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. . Community
Assisting Recovery, Inc. “Survivors Helping Survivors” • 888-216-8264 •
carehelp.org
This
Week’s Meeting Schedule:
A Fixed
Price Rebuilding Contract What this means is that you determine the price of
your house BEFORE you start building. If it
takes more to build the exact house agreed upon, then the contractor has
to eat the cost. If it costs less then he gets to keep the money. One
caveat is that if you go about setting up this kind of contract, your
budget could be completely blown with change orders so be sure you have an
architect go through your plans carefully to be sure the details are all
there to complete the house with as few surprises as possible.
There are
two general places where the contractor can cheap out on you. The first
thing is the quality of the “bones” of your house or the construction
materials. If you want a house with high quality construction it MUST be
laid out in your plans. The
second place they can cut costs is with the finishes. Way too many people
I talk to aren’t even asked about these things until they’re about to be
installed! For example your contractor might’ve bid your kitchen based on
cheap cabinets with laminate tops. If you want high quality wood cabinets
with granite, you might be in for a rude $50,000
awakening. Both of
these types of details need to be hammered out IN WRITING before you start
construction. The set
of plans we created [link for reference only, the codes have changed
significantly] for the modest 1400sf house included pages of drawings many
of which were not required by the building department. We also had a 15
page document that detailed everything else in the house we could
think of. (I must admit, though, that even this is not inclusive. We still
had to pick out the doorbell and electrical fixtures among other
things). This came
in EXTREMELY handy when problems arose. For example, on our electrical
plans we requested the breaker box to be inside of the garage. The
electrician put the box on the exterior of the house. He had to rewire the
entire house at his own expense. One thing we messed up on was the
interior paint. On the schedule we put PT-1 on every wall. When it came
down to it, they wanted to charge an additional $7,000 to paint each room
a different color (we painted it ourselves to save
money). This
amount of planning was done BEFORE we even had contractors bid on the
house. No, most architects or draftsmen with not do this much work for you
at their basic rate. On the other hand, the up front expense will probably
pay for itself in dispute resolution and change orders down the
line. This is
one case where planning ahead really pays off. I highly recommend taking
the time to plan your construction project IN DETAIL and get a FIXED PRICE
CONTRACT before you jump in. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Save the
date! We could also use a little help with the
preparations. Please call me if you can squeeze in some time to help!
Lila 619-300-1154. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ What to
look for in an Attorney Fee
Agreement CAUTION IF
the attorney fees are based on GROSS instead of NET of your settlement
money. Fees based on GROSS will always cost you more in attorney
fees.
CAUTION IF
the attorney asks you for “up front” money in exchange for a fee
percentage reduction.
CAUTION IF
the attorney says he will reduce his percentage but then gives you a long
attorney fee agreement with confusing clauses that could actually inflate
your final legal expenses.
CAUTION IF
the attorney is charging an excessive hourly rate for him/her self and
paralegal. Be sure to: 1. Review and understand any attorney
fee agreement before signing it. 2. Check that fees are based on NET
not GROSS fees on your award money. 3. Check on
line: ·
Does your attorney and law
firm have lots of their own money to fund these very costly
cases? ·
Does your attorney have the
necessary successful background and experience to go against SDG&E and
its gigantic ·
Have you checked
www.quinnemanuel.com to see why you need the biggest and best law firm to
protect you from them? ·
What experience did the law
firm have BEFORE the fires? TIP: Fees are always negotiable
even after an attorney fee agreement has been
signed. To download a printable version of this, please
click: ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Companies,
underinsured homeowners still in dispute over settlements stemming from
2007 wildfires They spent a recent Saturday creating detailed
lists of the contents of their houses – everything from dishes and bed
linens to socks and unopened tubes of toothpaste. When memories failed,
they turned to each other's lists to jar their recollections.
[more at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081012/news_lz1b12coverag.html
] ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Fixing The
NFIP - The Most Inefficient Insurer In The
World Congress agreed with Representative Barney Frank's
(D-Mass.) assessment of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and on
September
29, 2008, passed a bill extending the Program through March 6, 2009.
The extension was made "necessary" to allow congress time to iron out
differences of opinion about the program including: the addition of wind
coverage (see "Why
Flood Policy Should Not Include Wind Coverage"); and whether or not to
forgive NFIP's $18 billion debt. [more at: http://www.mynewmarkets.com/article_view.php?id=94730
] ______________________________________________________________________________________________ SDG&E's
shut-off strategy on hold http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20081018-9999-1m18power.html
______________________________________________________________________________________________ Full
Coverage of the Sesnon and Marek fires in LA
area ______________________________________________________________________________________________ "Well, we're living in a construction site.... It
might not be done, but at least we're gonna be getting in and making it
feel like home.... To be able to come back and have some semblance of
comfort and normalcy in our lives. It feels like a puzzle that's starting
to come together. Ann Dixon, ______________________________________________________________________________________________ ... Help CARe provide
assistance to disaster survivors and continue our free
services: http://www.carehelp.org/contribute/contribute.htm ... For removal or
subscription to CARe, Inc mailing list, please email info@carehelp.org Community Assisting Recovery,
Inc.
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