Action and Oh Oh

Next door have had their sit cut done. a) great the level of their land is now the same as ours next to the pool and along that whole side. Excellent. b) why have they dug 5 meters out of the protected native vegetation covenant and why is there building base taking up 3 meters of cut into the covenant? Not excellent.

Due to local planning laws our blocks need to have a 10m covenant containing only native plants. This covenant can not be built in, on, over, fenced or removed. Not even a single plant!
We have been very mindful of this and set our house back almost 12m from the front boundary. Now we are very worried that next door have not complied with this and are planning (illegally) to have their house position a good 5 meters in front of ours. In the covenant - meaning it blocks our view and light and is contravening all Council rules and regulations.
Concerned I have had a word with Council and they will be sending someone out as soon as possible to see what is going on. Hopefully before they pour the slab!
I will be very upset if they build the house where it potentially looks like it could be going.

On a more positive note because the land levels are now even we should be able to put our fencing up with no problems. It also seems after chatting to one of our neighbours who have now moved in to the Soho behind us that palling fences are going to be common.
Oh and they has PCI on a Thursday and had handover 8 days after. Lets hope our goes so smoothly seeing as we have the same builder and SS.

The Land is Ours

It's official......the land is ours! Settlement happened at 3.45 this afternoon and all went to plan. As we've just got back from holiday in Vietnam I finished work early today which was great as it meant I could go with my family to run shouting "It's ours, it's ours!" through the long grass all over the block. We looked pretty crazy but hey who cares?

Now all we have to do is complete Studio M on Friday, finish packing this weekend and move into our apartment on Monday.

Land Registered!

The land is registered at last so settlement should go ahead as planned at the end of the month. Phew. Fingers crossed that the bank organise the loans as agreed as the land settles before our house sale completes taking us to the maximum we can borrow without having mortgage insurance. The plan is to use the proceeds from the house sale to pay off half the land and use the money left over to start the build then set up a building loan against our other assets to pay for the rest. Simple!! (headache anyone?)

Land Registration

Still waiting for our block of land to be registered it was supposed to happen the end of Jan and every time I ask for an update I get told hopefully the end of the week. Fingers crossed it goes through soon as if it doesn't it is going to create havoc with the bank loans!

Our Block of Land

Our bit of dirt before building starts

This is our 1000sqm of land, it actually extends past the tree to the left of shot but I couldn't fit it all in on this snap.
Oddly enough no matter where we have lived we seem to have gotten a power pole out front. We don't mind too much though as this one also doubles up as a street light which always makes us feel more secure.
Due to a vegetation covenant council insists the house must be set back a minimum of 10m not the normal 6m from the front boundary and that the 10m wide strip must be planted with natives. We are not the most avid of gardeners and find it almost impossible to distinguish between a plant and a weed yet alone what is a native plant or not.
Can't wait to see our little Metricon board go up like on one of the other blocks. I wonder which house they have choosen?