Queenslander relocation and residential subdivision

Bond refunded

I banked our bond refund cheque this afternoon, so that marks completion of stage 1 of the house relocation. :cool: The stage 2 building application is still with the certifier.

I also got a letter from the bank about our loan, basically confirming what I've already been told by email.

Our builder is taking a break for a few days, having completely most of what he can do before formal approval comes through and the sparky and plumber come to install their pipes and cables. I've attached some piccies to show you how it's coming along. The middle picture shows where the new shower will go. Notice the timber fastened to the wall battens—there's a 20 mm difference between the bottom and top of the outside walls! :eek: At least the floors are level. The last photo shows a new storage space we got built above a doorway. I reckon it'd make a neat cubby house for mum's grandkids when they visit. The plan is to get one of those old style library book case ladders to access it.
 

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Loan offer tome

I went to the solicitor today to peruse over a ream-full of documents for our loan offer. I picked up a couple of points that need clarification and I'm sure there was something in there that I missed about granting the bank rights over my first-born child, but I'm glad it's almost sorted after dragging on and on. I can understand some of Dazz's viewpoint on banks. They really tie you up tightly. We're on 75% LVR of the as-is valuation (32% of the as-completed value) and the mortgage insurer still required 8 guarantors. I shouldn't complain too much. I'm sure it could have been a lot worse.

The solicitor is preparing the easement documents for the neighbour to sign.

Have received the first draft of the civil works plans, still waiting on the final signed-off plans. Still waiting on the electricity offer, but was told on Friday it would be typed up and sent on Monday.
 
Loan offer accepted

We trudged into the solicitors today to sign the loan documents. Should be full steam ahead now. I now have potential liabilities, through the guarantee given, of more than my net worth.:eek: Sobering thought.
 
Easement documents signed ready to be lodged

Just a short update. I visited the neighbours yesterday with the easement documents. They are now signed and with our solicitor for lodgement to council.

The neighbour had been advised by their solicitor that they would not be allowed to have any dogs in the yard once there is an easement there. That didn't sound quite right to me. Certainly, there is nothing about that in the forms they signed. The only thing that comes close is that if the easement is part of land that contains cattle, council has to give the owner reasonable notice to secure the cattle before they access the land. I'm not sure whether different councils have different easement requirements. Anyone know?
 
Operational Works Application Submitted

I was finally able to pick up the engineer's plans and cost estimate for civil works this morning. I had a look over them, paid the QLeave levy and then submitted our operational works application online and dropped the hard-copy plans in to council. The cost estimate is about $70k higher than in our budget, so hopefully they are being a bit conservative. We'll see when we get quotes.

Also, council lodgement fees just went up 10% today, so that cost us an extra $600.:rolleyes: Last week, we had to pay council a $375 processing fee for the easement on the neighbour's property. Another fee!

The costs are adding up, but are not yet blowing out too much. We will need to accept and pay the electricity company offer of supply by next week. That will get us in the queue for the works, but as we are utilising the existing overhead supply we will already be able to get power to 8 of the 10 lots even before the new transformer is put in.

Finance is all sorted and is now just waiting on our and the bank's solicitors to do their things for the transfer to settle.

The local market is still in the doldrums, but I think we have a unique enough product to still do okay. The recent changes by the state government will also hopefully give us a boost, with a $10k incentive for people to build rather than buy existing houses. That's an incentive for us to have it all down and dusted by January when that runs out. We also hope to get our operational works approval before the end of the month so that mum can already sign a contract for her lot with the house before the stamp duty discount for owner occupiers is removed.
 
Well, it's a hectic couple of weeks. Long story short it has involved extra expenses and running around to change our drainage to remove an easement. It means extra expenses from the engineers and then extra expenses with council (lesson learned: don't take the word of a council officer who is not working on your file) but will hopefully be worth it as we have a likely buyer as the easement-free block.

The family is meeting up tomorrow to discuss sale prices and covenant terms as we will now be in a position to enter into contracts, once all the paperwork is prepared.

I'm just waiting for our amendment to the DA to go through before we call for tenders for the civil works.

I printed out our balance sheet and profit and loss statements for tomorrow's meeting and so far we have an accumulated loss of $169k :eek: Of that, $74k has been spent so far on house-related expenses and the rest for the subdivision. Major items include $25k so far on consultants, $23k stamp duty, $11.5k council application fees, $24k electricity network connection fee and $2k interest on related party loans.
 
Prestart Meeting

Prestart meeting for civil works tomorrow.

Sorry thread, I've neglected you. Too tired to post full back story now.
 
Recap of past couple of months

The change to our drainage was approved by council, but not without them first extorting us with ridiculous fees for what amounts to a little copying and pasting.

Tree loppers are booked in for October 5 to cut down about 50 trees on site, including a couple of big mango trees, and leave 6 foot stumps for the excavator to remove.

I visited all the neighbours yesterday to inform them of the upcoming works and give them my contact details in case they have any issues. We have a lot of goodwill in the neighbourhood from when my grandparents lived here, which makes it easier to get on with neighbours when carrying out this development.

We appointed a contractor for the civil works and had the prestart meeting with council today. I have a few loose end to tie up before I go away on Thursday for two and a half weeks. I was thinking to get work started as soon as I get back once the trees come down, but they may even start earlier than that if the weather is fine to try to avoid any rain delays.

The council engineer took exception to the electricity company's plans to dump a transformer right next to our blocks, so I need to chase them up as to whether it can be relocated to the park down the road. Council are happy to dedicate and area as road reserve for it. I'm not sure what extra costs it would involve.

We also had a site visit from the wastewater department at council to inspect the manhole that we will be connecting the sewer line too. The manhole cover was covered with cockies when they lifted it and the inlet pipe is nicely blocked and cracking from some tree roots that have got in there. The council foreman tried to unblock it as best he could, but it remains fairly blocked. It was not a pleasant sight (or smell) to say the least. Inspection of the manhole revealed another inlet that was shown on old council sewer plans but not on their latest plans, so they need to investigate that, as there may not be enough room to bore another inlet in.

I have had a couple of corflute for sale signs made up and will put them up when the blocks go on the market once I return from holidays. I will first get back to those who has already lodged expressions of interest. We will see what the market is like. Some land prices around town have dropped by more than 10% recently! :eek:

Work on the house has been progressing slowly, but I will leave that for another post.

Once the civil works begin I may start a new thread to host some pictures of all the heavy machinery doing their stuff.
 
I've started a new thread to describe the civil works stage of this project. It seems like forever, but things are moving along and will start looking a lot different on site.
 
Meanwhile, on the home front

Renos to the house have been slowly progressing. The master bedroom and robe/en suite are pretty much complete. The deck is also progressing along, despite a little hiccup with uncovering the phone lead in while digging the footings (the cable was 10 m away from where it is marked on DBYD plans).

Master berdroom:
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Robe/ensuite:
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Telstra lead in cut by footing bore:
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Deck:
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Wet deck, showing the colour of the red gum:
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Open plan living

We've had a row of windows and wall removed in preparation for getting bi-fold doors put in. It creates a lovely open space, and it's amazing how bright it is without the deck roof on. We are now living with a boarded up hole in the wall while we wait a few weeks for the doors to get made up.

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While I'm here, is anyone interested in some lovely old coloured glass windows? I can't seem to find a before photo of the windows from inside, but you can see one of them left in the left of the photo above.
 
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