"UnhappyCamper" wrote in message
om...
My wife and I have recently undergone construction of a new home. The
contractor we picked is held in extremely high regard from everyone we
spoke with. Up until now we have been extremely pleased with the
choice we made to use him. Two days ago (1½ weeks into the
construction) we discovered the house was positioned in the wrong
place.
Background: We have a very narrow lot - 31.75 feet. The new house is
28 feet wide. We deliberately made the house this narrow due to lower
costs (square feet) but also to ensure we had enough room down the one
side to still be able to get a truck / ride-on-mower down the side.
Proposed Location: The drawings provided to the contractor showed the
house location on the lot (5ft - from the west side property line,
allowing for around 8'9" (105") on the east side for the truck access
etc). We want to be able to take lumber into the back for building a
deck etc at a later stage.
Actual Location: The house has been positioned at least 12" further to
the East than we specified in our plans. Instead of having approx.
105" on the East side, we are stuck with a mere 88" - 91".
So Far: We initially spoke to our contractor regarding this, showing
him the drawing with the house located on the lot. He didn't seem to
recall seeing the location plan before - we know we supplied it with
the drawings as we did with all the contractors we got to quote on the
job. This surprised us, and alarm bells started ringing. We went to
the house to get some better measurements. We contacted the contractor
again today and he said to speak with the Surveyor. We phoned the
surveyor. He said the contractor told him to put the house in the
middle of the lot! The weird thing of it all is that the house is not
quite in the middle - it's further to the west like we wanted it, just
not far enough over. The surveyor is going back tomorrow to re-survey
to see exactly where the house is located.

My questions a

1. Has anyone been in this situation before? If so, how was it
resolved?
2. What are your thoughts, ideas, etc on what we should do to remedy
this problem?

Our problem is:
If we decide to get the house re-located to where it should be, we
would have the following problems:
1. The contractor may be upset with us. He's the one building the
house and may do a sub-standard job.
2. If the contractor recompensates us for some part, what's stopping
him from incorporating that cost elsewhere within the build.
3. Who would foot the bill of the re-starting from scratch.
4. All the sub-trades would have to re-schedule and may not be able to
due to other commitments.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Stephen.

If the location plan was made a part of your contract then the contractor is
responsible for the error and should pay to correct it. But I am troubled by
one comment:
"we know we supplied it with the drawings as we did with all the contractors
we got to quote on the job."
This sounds like you gave the location plan to all the contractors you got
bids from. This is not the same as "making it part of the contract". Your
quotation is not normally the contract, it is the quotation. The contract
should reference the plans, all of them, that are a part of the deal. If
your location plan was not presented to the builder as part of the contract
with the instruction, either verbally or in writing, that "this is what we
want you to do" then it is possible that the plan got "lost" between
quotation and contract and the start of the work. If the plan is made a part
of the contract you signed then it is the builder's responsibility. But if
it was not, then the builder has a legitimate legal loophole to use if he
should wish.