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House and Land Package – Some tips to share

Introduction

It’s noted the “house and land package” in the property market has maintained its popularity over the years. It’s difficult to find a brand new four-bedroom free-standing house within a 30 km radius from the Sydney CBD under $1 million dollars. For many young families, the only way to afford such house with a cheaper price tag, would be buying a land and house package: Buy a piece of vacant land, build a house on the land with a number of payment stages, the result is a brand new house in a few years that has modern design which will accommodate your needs, budget and cashflow management.

In this way, the purchaser has more freedom to “customise” their own dream house, starting from selecting the location and size of the parcel of land, choosing the layout, colour scheme or type of flooring, to how many storey or bedrooms for their house.

It is a fun and unique experience to get more involved into the design and building of your own dream home. However, it would be very useful if the purchaser can be aware of some potential issues surrounding the “house and land package”.

Buying the Land

In addition to the general contract terms, buyers also need to pay attention to the terms and conditions within the contract of sale of land. The vendor usually will impose specific requirements for the property’s design, colour scheme, size and height allowed to be built on the land.

The vendor may also impose a time frame in which construction should be completed. The purchaser should promptly communicate these requirements with the builder so that construction can be completed within the given time frame.

Building the house

Once the land is settled, the next step would be engaging a builder to start building the house.

In most cases, the most important step of the building process is to choose a trusted and reliable builder that consistently delivers good quality in a timely manner. After all, most of the landowners would want their building project to be completed in an easy, fast, and carefree way.

Very often the landowners would rely on their friend’s referrals when selecting their own builders. However, it would be recommended that the landowners should always conduct their own research before entering into building contracts.

Land owners can always look at the builder’s websites, and look through their customers’ personal feedbacks, comments and reviews to gather better understanding of the building process involved, and the quality of the building works delivered in the past through reading the customer experiences.

Once the building contracts are exchanged, the land owners should make sure the funds for each building stages are ready and paid on time in accordance with the building contract, in order to avoid late interests and delays in construction.

Conclusion

If you are interested in purchasing a house and land package in the Australian property market, and you would like to reduce the possibility of future legal disputes, you should always consider obtaining legal advice in relation to both the sale of land contract, and the building contract, to fully understand your rights and obligations before entering into these contracts.

Please note: The content of our publication is intended for general information purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any matter. Please contact our firm for discussion of your particular circumstances.