And so the story begins.........

We sold our home in November 07 moved out 1 week before Christmas (I don't recommend doing this to any sane person) and purchased a 2bedroom run down full brick cottage on a 746sq mtr block.
We moved into a small rental home while we looked for our dream home.

FOUND - one dream home!!!! Courtesy of Clarendon some changes to be made nothing structural just an extra en suite upstairs and down and an extra 1mtr to the study. Not too hard you would think!!!

Well 8 months on with the Council DA approved we had to face the facts that Clarendon were not going to build our home, as we would not sign a variation to our contract, that had us responsible for the costs of re pinning neighbours property if they damaged them during construction.

We spoke to The Department of Fair Trading, The Insurance Ombudsman and our Solicitor and they all said the same DO NOT SIGN IT, so we had to take this advice on board even though friends had said don't worry about it, that's not going to happen.

So we told them, we can't sign this and they told us we can't build it. It is awful to get so far but not have anything to show for it (except some plans we can't use and surveys that they have kept and $4000 paid to them which is non refundable), we had knocked down the existing house 3 weeks before all this had happened, so we were left with a empty block and a DA approval that is for a Clarendon Home that we can't build.

What next!!!

Well off we go to some other builders armed with the condition in our DA that is standard to our Council and ask them would you make us sign that we are responsible for the damage to any adjoining properties if you damage it during construction?

Most said no as this wasn't really meant for our type of build but for builds where the garages are constructed under the home.

We found a home we really liked it being the Impression 38 MKII by Wisdom Homes and after speaking to our sales consultant and the director they have said that they would not have this condition. So we pay our money again for the contour survey and we ask for a new tender.

We are hoping that we may have this tender over the weekend, all being well and fingers crossed, if this happens it will have taken them 1 1/2 weeks where as it took Clarendon 6 1/2 weeks to get to this stage and then everything that they did was wrong, but that is a whole new story and we have moved on from it.

We still have a few changes that we are going to make and the OH is out there now trying to make the study bigger.