I thought I would update people with what I have heard about possible moving dates and early access arrangements so far.  The directors will discuss most of this tomorrow at our meeting, and on Friday there will be a site meeting that may give us a better handle on the finish date.

Settlement Date

In the mean time, I believe the earliest date we might settle, as already discussed, would be the 12th of March.  This is what people should be telling their banks and Kiwisaver.

The factors that influence the date are:

• Stevenson & Williams and subcontractors finishing the build (Practical completion).  Stefan our project manager says "they're very close" but they aren't saying when, and did not provide us with an updated work program.  So my guess is this could take anything from another week to another month to finish, putting the finish date between the 24th of February and the 12th of March.
• Issue of titles.  There are no formal timeframes for this, but the lawyer says they have been taking about 3 weeks.  This was applied for last week, so our best guess is it will be ready around the 5th of March.
• Issue of code compliance by the DCC.  This has a statutory limit of 20 working days (plus extra time for council queries) once we apply, but we won't be ready to apply until the major outstanding siteworks are done, at least a week away before we can even apply.  Stefan says though the council will probably be quick and issue code compliance within a few days of applying.  My guess for the earliest date we could get this would be around March 3rd, if the siteworks and the council process both happen quickly.  (There is no limit to how long this might take, if we run into problems with the kerbing for example and that took a month to sort out, then the council was slow and picked up some defects that needed to be remedied for compliance, then it could push that out until April or even May.)
  
• The time for lawyers (and purchasers and their banks) to prepare for settlement.  This is currently set at 10 days (after the later of title and code compliance) in our Sale and Purchase contracts, so if both of those come through by March 5th (remember that's optimistic), then settlement would be set at March 15th.  HOWEVER, the contract also says that if we all agree, then we can alter the settlement date, e.g. we could make it just 3 days after we receive code compliance if we wanted.  So the earliest possible settlement date (allowing for the weekend) would be March 10th.  This will need a resolution signed by all purchasers, and to convince everyone's lawyers to do it.
  
• The time for Kiwisaver funds to be ready.  Since (I assume) people who need this are telling Kiwisaver funds the settlement date is March 12th, we won't be able to settle before that date.

So you can see that the earliest possible date for settlement would be March 12th, and a pessimistic scenario would put settlement in May.  And we will be in a position to give a better estimate after Friday.  But don't wait to make sure everything you need as a purchaser is prepared for a possible March 12th settlement.

Early access

The admin group have not met again yet.  Information collected by Marianne shows 11 out of 24 units want to do their own painting and fixtures (10) and/or or store gear in their units (2).  It will be very much easier to paint before we move gear in.  Not everyone will need to do this before settlement though.  It seems like probably 5 - 8 units would be very keen to have that access before settlement, the others could probably be flexible and do it after settlement.

It also looks like around 9 units want to arrange access for contractors (or themselves) to do work before settlement, for wardrobes, curtains and painting.

Remember, contractors can already be doing work from now if they get an arrangement for access.  I assume people who need this have already talked to someone on the PCG?? and it is underway.

If we want to do our own work before settlement, it has to happen after practical completion, and there will likely be at least a week of opportunity for that.  We still need to sort out what we need to do to make sure all stakeholders are comfortable with this.

Unit Inspections

You will be able to do an inspection of your unit before settlement, per normal practice when buying a house.  We will likely discuss this more at the next group meeting.  Again it will be after practical completion and before settlement.

UCOL To-Do list

• Arrange an agreement and any other required documentation (e.g. shareholders or director's resolutions) to shorten the lead time to settlement from 10 days, should we want to do that.
• Work out how to make sure stakeholders are comfortable with early access for finishing work, and storage.
• Arrange for unit inspections.
  

Thanks,
Alex