Electricity connection point at Easement and Tree Trouble

OK - Life is not meant to be easy..
During the digging of water connection, we found the electricity conduits were laid outside of the easement in the neighbour's block when it was subdivided. OK, that was done more than 10 years ago so I can't really chase the previous owner and the tradesmen for the mistake. We will just have to cop it. It cost us $1,200 to rectify the mistake. It's electricity we are talking about and don't want anyone digging outside of the easement then hit our cables.

Then we found termites invaded the tree that Hornsby council didn't allow us to remove. Going through Council for the tree removal application again!

Things are coming along

It's been a struggle to get the water connected. Plumbers were either not working in January or never showed up as they promised. Then, we found one who would do the job last week, but after digging 3 big holes, he couldn't find the water. We spoke with a neighbour about the location of the service, she wasn't sure but she was super nice and pointed us to the original owner. Of course the orignal owner was very helpful and confirmed with us the service was there, it's only a matter of finding the right spot. And by yesterday, the plumber found the service point and got water connected.

Another battle was with the bank - it's taken them 7 weeks to have the authority letter sent out. People got to take holidays which I don't blame them personally, but it's the bank's internal resource issue. Now that we have the letter, color appointment here we come!

Construction Certificate

Received construction certificate today! YAY! Site has to be cleared by Jan 11 for builder inspection. It's Christmas time and I hope the tradies will be working first week of Jan. It's starting to feel real now that all the paperwork is done.

Need to arrange the internal colour selection with them soon. God, I am getting so excited.

Neighbour gives in

On Friday, we received phone calls from the RFS lawyers saying that the neighbour has decided to drop the case. Woohoo.. Finally we are moving forward. The builder is now in the process of Construction Certificate application. We still have to make sure all court paperwork is done before we can do anything.

Court Battle

LOVELY neighbour decided to take Council and RFS to court for a Class 4 proceeding to declare my DA invalid for the reason of Bush Fire Risk. We went to court on Friday 16/10/09. The Judge told the neighbour that he didn't build the case properly and he should have included us and the builder as parties of proceedings, however, the judge did give him 3 more weeks to build his case and to serve all parties properly. RFS also expressed that they should not be a respondent as they are not a consent authority. So, another huge delay!

My Plans

Site Plan



House Floor plan

Introduction

Hi, my name is Jasmine. We (little family of three) will be building a new house in Berowra, Sydney's Upper North Shore. Today we finally received Hornsby council's approval for our DA. It has been a very long journey as this is our third submission in the last 3 years since we bought the land in September, 2006. Nevertheless, we finally received the approval and can now move forward.

Our next step is for the builder to organise the construction certificate - btw, we are building with Eagle Homes which is a smaller project builder.

Here we are: