Our Bountiful Beauty: August 2014

...and The Confiscation.

So after many weeks of little to no progress I finally got jack of it.

I emailed the builder politely to ask what is happening and whether we were still on track for the mid-Aug practical completion walk through and key handover by the end of August. I also expressed concern at the list of approx 10 items we had given them and they had responded with dates each item would be completed by, as only 2 of those items had since been completed, and neither of them were on the dates advised.

They responded by saying the supervisor would call me to discuss.

He did call, and he made the comment that "everything inside has finished, its only the outside" so I took that as my opportunity to jump in with a "well actually, no" and it started from there. We had quite a pleasant conversation where I pointed out a couple of things and said there were quite a few, and as I still had my construction key did he want me to send him a list, effectively minimising the need for a walk through, and this way he could get started on the works inside while the external works were still being completed.

So I did. All 85 line items of a list was sent to them late last week, and today they emailed me saying the construction manager was going to go through the list, but in the meantime could I return my construction key. I don't think they liked my list! But the way I see it, they either get the list now, or they get it later, and at least this way we might get our keys sometime before the end of the year.

The list got the desired result though. I did a drive-by at lunch time today and there were 5 cars there, one of which being the construction manager, who was going over things with the painter as the bulk of the items on the list were painting issues.

And after many weeks waiting, today we finally got some stone to the front elevation!

So I expect a call and a request for a meeting with the manager sometime this week. I am more than happy to compromise on some things, but I went in with every little thing on the list to begin with so I would have some room to move. If I went in easy, they'd try to get away with less than that, and I'm paying good money for this stuff, so they can bloody well do a good job!

So, we've booked to move at the end of September, whether we have the keys or not, but I'm hoping we do have a bit of time to do little bits and pieces before that.

We'll see....

Impatience!

Since the last post, we really haven't seen a whole lot of progress, which is frustrating to say the least!

The builder contacted me at the end of July and advised that we weren't far off our first inspection, to which I responded with a "really?" followed by a list of currently incomplete items. They responded with dates each of the items were due to happen, and to date they have hit maybe 3 of those. The bulk of the internal items are completed, but there is the entire front elevation still remaining to be started, and lets just say attendance by trades on site has been sparse. The builder has since adjusted the mid-August key handover to a 20th August first inspection date, and at this stage, being only a week away, I doubt they'll hit that date either.

We have reached the point where we can't let them hold us up any longer, so bookings for our own "after handover" items have been made, including the laying of our floor tiles, for which our tiler needs full uninterrupted access, so I have informed the builder, in no uncertain terms, that handed over or not, the tiler WILL be going in that week, and the builder WILL NOT have access that week! I don't know how impressed they are with that, but hey, we're not impressed with the lack of action so too bad!

A minor picture update on progress since the last post, but nothing really huge to report, unfortunately!