Well, after an epic build, we've finally made it to the day we'd been waiting for. Handover!!! 360 days since we first contracted to purchase our block of land, 266 Days after the signing of the building contract, 202 days since the slab was laid and what seems like an eternity since we completed our final inspection, we finally have possession of our new home. .
To say that the completion of the house was somewhat of a drawn out affair is putting it mildly. It hasn't been a particularly stressful build, contrary to warnings we'd been given before starting the process, but it did seem to take a long time to complete. Whilst the house was practically complete months ago, several small items held things up significantly. The largest issue was that there was a need to replace the front door frame and windows as they hadn't settled well and had bowed since installation. Not such a difficult task one would think? Wrong! Seven weeks later and a supplier (who we were assured was subsequently given a rather frosty time by the builder) finally managed to supply the door frame. Luckily for the builder, Sarah and I are patient people, and had the attitude that it was far better to get the house completed and completed well than to hassle everyone to speed things up. From there it was simply a case of installing the final finishings and away we went.
Sare and I managed to attend a final inspection on April 4 to take a look at any of the things that needed fixing prior to completion. The SS was more than helpful and keen to point out things that he still intended having fixed before handover. Most of the issues were paint related and quite easy to attend to.
Easter delayed things slightly but Metricon had previously obtained the occupancy certificate and our SS managed to get the right tradies in to fix up the issues pretty quickly. We were issued with our final invoice on April 12, which I quickly forwarded on to the bank for them to process. Sweet, we'd have our house in a couple of days, I thought.
Cue the delay in the valuer completing their end of the process (seriously, what is it with anyone even vaguely associated with real estate that means they should have a licence to be the most unreliable people on earth?) and the bank hounding them time and again to get it done. Still, it gave us time to buy a dishwasher and arrange for its delivery following handover.
As I like to make things as much of a challenge as possible, I told the bank on a Thursday arvo that they would need to have the cheque ready for me by COB Monday the 23rd, as we were not going to be happy waiting any longer. I wasn't intending to waste my week of holidays by sitting around and getting the house after ANZAC day sometime.
We were off to Lorne for a wedding on the Friday and the bank assured me that the cheque would be done and dusted for me to pick up on Monday assuming the valuation was completed as expected. Great! Until I received a voicemail message from the SS on Friday evening asking if everything was going to be right for Monday afternoon as he hadn't had a call from a valuer to arrange an inspection. Being as late as it was, I couldn't call the bank to confirm whether there had been a delay with the val.
Monday morning gave me the chance to follow up with the bank who advised that the valuation had been done (wish I had a job where I could just say I've done something and still get paid!) and that I could pick up the cheque that afternoon after the funds were transferred and they called me to confirm. I made a few other phone calls to start herding all the cats involved in the process into place (fencer, concreter, insurance, etc...) and headed off to pick up the cheque. One o'clock passed with no phone call, followed quickly by two and three o'clock. Finally after going into the bank to confirm that the cheque was still unavailable I was beginning to think that it wasn't going to happen after all.
Finally, at half past three on the dot, I received the call and it was action stations. I collected the cheque, jumped into the car and headed out to the house. Sare was running late at work and unfortunately couldn't make the handover itself, but thankfully she made it along shortly after so that I could give her the grand handover. The SS handed over a bundle of paperwork and warranties, explained the workings of the appliances throughout the house and confirmed that the issues that we'd previously identified had been rectified. The final act involved me handing over the cheque and receiving the keys in return. Easy, right? Not quite. Handing the cheque over was pretty straightforward, as you may expect. Of course, having somehow seen everything finally fall into place, it seemed appropriate that the keys I received did not actually open the entry doors! That will hopefully be rectified tomorrow...
It was finally time to pick up Sare and show her round the place, and introduce our brand new kitchen stools to their brand new home. Metricon were kind enough to give us a lovely welcome package of some homewares which will go nicely around the place. We locked up and headed home to plan our next steps. I've got a week ahead of me moving bits and pieces into the house and arranging for tradies to come visit. We'll be in before we know it!
No pictures just yet, but I'll update the blog and add them over the next couple of days.
