Five pain points in ongoing Home construction for a customer

Once construction of your house begins a mixed feeling of uncertainty, anxiousness, frustration, and excitement sets in because you want everything to be managed properly having complete control of the ongoing process. Here is a few pain points one goes through while constructing your house.

1. Knowing your neighbor:

It is always nice to have good neighbors because when you construct your house, they are the ones who need to cooperate for the smooth execution of the project. In most cases, it becomes a challenge because they are in no mood to support the process. Rather, their priority in life changes, and they play a role of a Monitor questioning every move and activity that takes place on your plot of land. They will call you at odd hours to complain about how inconvenient you have made things for them. They will stop your Contractor and his team from working because they are not following the rules made by them. It is a huge challenge to manage them on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes, you start thinking about why you had to start construction.

To make it easy on yourself, it is very important for you to find a professional Contractor who can take care of these issues on his own rather than making it your headache.

• Managing Government Departments:

Nothing moves without having to take care of people from local authorities. It can be people from the sanctioning authority, police, or NGT and you will be surprised to meet many more. They become regular guests monitoring the progress of your construction and very often showing you how the right process being followed can be seen as a deviation.

For every deviation they point out there is a fee to be paid and it is uncertain what the amount could be. It all depends on how good his mood is on that day.

You may not have budgeted these expenses because there is no thumb rule for you to derive a figure.

Here again, you need a professional contractor who can manage these issues for you. Most of the time the Contractor in this business gets into an understanding with a predefined amount to be paid to ensure the smooth execution of the project.

• Uncertainty of building material / Brand:

If you got into a turnkey arrangement with the Contractor and you are unable to visit the project site regularly, you are uncertain if the agreed material to be used is actually being used. Many Contractors try and cut corners to save that bit willing to compromise on quality and goodwill.

On the other hand, if you have brought a Contractor on board where you supply the material and he brings his team to construct your home, you are still uncertain. Most of us do not have the needed knowledge to understand what the actual BOQ would be. You may think you are smart by keeping procurement in your control without realizing that the Contractor can be smarter by making that extra buck by pilferage or showing you quantities more than what is required or compromising on the actual quantity needed for a good structure.

To avoid these uncertainties, you need to find the right contractor who is willing to work on your project with a fixed sq. feet rate without future escalation. There needs to be a clear clause in the agreement being signed by you about an escalation in price and the financial mechanism being followed in case an escalation is inevitable.

• Daily/ weekly monitoring of your project progress:

Most of us are busy working and do not find the time to visit the site to monitor the progress though it is always at the back of our minds to know what is happening. You are constantly trying to find out by calling your Contractor and at most times you are made to believe that everything is in control though the reality could be different. Finally, when you find the time to visit your site, you are surprised to see something completely different from what you imagined. It is frustrating to be in that space.

To free you from these frustrations, professionally run companies have incorporated various methods where you know the developments either daily or on a weekly basis. It could be by installing CCTV cameras or images being sent to you through WhatsApp or similar platforms.

• Project schedule:

When you are in discussion with a Contractor, amongst many queries, one of them is how long will it take to get your house completed. Most would assure you of a supersonic speed and timeline. You may want to complete your house before a festival, or a wedding and you have shared this desire with your contractor. He is there to assure you giving you the Gyan of how efficient his team is and reassuring you not to worry.

The surprise awaits you. If the selection of your contractor is not right, finishing your home construction can become an uphill task because of various reasons. Many Contractors leave the project midway because he realizes that the rate at which they accepted the project is no more viable to them or there is a huge manpower shortage due to which he is unable to execute the project on time or their engineering capabilities are limited, and the project needs many corrections that delay the project.

The answer to avoiding this kind of a situation is to appoint a Contractor who has a delay clause in the agreement where the Contractor is willing to be penalized for any kind of delay unless it is due to natural calamities, Government ban due to environmental reasons or situations beyond one’s control affecting the entire industry.