Yes, you absolutely can customise a floor plan to suit your needs. Our sales consultants and experienced drafting team help you through this process and offer useful advice on how you can optimise your house design for the best results and to suit your budget.

At Grady Homes we have over 80 popular house plans to choose from but we understand that not everyone will want exactly what is in one of our standard house plans. This is where our sales consultants and experienced in-house drafting team step in to  manipulate one of our standard house plans to suit your needs, meet your budget, and include the features you are looking for to create a house design that is the perfect space for you. We work with you to make small and large changes so that you get the house of your dreams.

This process usually does not cost anything and is part of the quoting process we follow on the road to building you a fixed price home. On occasion, a client may ask for a large or highly customised plan. In these instances a small deposit may be required prior to proceeding with the drafting and estimating of the house design to account for the extent of work required.

In short, no you can not take plans from one builder to another.

If a builder, architect or drafting company have drawn up a floor plan or house plans for you, they own the copyright in the designs. The practice of taking one builder’s house design/s to another company for quoting/building is illegal in Australia and can result in legal action, payment of damages to the copyright owner, as well as your construction being halted.

If you do not own the copyright in the design/s and you take those plans or design to have another company construct the home, you will be liable to pay for designs plus any associated damages direct to the copyright owner (the builder/drafting company).

Copyright in the designs includes design ideas and concepts provided to you, as well as the final concept or design. Having your design re-drawn by another company does not protect you from legal action either.

For more information about house design copyright, please contact our office to discuss.

Council Plans & Specifications

Before construction can commence on your home a full set of drawings of the home has to be prepared and submitted to certifiers for Building Approval. No work can commence without the building approval. The cost of preparing these drawings is included in the quoted price.

In addition to the building approval, we must also get a “plumbing and drainage” approval. This application goes to the council.

In the past, the application for Building Approval was always submitted to council as well as to certifiers. Now they just go to “building certifiers”, but these plans are still commonly referred to as “Council Plans”.

The certified plans and the build specifications are required by your lending authorities prior to releasing funds to build the home.

Engineers Design & Certification

At Grady Homes, we always have an engineer review the drawings and certify that they meet or exceed all structural

requirements.

Fees & Charges

The applications for Building Approval and Plumbing & Drainage Approval have significant fees associated with them. These are covered in the amount quoted in your building quote and contract. In addition to these fees there are other government fees associated with this process which we also cover.

Please note that not all home builders include arrangement and payment of plan certification and building approval in their quotes or contract. Always read your contract thoroughly and ask your builder should you have any questions about this process.