DA Approved

I'm so glad everything is going well, although it's taking quite a while. In a way, we wanted it to be in this pace.

I've been in contact with the council officer who's handling our application. He's quite approachable actually. I was so happy when he rang me to tell me it's all been approved, he even mailed the documents as soon as it's finalized. I planned to pick up the documents to hand deliver it myself to EB - rang council the moment I received the consent (for me to pick up the documents) from EB and the person who answered the phone told me that it was express posted a couple of hours earlier by our assessor. I'm really thankful for always on bumping onto nice people who willingly help us in stressful times like this.

I thought site start can be organized the moment approvals are received, our CSR told me that final plans has to be prepared (i thought the council approved plans are the final ones?) and that DA checks has to be done (what do these checks involved and how long does this take?)

I just hope we'll complete all these soon to meet the new site start 31 July.

Loan Unconditionally Approved

Thank God! After all the dramas we've been through with the bank, our loan has been approved unconditionally.

Now waiting for the council to approve our amended plans.

Delayed Site Start!

Construction is scheduled to start on 30 June no more. As per my previous post, it took Di Lorenzo about a month to send us the quote for the tiles which have delayed the process for us. We had the approval subject to valuation but bank wasn't able to value the contract due to the tile PCVs not being received yet.

Our CSA advised us about the financial consequence of this delay - that we hvae to pay for the difference of current house price and what we have in contract. This is quite unfair as their own supplier caused the delay.

The council also came back with an advise that we cannot have a balcony at the back without having a privacy screen OR DELETION OF THE BALCONY to protect the privacy of the adjacent property. Of course we are going with the privacy screen door. I think it will benefit us somehow as we have a toddler to protect as well (from falling from the balcony that is). We just cannot "not" have the balcony as it is one of the reasons why we chose the Windsor to take advantage of the view of the blue mountains.

Anyway, going back to the site start issue. I have emailed several people at Eden Brae, although most of them said they couldn't do anything about it (they were apologetic that they couldn't do anything about it actually) there was one person who was able to assist us once more. Eden Brae's sales manager, Bill Howie. He is very considerate of our situation and gave us an extra month without any penalty. One of them also forwarded my email to someone who is in the position to help us. Well, I realized that going to the right channel and explaining our situation actually helps. If one says no, it is possibly because they are not in the position to make that decision. I was so worried about going with Eden Brae because of all the negative articles I have read about them, I realized they're not bad at all. :) I just hope the building process will be better and smoother so we don't have to request for anything special anymore.

One last PCV and Council Approval

Yup! We're nearly there, one last PCV and the bank will have all it needs from us to value the contract. It took us about a month to get the floor tile quote, after a few phone calls and voicemails it's finally here. Eden Brae received the accepted quote and the documents they need to organize the remaining PCV. I was told I'll get it on Monday! I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!

RE: DA Approval - Our application was lodged by Eden Brae on the 5th of May 2010. Since then, Eden Brae came back to me asking for a couple more requirements for the council. Good thing Jim Busine from norwest land is very helpful and sent me those requirements which apparently saved us about 2 grand (according to EB)!

With PCV nearly completed - which will allow bank to do its bit, and DA nearly done construction is hopefully starting right on time - 30 June!!