What is the best way to specify how clean a house should be for move in purposes when dealing with a builder’s contract?
carilj
| Posted in General Discussion on
We are very near to choosing a contractor to build our home. We want to make sure the house is move in clean when we are ready to move in and take it over from the contractor. Is there a proper way to specify this in the contract without getting into too many details so that it is fair to the builder and us? Is their specific wording we should use?
Thanks,
Replies
Why not try practicing on us.
Say what you would expect and we can tanslate that to builder language.
But basically just communicate with him and let himfind the language for it
I do clean clean - liveable. Some others I have seen only do broom clean and no sparkle quality window washing, but no gobs of SR mud in the tub either.
One intermediate problem -I leae it clean, then the movers bring in the furniture and leave things a mess or somehow the landscapers gaina accesss to the bathroom, tracking mud in....you get the idea. The builder is not in total control all the time.
Greetings
As you will be paying for it, you should be able to make it clear to the contractor the condition you expect at occupancy. If you've prequalified your contractors as to the rest of their work, I should think it easy to place your expectations into your agreement.
I don't think legalease will pose a problem. In a remodel it might be a given that the space will be "broom clean", at least that's what I've been used to seeing from others. I take it a step further with wipe down and vacuum. I don't wash the windows unless I installed them. As I usually use their garage as a staging area and often a "shop setup", I usually leave that cleaner than I found it.
In some cases I would employ a cleaning person to really get the space into shape-but here again-the customer is paying for it.
The few builders I know are quality operations routinely get cleaning people in before turning over the place.
Then again, there's also those customers that just want to start "bringing something over" b/4 it's donw. That you should avoid.
Best of luck.
Whatever you specify you're going to be the one paying the bill so specify as much as you like. The more cleaning you specify the more it will cost and the more markup there will be. if you want to save money then broom clean is what you want then hire your own cleaners or save the money and do it yourself. We usually leave our jobs clean enough to move into but your standards may be different so don't be afraid to say so.