So where are we?

Well, we're creeping forwards, albeit slowly.

As regards the sale of the house we're currently living in, I discovered - by reading the local paper, mind you, not because either our landlord or managing agent thought to tell me - that our landlord has slashed the price of this place. Indeed, the advert has the price crossed out and the literate phrase, "Ouch! Make me an offer!" written over it. All of which presumably indicates that the pressure is on him to sell at least one of his properties and he's taking action accordingly. I am sure he would maintain that there's no need for us to panic, but somehow our comfortable belief that as the property was vastly over-priced and therefore wouldn't sell and therefore there was no need to panic is evaporating... Consequently I am about to start ringing round estate agents and making bookings to view properties. I'll go and see what I can this week, while Michael's away, and shortlist some properties (hopefully...) to look at when he gets back next week. It's a total pain in the neck.

Meanwhile, back at the block... We HAVE the DA paperwork for the house but the council planning officer apparently 'didn't notice' that the plans were submitted with a swimming pool clearly marked, hence a number of frantic phone calls which have resulted in Christian having to submit additional paperwork for additional approvals which will result in an additional Construction Certificate and associated additional fees. Ho hum. Quite how one could have 'missed' a large pool clearly marked in both text and plans I'm not sure.

Construction Certificates do seem to me to be a licence to collect money. We paid whopping fees to get the DA, for which the 'average' processing period through this council is allegedly 12 weeks, or so they like to claim. But in fact it's taken over 20 weeks and they managed to miss the pool. But then, of course, one has to get Construction Certificates, which effectively sign off at various benchmarks throughout the construction phase, resulting in an Occupation Certificate if you've ticked all the boxes in the process. We've had to separate out the Construction Certificates for the shed and the house, otherwise the completion of one would be dependent upon the completion of the other, and of course we need the shed to be built first to provide us with storage and the builder with amenities during construction. Separating out the Construction Certificate for the pool will at least mean we can get an Occupation Certificate for the house without needing to complete the pool (which we can't yet afford to build!), so that makes sense, but I do find paying for another one slightly annoying. We're haemmorhaging money and the build hasn't yet started. I'm not exactly surprised, though; after all, I have watched several series of Grand Designs with a certain amount of horror!

We should get the Construction Certificate for the shed through this week, which will enable the shed contractor to employ a concreter to pour the slab. This then needs to dry (about a week to ten days, I think) before the walls and roof can be put on. Then we will have somewhere we can store our stuff - including all the boxes currently in the house plus excess furniture, given that we'll have to up-sticks and move soon.

We won't get the Construction Certificate for the main house through until we've signed a contract with a builder and they've presented copies of their licence and insurance to Council. And we can't get our mortgage finalised with the bank until we've engaged a builder and signed that contract... and we're waiting for Dan Duffy to get back to us with an indication of a price before we can decide what to do. Both he and John Newton are still in the running, but we are slightly worried about John's view of things: he maintains he can't build the house for less than $500,000 which is all very fine but we just don't have that kind of money. We thought initially that he might not be that interested in the job, given that he seems to be in demand locally, but jobs must be drying up at the moment because he phoned us to enquire how we were getting on. However, he's not willing to go through a pricing process for us: he just wants to give us a rough estimate. He has offered to 'supply goods at cost' for the build and negotiate a fixed builders' fee on top, but I have to say that everyone we've mentioned this too has shaken their heads and said it's a con, as we'd have no way of knowing whether the price of the supplies was genuine, the lowest available or heavily marked-up! And I have to say that while it appears to be a generous offer, it isn't as transparent as it seems... Dan, by contrast, is out there pricing everything up and looking around for good suppliers at the best price, and wants to talk to us about the various options and the cost implications thereof. Hmmm. We'll see what happens.

So there you go. I have three main tasks - in addition to my own work! - while Michael's away: nag Council about getting the Construction Certificate for the shed into my sticky little mitts; pursue Dan about his pricing exercise; and finding us somewhere else to live in the meantime. Lucky me!