It’s not easy being green (and pink)

Our refinance is due to settle on Monday, barring disaster. I spoke to the builder and he says he’ll be ready to go in two to three weeks.

Now, I expect the settlement to go through. But I don’t expect the builder to be ready in two to three weeks. I am hopeful he might be ready to go in, say, four to five weeks, but past experience says he probably won’t be.

Still, I want to believe these renos will start soon, so for now I am going to be optimistic-ish and say we’re about four weeks from starting, so things could be underway by mid-September. Not bad for a job we thought would have been done by April!

I’m so sick of this stupid reno process that I can’t imagine anyone else can be bothered to read about it at all, but since I’ve documented our trials to date, I’ll persist.

We got our bank paperwork sent off on Monday and have been waiting for them to send it back so we could rectify the bits that we screwed up. Today we got an email that it has all been checked and they’re proceeding to settlement – all I can say is, they must not have checked very closely! There’s one form that asked for the date of the new mortgage but we didn’t know what that would be so we left it out and signed the form.

They shouldn’t be amending our signed form so we were expecting that to come back. There are also variances between the amount the builder put on the contract and the amount the bank has allocated to pay him (they didn’t allow for GST, even though the tender clearly states that the price is ex-GST), so we thought that would come back, too.

Then there’s the small matter of the progress payment notes saying that the third installment will be paid once the new kitchen is in. Um, we are not getting a new kitchen! Anyway we just lined through that bit and they didn’t say anything about it.

Oh, and our insurance now lists two mortgagees becaue we didn’t want to go removing our old bank before settlement. I was sure the new bank would have a problem with that, too, but nope.

We’ve also finally signed the contract with the builder and I am not that confident that’s all on the up and up either because the builder kept asking me questions about what details went where – eg there was a question about financing for the project and it was not clear whether we should write in the amount of our whole mortgage or just what related to the renos. The builder let me make the call, seeing as I have no experience with building contracts or renovation loans whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the builder started in with the line about it being close to Christmas when everything gets busy so it’s hard to say how long the job will take. Dude, it’s the first week in August. Even the department stores don’t have the gall to pull out the “Christmas is just around the corner” line.

Anyway, I’m starting to feel like we won’t be finished this year, and getting a little bit nervous that we may not be started, either.

We’ve crept a tiny bit closer to getting this show on the road, with the arrival today of our certificate of home warranty insurance. The insurance is a big rip off that’s not even worth having but it’s a legal requirement and we have been unable to collect our council paperwork without it.

I’m about to call council up and get them to pull our file for collection tomorrow. I feel so nervous that there will be some condition on there that everyone forgot to tell us about.

We’ve also filled in the paperwork from the bank and will be sending that back on the weekend, assuming the builder brings over the few things we need from him. There were sections of the bank paperwork that were completely baffling to us (eg, there was a spot where we needed to fill in the date for the new mortgage, but a settlement date has not actually been set). We’ve decided to send it back anyway and let them chase us if we’ve got it wrong.

We don’t know what we’re doing and we’re not going to magically figure it out by reading the forms for the 67th time, so we’re letting the bank deal with it.

Oh, the certificate of insurance includes an estimated completion date of 20 November – too late for Hunter’s birthday party, even if they finish on time, and of course they won’t.

Just in case you were wondering.

We are still wading through paperwork. The bank needs a whole pile of stuff we don’t have, including copies of the builder’s licence and insurance, copies of our insurance, lots of certified documents that we’ll need to get witnessed, etc, etc.

And the really fabulous surprise we got was learning that we have to pay our contribution to the reno costs not to the builder, but to the bank.

Basically, the bank wants to make all the payments to the builder, even though it’s only stumping up a little over half the cost. I have to give the bank my $40K+ for them to pass on! I am not happy about this. I give the bank practically all my savings at the time of settlement, then they sit on it until they need it for the progressive paydown.

Meanwhile, they’re earning income from my money, and charging interest on our loan! I just love the way the banks manage to charge you a hundred different ways for the same thing.

Anyhow, the builder’s applied for the home warranty insurance and we should have that by Friday, then we can pick up the plans a day or two after that, then get everything signed and THEN we should be able to return all the paperwork, probably next week at this rate.

The builder has another job to do before ours, which he says will take about four weeks. I assume this means it will take about eight weeks, but it hasn’t actually started yet, so I am guessing it might be 10-12 weeks before anything actually happens here.

You’ve heard it from me many times before – six long months have passed since we launched this ridiculous house extension plan.

In January, we got the draft plans from the architect. We looked them over. We made changes. We tweaked this and adjusted that. And then we were happy.

We spent the next five months bouncing around between old banks and new banks and brokers and builders and council assessors and I nearly went insane in the process. And then one day it was all sorted. The plans were approved. The finance was approved. The builder was selected. All that was left to do was start building.

Then on Tuesday, Leigh says, “How about we put a window where that door is? And move the other door over that way a bit? And fill in that wall?”

She has completely valid reasons for wanting to make these changes. But I am saying NO to any involvement in this. I am NOT going back to council, I am NOT getting a revised quote and I am NOT NOT NOT spending one more cent of my money on this project.

Meanwhile, we’re meeting with the builder this afternoon. Leigh will probably discuss these ideas with him. I will be in the corner, with my hands clamped over my ears.

OUR LOAN IS UNCONDITIONALLY APPROVED!

Hallelujah!

And it’s only been six months since we started this project.

There has been much of it today.

The valuer has stuck to his guns and is insisting that the properties we put forth as examples of comparable sales are all superior to ours. How a smaller house on a smaller block in a crappier location can be superior, I don’t know, but that’s the way it is. He didn’t budge one dollar.

So our options are to take out the ridiculously expensive 100% loan (it’s really insanely more expensive – probably around $250 a week when all the fees etc are added up) or take far less than we actually need and magically find $40k (must remember to check my jeans pocket).

We did try talking to the builder. He was utterly unhelpful, and actually tried to tell leigh she was mistaken about the $25,000 difference between his estimate and final quote, even though we have both in writing.

So, basically, we’re screwed. We really can’t afford to do this. But if we don’t, well it’s close to five thousand bucks down the tube and Hugo will have to sleep in a cupboard.

The builder called tonight to check a few final details and said he’d be back to us with a definite price in the next day or two (which I am going to go ahead and assume means “next week or two”).

I am feeling very nervous. I swear I could hear cash registers kerchinging as he spoke. I have this awful feeling that his final quote is going to look nothing like his original estimate.

I hope I am wrong!

Okay, I was wrong and the builder was right, on two fronts:

1) Calling the engineer WAS a good idea; and

2) Knocking down the walls and rebuilding IS a better approach

We saw the engineer on Saturday and he was fantastic. Obviously very experienced, and he has worked with our architect and our builder and our council assessing officer in the past. So instead of me making a trillion phone calls and asking stupid, ill-informed questions, he said he’d just contact everyone directly and get the information he needed.

He also confirmed that we DON’T need to raise the slab height by 10cm, which is what the builder has been freaking out about, so I am hoping that issue will be put to bed and we can get on with it. And he said he agreed with the builder about knocking down the existing walls – he even thinks it might be cheaper that way because it will be quicker, and labour costs are the killer in reno projects.

He also talked to us about the option of doing an online owner-builder course for $95 instead of spending a couple of thousand dollars getting homeowner’s warranty insurance through the builder. For a few thousand bucks I’d rather keep the builder on side but it could be a good option if the builder doesn’t mind either way – most of the money would go to the insurer, not the builder, and it would mean he’d be employed as a tradesman instead of a project manager and therefore would carry less liability.

The upside of that approach for us is that we could do it quickly and actually collect our stupid paperwork from council, but the downside is that we’d be project managing the renovations and I just don’t want to do that. I am already sick to the back teeth of the whole thing and building hasn’t even started. I want someone else to do all the chasing – ideally someone who actually knows something about building!

Anyway the engineer said he’d have the drawings done today and I am hoping he’ll pass them directly to the builder, and I am really, really hoping the builder will then get on with getting us a final tender for me to pass on to the mortgage broker.

I wish the engineer had known our mortgage broker and then I could have just taken myself out of the loop all together!

At any rate, the engineer made us feel a lot calmer about the whole process because he was very knowledgable and he’s open to being contacted throughout the project if we need further hand holding. His work will cost us $400 but for once it feels like money well spent.

The stats:

Weeks since we started this project = 21

Money spent = about $4,500

Building work completed = none