You are without a doubt playing the most significant and prominent role in the whole process. You have purchased the property and decided to construct a new house, you employ a contractor and his team and you oversee the work being done, you pay for everything and so on. Essentially you are the head of the project and everything must go through you, work done needs to be fine with you and you must be satisfied with everything to go ahead. These are all quite obvious factors on being the owner of a house under construction, but there are a few things that you will have to do prior to the commencement of construction, during and after the construction. These things can vary from simply close supervision of the employees to getting legal approval for the construction at hand, below are a few examples of the things that you need to do as the owner.

Apply For A Building Consent

This is something you need to include in your research on constructing a new house. You need a legal approval to start construction of your house by a council. The rules differ from country to country and from area to area. So before jumping right into the work and getting your hands dirty only to find out that you don’t have the legal rights to construct your house would really put a massive dent on all the plans made. Therefore, to avoid such a situation, learn about the consents in your area and if need consult with a professional and get your paperwork sorted as soon as possible. This is obviously something only you, the owner, can do, not the contractor or anyone else involved so without putting it off, get that done first.

Ask For Fully Detailed Project Reports From Your Contractor

This is very important, and I cannot stress it’s significance. With so many little things going on every corner, it is quite hard to keep track of everything. You spend a lot of money and at the end of the day you will be stunned if you are not following them up as you go. Make sure to get owner builders reports drawn up regularly by your contractor to stay on top of things. Inform your contractor that you need detailed documentation of every single purchase right down to the nails used and daily reports of the work and tasks are done, how long it took to do the task, how many people were assigned to it, the exact materials used and their costs etc. This way you can monitor if there is any funny business going on such as workers not actually working in the allotted time or unreasonable costs for materials etc.

Keep The Appropriate Councils Updated And Organize Inspections With Them

This is something that needs to be done on your part. You have to make sure that the appropriate councils are kept well updated and get their ‘good to go’ before you proceed onto further stages. Failure to do so may result in you having to redo the whole thing if the council doesn’t approve of something. Be proactive and organize inspections with them, that way they can come and give the final ‘go ahead’ for you to continue with the work.