Buying off the plan with Eden Group

The sequence

1. You choose a home and we prepare the agreementThe sale and purchase agreement records the price, the plans, the specification and the expected completion. Take it to your solicitor before you sign anything. That is not a formality, it is the single most useful hour you will spend.
2. You pay a deposit, usually ten percentThe deposit is held in a solicitor's trust account. It is not ours to spend during construction and it does not fund the build. If the agreement does not settle for a reason set out in the contract, the deposit comes back to you.
3. We buildYou are welcome to visit at agreed times and we will keep you updated on progress and timing. You do not pay progress payments. There is nothing further due until settlement.
4. Code compliance and titleThe council issues a code compliance certificate when the home meets the consented plans, and separate title issues for your lot. Settlement follows title.
5. Settlement, then you move inYou pay the balance, usually with your lender's funds, and the home is yours. There is a pre-settlement inspection first so anything outstanding is written down and fixed.

Things worth understanding before you sign

The sunset date

Every off-the-plan agreement carries a long-stop date by which the home must be complete. If it is not, either party can usually cancel and the deposit is returned. Read the sunset clause and check who can cancel and on what terms, because that varies between developers and it matters.

Minor variations

Agreements normally allow the developer to make minor changes to the plans, often within a stated tolerance for floor area. Check what that tolerance is and what happens if it is exceeded. Ours are set out in the agreement rather than left open.

GST

Every price we publish includes GST. New builds are GST-inclusive to the purchaser, so the figure you see is the figure you pay. If a price elsewhere is quoted plus GST, it is fifteen percent higher than it looks.

Your finance

Lenders treat a new build differently from an existing home. New builds are exempt from the Reserve Bank's loan-to-value restrictions, so a deposit below twenty percent is often possible where it would not be on an existing property. Pre-approvals also expire, and a build takes months, so talk to your bank early about how long yours will hold and what happens if it lapses before settlement.

Warranties

The Building Act gives you implied warranties on residential building work that run for ten years from completion, and they cannot be contracted out of. Structural and weathertightness cover sits on top of that. Ask for the specific warranty documents for your home and keep them with your title.

If the home is a unit title

Where a development is a unit title rather than freehold, you are entitled to a pre-contract disclosure statement and, on request, a pre-settlement disclosure statement under the Unit Titles Act. These tell you about the body corporate, the levies and any known issues. Ask for them, read them, and give them to your solicitor.

What we do differently

We sell our own homes rather than listing through an agency, so there is no commission built into the price and no intermediary between you and the people making the decisions. When you ask when a home will be finished, you are asking the person responsible for finishing it.

We also build a small number of homes each year. That is a deliberate constraint, not a limitation. It means the directors can be across every site rather than managing a pipeline from a spreadsheet.