Contracts

Boy, are there a lot of variations on building contracts. The one our builder initially gave us was a little long in the tooth -- they were using one that had been handed down like an old painting or something. There were some omissions that most modern contracts have --like arbitration -- so we contacted our lawyer to see what he thought of the contract. Most portions were OK, but not so clear by today's standards (and items like arbitration and lien waivers were clearly missing). He gave us a contract that one of his clients had used, but even that had some omissions by our standards. In addition, we had a contract from a builder for our earlier design; and it had lots of good stuff in it. So we did a copy and paste, taking the best of all of them, and putting it all together.

We sent the result to our general contractor, and they loved it. ..actually, they wanted to know if they could re-use it for future building contracts.

Should I put out my shingle? Maybe not (keep your day job, heh ). But the bottom line is that we now have a contract that actually protects our builder more than the original contract, and one we can live with, too. That's the best of both worlds.

So we're going to sign it tomorrow, Thursday July 15. It also will be the start of a substantial money flow out, but we think worthwhile in the long run.

We've been working hard on moving out of the old place this week because demolition of the old place is slated for the 19th. We've been moving stuff over to our temporary home for some time now, but the pace has obviously accelerated. We're planning on finishing up the major move-away by this Saturday. We still have a lot to do, so Good Night & postya later.