Charlene Clayton - February 15 2003
Personal Finance magazine – online
www.persfin.co.za

Few people would argue that building a home or doing alterations is an enormous, costly undertaking. But it should not – and need not – be an unpleasant one. If done correctly, in consultation with professionals, building a home can be the realisation of a dream. Angelique Arde reports

When you decide to invest on the stock market, you approach an iinvestment adviser. Yet when people set out to build or buy a house – by far the biggest investment of their lives – they often make the mistake of thinking they don’t need experts,” says Vernon Collis, a Cape Town-based structural and forensic engineer.

“Why is it,” he adds, “ that when we sell our houses we are quite prepared to pay an estate agent a fee of seven percent, but when we build our homes we are loath to pay consultants for intellectual expertise?”

Collis answers his own question: “It’s all about mindset. People see consultants as an unnecessary cost, so they go directly to builders who are not consultants – and then they pay the price.”

Naturally the expertise of firms such as Collis’s, which offers architectural, engineering, geo-technical and quantity surveying services, is not cheap. They “do it all” from identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the site, to designing and managing the construction.

“Our team is committed to your job from conception to completion, which can take about 18 months on a R1 million house. In that time, you have a team of experts working for you.”

You can expect to pay consultants around 15 percent of the contract value, which Collis says is a small fee to pay for a holistic service and peace of mind. “We act as investment advisers to our clients and 15 percent is not a lot given what you stand to lose – or gain.

“Every member of the team is registered with their regulatory council and governed by a professional code of practice. Each professional should have indemnity insurance.”

When choosing a builder, he says it is important to draw a distinction between a reputable contractor and what is known as a “bakkie builder”.

“A good contractor runs a slick operation. He has his own office, insurance, he pays tax, is affiliated with the building industry and operates by the book. Most importantly, he won’t tackle a project unless there is an experienced design team involved,” Collis says.

Beware the "bakkie builder"
Then you have the builder who possibly evolved from an artisan. He has a bakkie, some shovels, picks and a few connections. He sometimes has good building skills, but usually isn’t an expert in the contractual aspect of the job – the part that affects responsibilities, specifications, programming and, ultimately, liability.

“It can be economical to use a bakkie builder, since he doesn’t necessarily incur the overheads of a fully fledged operation, including insurance, minimum labour rates, etc. But then you carry the risk and could get what you pay for – or even less!”

Without the support of a design team, Collis says “you might know what you want, but you don’t know how to specify it. So you effectively entrust the builder with the responsibility of the architect and possibly the engineer.”

As a consultant and forensic engineer who investigates building and contractual failures and advises clients on what recourse they have and against whom, Collis has seen it all. He says most contractual failures are due to inadequate drawings and specifications, poor contracts (if any at all), unclear verbal instructions, unscrupulous builders, poor building practice and interference by inexperienced clients.

“The most common building failures are due to inadequate consideration of the founding conditions, resulting in cracks in the house structure. This is most often caused by sloping ground or differential settlement of the ground which results in the house splitting in two. In most cases, inexperienced draughtsmen have drawn up the plans, rather than consultants.”

Get it right

Collis believes there is only one way to do a building job and that is according to a “due process”, which should go like this:

1. Engage a team of advisers, which should comprise an estate agent or valuer, an architect, an engineer, quantity surveyor and geo-technician. “If you are in any doubt about the skills and/or credibility of the professionals, get references, look at their portfolios or at least refer to a senior person at your city council building survey department. The local authorities should know these people.”

2. Get your brief together and be very specific about what you want, your budget and your time frame. “Be realistic, don’t ask for a Mercedes with a Beetle budget! Architects are designers, not magicians.”

3. The estate agent or valuer will look at the value of other houses in your street, and work out roughly how much you should look at investing. You want to avoid over-capitalising.

4. Your engineer/geo-technician team will assess the ground and founding conditions.

5. If the boundaries of your erf are not in place, the surveyor will check them, as that is a regulation requirement. He can also prepare a contour diagram if one is necessary.

6. Building is regulated in terms of the national building regulations, local municipal by-laws, and the restrictions in your title deeds. Your architect will go to the city council to check the by-laws affecting the site, and will also check whether there are any restrictive clauses in your title deeds.

7. The architect will then develop a sketch proposal that takes account of your brief, your budget, regulatory constraints, the street and region, and so on.

8. Next, he takes you through the proposal. Be open-minded, the proposal could well be different to your vision. “As a designer, he will appreciate that every owner has a responsibility to the environment. And whatever is built should be done sympathetically. A good architect is aware of this and assumes this responsibility on your behalf. Your architect is not there to merely draw up a plan: he’s there to help you build a vision that benefits all.

“Relevant and thorough design is considered and disciplined. It should satisfy your needs and your budget. It takes account of how you live, the elements, aesthetics, the materials and finishes, proportions, relationship with the outside and adjoining neighbours, street, and so on. Living requirements change with time, and so the design should be able to accommodate this. If you’re happy, the sketches can be worked up in order to get an estimation (not a price!) to test whether you’re in the right ballpark.”

9. If you are happy, your architect can start preparing plans for the city council’s approval. Generally, if you follow the by-laws and work within the correct framework, the local authority is efficient. But the minute you transgress that, and want something different, the process can be held up.

10. Your professional team now begins to prepare a set of drawings and specifications that are then put out to tender to an approved range of contractors. Your team helps you select the best contractor (not always the lowest offer), and advises you on the most appropriate building contract for your project.

“The building contract is a legal agreement between you and the builder and is managed by a principal agent on your behalf (architect or project manager or quantity surveyor). The work of the principal agent involves mediating in any dispute between you and the contractor, managing changes to the design, inspecting the building as it is put up, and assessing and certifying the contractor’s monthly payments.”