...and that is exactly how I was looking at it yesterday!
I had a phone call from the builder yesterday telling me that they'd finally found out the reason why the plans were being held up in council and that they were trying to rectify the issue. They didn't pass on what the problem was but assured me that things were being done. Never one to leave things alone, I decided to make the call to council to see exactly what the problem was and what we could do about it. Realistically I was hoping they'd give me a little ammo to put a firecracker up the certifier's bum and get them to tell him to get on with his job. As far as I could see it was him that was holding us up.
Well, actually I was wrong (yes, I admit it, WRONG). Very wrong in fact. The council were worried that our cut was going to be too close to a tree that was just outside the building envelope as it would possibly affect the root ball of the tree. Happily, I offered up my new information that there was actually nothing to worry about anymore as we had removed that tree for vehicular access - something that we thought was ok due to the way the covenant was written.
BA BOW. (That's the game show sound for "you're an idiot" in case you're wondering).
It seems that our understanding of vehicular access does not match that of the council and the tree that we removed should really still be standing there. A lovely man at council was very understanding about what we have done and said that although he could see that we had the best intentions, we didn't get permission from council to do so.
So, now I am waiting to hear back from council as to our fate. Will we have to pay to have retrospective planning done? Will we be asked to replant other trees? Or will we be faced with a fine?
At this stage I do not know. What I do know however is that our builder cannot move forward until we have permission to remove those trees. Once again we are at a stand still.
I am so grateful that we rented a place that we don't mind living in... as this has taken way longer than we expected. We thought we'd be in our house by now and we haven't even started.
In other news though, all the time that this is taking is making our loan process all the better. I have been able to get quotes to the bank for things that we are doing ourselves and they have come back with a saving of $18k on mortgage lenders insurance.
They say everything happens for a reason, and usually I don't believe in that sort of thing, but with this house it has certainly been true. If our first builder had not been honest with us and told us that we weren't really matched as a builder and owner team, then we wouldn't have gotten a house the size of the one that we will be getting for the price that we are getting it for. If we hadn't have called the pool place on the day that we did, we wouldn't have gotten the great deal on the pool. And if our old lender hadn't have wanted to charge us so much in MLI, then we wouldn't have shopped around and found a fantastic mortgage broker who has really worked her butt off for us. Waiting is frustrating, but patience is a virtue and it's one I'm learning to cope with.
I'll let you know about the trees when I find out our "fate".
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