So as some of you might know from my other posts, we decided to be our own General Contractor and we choose a Builder who although did quality work, wasn’t exactly on the up and up for legal contracts and such. Not in a “trying to evade the law” type of way, he just builds quality houses and his word is something he takes more value in than a contract. In fact, when doing loan draws and such, we had to omit the language “I solemnly swear” because it went against his beliefs. Anyways……. so when our bank said we had to have a contract vs. a hand written out sheet of notebook paper that our builder provided us as our “quote”, we weren’t really surprised and even a little relived that our house would have some type of paperwork aside from a loose leaf piece of paper and a handshake.
However, our Bank wouldn’t supply a sample contract and we were the general contractors so it was up to us to figure out what a builder’s contract even looked like.
After some Google research I found a few samples all of which I borrowed from (so this isn’t my own original content), and I also had to modify to apply to 1) us building on our own lot 2) agreement from our Builder that once he signed it he would uphold it and 3) that we were building in Ohio (different states have different regulations).
I want this site to be a 1 stop shop for all your building questions, so I want to provide you with my modified sample of the contract that our Builder and our Bank accepted. HOWEVER…… this is meant to be an example only. I am in no way a lawyer nor is it my intent to provide you something that you haven’t completely vetted with your legal counsel that you intend to use as a legal contract. So again, DISCLAIMER: FOR EXAMPLE PURPOSES ONLY. I’m in no way responsible if you decide to use this to submit to your Bank/Builder.
Instead I just want you to see some of the categories and typical language in these type of contracts. For example: “the draw schedule” is a really nice table to compare to your contract to see if it lines up. Or it is nice to see the clause that the Builder isn’t responsible for weather delays is a typical statement.
I think this gives you one reference to make sure your contract isn’t missing anything, but I also encourage you to have a lawyer look this over and look at other contracts.
BUILDING CONTRACT (EXAMPLE ONLY)