Moving date is still a work in progress. - Ucol-shareholders

17 Feb 2021


      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