Settled!

Well settlement has finally happened! It happened on 23rd December but I was too busy partying to make a post about it until now. Here's the timeline, for the day where settlement was scheduled for 10 am:

7 am - Perpetual LMS (who is acting on behalf of ANZ) informs our solicitor that they are not authorized by ANZ to complete settlement. Mortgage agent contacts ANZ, reminding them that they will be costing us $3000+ if they don't settle today, and we'll be asking for compensation. Our solicitor had already informed Perpetual the previous day that we would be asking for $3000+ if they didn't settle today.

9 am - ANZ realizes they had indeed not authorized Perpetual to settle, and arranges to settle at 3pm the same day

4 pm - Much to everyone's surprise, the land is settled!

Our contribution ended up being much less than we had budgeted for, so we now have quite a bit of money left over, despite our best attempts to spend it over christmas. Things are looking good. I've informed our Metricon CSC about the settlement but he's on holiday no doubt.

Settlement 2

There is more news - after a monumental struggle (which made good use of our mortgage broker's lion taming skills), we actually know, more or less, how much money we need for settlement this Wednesday (2 days from now). I've transferred the money directly to our solicitor so he can have the money ready. So now we are back to waiting..

The theory is that everyone heads on down to the vendor's place and hands over a bunch of cheques and titles and everyone goes home happy. But the cheques need to be for the right amount of money, which is not so straightforward. Especially when the company handling the transaction for the bank is in Bangalore and doesn't return calls. Seems like a good example of outsourcing blame - if something goes wrong it's not the bank's fault, it's the fault of this other company.

Settlement

We've just gotten notification of registration of the plan of subdivision, so things are starting to happen now. Our deadline is 29th December to settle, though it probably needs to be earlier given that's more or less christmas holidays.

Our solicitor advised that the people handling settlement for the bank have in the past forgotten to bring bank cheques to settlement, and that they would prefer that we send the money to them rather than via the bank, so that's what we're doing.

Now back to waiting again..

Settlement coming

We just got notified that the developer has lodged a Statement of Compliance with the Land Titles Office, which apparently means that the Plan of Subdivision (and then settlement) is coming very soon! Our solicitor says it's likely to happen in the week beginning 14th December.

Things will be a bit tricky as we still don't have final signed bank documents, and my dad (who needs to sign them) is leaving the country at the end of this week.. everything else is looking good though. I'm able to transfer money for settlement at a moment's notice, thanks to internet banking, and the account the money needs to be in is all set up.

New Riva displays

I just noticed that there are some new Riva display homes, including one just next to us in stage 11 of Renaissance Rise! That makes two in the Mernda area now and five in Victoria altogether, compared to two in total back in August. It's nice to know the design is popular enough to make so many displays.

We are still waiting on the bank to give us documents with POA stamps in the right spot .. and waiting on our land to be officially ready to build on. It's frustrating having nothing to do but wait :)

We have crossover and fill!

My parents went down to our block of land on cup day, and it looks like our block has been filled and the crossover is there!

The photograph above is taken from the back of our property. The crossover on the right (in front of the truck) looks like ours.

And this picture is looking over our crossover, with my dad on the left :) The houses across the road are in stage 11, ours is stage 12.

We also have photos of the rest of the property but there's not much to see apart from dirt. Dirt with a slight gradient from the back to the front of the property, as the fall plan specifies.

Waiting..

Nothing much to do now.. the contract with all variations has been sent off to ANZ for a final valuation and (hopefully) approval. And yet another copy of the FHOG application signature pages.

Then we wait .. we've been told that the land won't be ready until December now, so looks like it'll be a while before we see any action.