyard is still there all bent up and the house has not been cleaned. There was nobody there of course.

Considering once the bathroom vanity top has been replaced they still need a plumber to put the sink back on there is no hope for tomorrow. SS has not answered his phone all day. I called CSR to find out what is going on, she said she would get the building manager to call but again nothing.

We are totally at a loss as to what to do, there does not seem to be any hope of ever getting everything done and we have the people coming on Monday to install the plantation shutters. Maybe they will accept our offer of handover now in return for a $10,000 refund??? Speaking of refunds they actually have agreed to give us the $1000 refund for the gutters to not be replaced.

We still haven't given notice on our rental so maybe we can just give up on getting the house and keep renting. It would be just like having an investment property but with no-one living in it!

Spat the Dummy

Last week our site supervisor agreed to meet us on Tuesday morning 10:00 at the house so we could go through what has been done and what it will take to get us in. We had not been able to look inside for quite a while so we really need to see what had been done. This whole thing has been so stressful and is making me sick literally I have got really bad bronchitis. So anyway after being up all night coughing and thinking about the house and getting no sleep I was in a fine mood by the morning NOT! David is so busy at work at the moment he could only get til 1:00 off so we drove in separate cars, at 9:30 when we are both on the road SS calls to say can we make it 11:00 as he has been called into a meeting with building manager, how rude! David basically says no way get your butt down here. Now I am in an even worse mood.


SS was only 10 mins late in the end which we were expecting worse but in that time we had found an open window and jumped in and started looking around, this is when my blood started to boil. In 4.5 weeks hardly any of the items on the list had been fixed and even some new problems had come up such as some idiot leaning an unused door up against our feature wall causing the paint to be scratched and dented the whole way along.


I had never met SS before but I totally went nuts at him he just cannot seem to get anything done. He started calling tradesmen in a panic. In the end we came up with a list of items that had to be fixed before we get handover and I told him we want handover on Friday which he said we would definitely have he absolutely promised. I said ok can I get tradesmen to come on Monday? and he said definitely. I even mentioned that if there is no handover on Friday I am just breaking a window on Monday to let my tradesmen in. I also said that if the house is not ready on Friday we can negotiate a refund to cover the fact that we will need to get all the things fixed ourselves and I am thinking $10,000 should cover it. Obviously he said that he could not authorise that sort of thing and we would have to speak to the building manager Dean. This is the same building manager who has never once got involved in our job even though we are way over contract time. Thanks Dean!

There are a number of items on Kevin's list that we are just not bothering about as they are just not capable of fixing stuff, we now just want the list to be manageable and only the essential stuff on it. Some examples of this are tiling that is not right and stains on the render.

As for our Colorbond gutters that had been damaged by the brick cleaners and have now been painted over. I called the manufacturer and they confirmed that it would no longer be under warranty and that they should be replaced and we are getting an inferior product even though we have paid for Colorbond. As there is no way in the world we want to wait for the entire gutters and fascia to be replaced I decided to write to PD requesting a $1000 refund to accept the inferior product.

Here are some pictures of the things that need to be fixed:

The cabinet makers (apparently named Claytons) finally came back to finish the walk in robe cupboards. This is a picture of the door they installed. No thought to the fact that it was damaged and would just need to be replaced.
This is how neatly they get things to line up NOT
This is where they have put the shelf in the wrong way with the chipboard facing the front, we cant just change it round because it has a hole drilled in the back to accommodate the pipe.
This is the top of the bathroom vanity that has been scratched for ages but still not replaced
This is our new baby's wardrobe door handles that don't even come close to lining up (not sure if you can tell from the pic)
Again not sure if you can tell from the pic but Kevin noticed this feature column is very crooked. We have given up on bothering getting this fixed after SS asked us today "so which one is it?", he has had the inspection report for 4 weeks and not bothered to find out!
A render stain in the front bedroom window. We have given up on this one too as you can't see it from the street.
Scratched down pipe right through to the metal, this is on the to be fixed list.

Still Nothing

After sending my email on Tuesday to PD explaining how totally fed up we are we finally heard back from CSR this morning (she might have been away). She sent an email saying "I have passed your e-mail onto our management team as well as SS. Please advise if you have not received any contact from SS by the end of the day". I have just written back saying we did not hear from him.

If that email did not promote any action then nothing will, I give up. I guess we will see what happens in the next few days.

Walkthrough Cancelled

Yes we had a walkthrough scheduled for today where we were supposed to see a finished house with the potential for handover this afternoon. I drove by yesterday morning and could see of course that the house is no where near finished. David called SS so say shall we cancel the meeting and SS said that things would be finished that afternoon. Anyway SS sends text this morning saying save your leave (from work) the cabinet maker did not come. So walkthrough cancelled. Luckily I had not bothered to get the bank to send the final payment because I can see we are still miles off handover.

I have driven past every day lately and there is never anybody there including today. We are now 33 weeks since site scrape and we were sold into a guaranteed build time of 20 weeks with a verbal indication of 16, what a joke! We are now 1 month over on our contract and I cannot see any end in sight. Kevin's list of issues that came out of the inspection is nothing short of horrifying.

One of the issues he picked up on was huge scratches on our bifold doors. The Building Commission’s, Guide to Standards and Tolerances clause 18.04 Glazing, states: "Scratches, fractures, chips or blemishes on glazing and mirrors are defects if they are caused by the builder and can be seen from a normal viewing position. Minor scratches, fractures, chips or other blemishes that are not more than 10mm long and where there are not more than three blemishes per pane, are not defects’
Our scratches are huge and very visible.
This is the response we got from PD about the issue "the windows after being inspected by the Building Manager will not be replaced as they are not deemed defective"

We did not pay 4k to upgrade to bifold doors to have them handed over as damaged. During the entire build process PD made NO effort what so ever to protect any of the windows on the house from damage. On other builds I have seen the windows had a protective plastic type coating on them but not ours. Hence of course the windows have been damaged by careless tradesmen, why should this become our problem? We are waiting for the handover of a new house not a damaged one. I cannot see where the building manager is coming from to say the scratches are not defects when at least one of them is 10 times the size mentioned in the standard.

Regardless of issues that need to be fixed we still do not have a bathroom mirror or walk in robe cupboards. These are just yet to be installed.

I am so thankful that due to reading everyones blogs we decided not to give notice on our rental until we have the keys to the new house in our hand. Although this will cost us an extra month's rent it will mean we don't have to accept handover of an unfinished house due to having no where to live.

I have just sent an email to our CSR basically saying that we are fed up so we shall see what the result is.

Practical Completion Inspection

Sorry I have not posted about our inspection yet, I just have not got around to it, I was also waiting to hear what was happening but I still don't know anyway.

We had our Practical Completion Inspection last Friday at 10:00. We had let our SS know that Kevin was coming to do his inspection at the same time and he was fine with it. I thought that was a bit strange because our first SS did not want to be around when Kevin was inspecting (which I can understand). Anyway at 9:15 Friday SS calls us to say it can be embarrassing for both parties if SS is there at Kevin's inspection so he would just come and unlock and then we would call when Kevin was leaving and he would come to continue inspection.

Kevin found quite a few things I can't remember what they all are (he said he would have his report done by Wednesday morning but we are not getting it til tomorrow now). The worst item was that the Colorbond fascia has been affected by the brick cleaning fluid (see picture) the entire way around the house. Kevin say this cannot be repaired according to the manufacturer and must be replaced otherwise the whole lot will just rust. He said sometimes he sees this happen on bits of the fascia but rarely around the whole house like we have it (great!)
SS has the Colorbond people coming out today to advise if it can be fixed without replacing gutters and fascia (sounds doubtful) but if not the whole lot has to come off and be replaced!

Other issues were not as bad. Lots of paint touch ups needed, scratched windows including the bi fold doors, scratched and dented cabinets, cupboard shelves missing, leaking pipes, kitchen sink not installed properly, feature column installed on a slant. Many issues we would not have picked up on without Kevin's help.

In the end SS did not show up so we just left after trying to finish the inspection ourselves. We have no idea when handover will be now but we will certainly need a re-inspection before hand.

Our ensuite mirror has been put in and also the shower screens. Painting issues have been fixed but we have not checked the work.

We have a handover date!

We were thrilled to find out yesterday that our Practical Completion Inspection is booked for Friday 10th Oct with our hand over date to be the Friday after. Obviously this relies on everything getting fixed in one week so it is certainly not set in stone. At least they know we are having Kevin do the inspection so are less likely to pass things off as ok when they are not. We are not going to give notice on our rental until we have had the inspection so if any of the items are major we will not have to accept handover because we have nowhere to live.

The house has been cleaned internally so we can get a nicer view of the kitchen. I am not sure if the house gets cleaned again but it is nowhere near clean! The spa still looks like it did in my last post.
The bobcat has also been to visit the outside of the house and the rubbish cage has gone. It looks so much nicer. David and I spent a back breaking couple of hours last weekend clearing up all the dried concrete, broken bricks and builders rubbish from around the back and sides of the house and put it into a big pile in the front. We are glad this has been taken away, we are also glad we made the effort because a lot of it was sort of buried and we think they would just have tried to cover it up.
This is the alfresco area, they have bought dirt in to cover up the slab a bit.

There is really not much left to do inside just shower screens, mirrors and some tapware that I can think of. All that is booked for next week. The holes in the tiles have been fixed.

All our door handles are on although the wrong ones have been installed on the front and laundry doors. I even told the guy they were wrong but he put them on anyway. There is no doubt they will have to change them because the PCV is very clear.