Mind Your T’s & C’s
Have you noticed a lot of builders are ramping up their advertising lately? Â As the pipeline of work generated by the government grants flows through the system, builders are now turning their efforts to bringing new clients on board. Â Many builders do this by advertising offers that seem “too good to be true” to get you in the door.
I saw an advertisement for a builder that made me think. Â They were advertising that they could build your new home in 10 months. The inference being that you can go with another builder and wait 10 months for a bricklayer or go with them and have your house finished in 10 months. Â With all of the delays currently being experienced across the industry, this seemed like an amazing offer!
I dug a little deeper …
If you look hard enough through their website you can find their terms and conditions for this particular offer. Â The first condition that started ringing alarm bells was that the timing of their offer started from ‘the first brick being laid’. Â Not the date of contract, not the date that the slab was poured … but the date that your bricklayer starts. Â Wouldn’t this then put you at the same starting point as the people who are still waiting for a bricklayer?
Anyway … let’s say you managed to get a bricklayer to site reasonably quickly (say 4 months from contract signing). You’re already really at 14 months … not 10. Â The terms and conditions then list out the myriad situations by which they can extend your “10 month build time”, including unavailability of materials, unavailability of labour etc. Â All of the things that are currently holding up on site progress across the industry at the moment. Â Given that your bricklayer starts at the 4 month mark and it takes them 1 month to complete the brickwork, you’ve only got 9 months to go until you move in right? Â Then it takes an extra 2 months to get timber delivered (a reality in today’s market). Â You are now 8 months in and still have 9 months to go!
Any builder worth their salt in this market will tell you that build times cannot be guaranteed. Â I guess the moral of the story is, when it comes to ‘special offers’ of any kind … you really need to mind your T’s & C’s.