We are learning so much in the house building journey. Austin met with Bill Johnson, an Owner Representative. I had never heard of this before. We read about it in the book What your contractor can't tell you (Thanks little brother for sending this to us!).
How we intend to use the Owner Rep is for him to help us protect ourselves by reviewing a contract/scope of practice. We will be taking our contract from the AIA website. My understanding is that his role is to help guide us through all this and be on our team. I think we'll take anyone willing to be on our side.
Now that is another confusing mess, how the heck do you know which contract to even use?! Austin first called our local Colorado Chapter to discuss this and was referred on to the main place in Washington DC. After explaining our project it was recommended that we use this one. The cool thing is multiple people can make changes or look at it before it is "finalized".
Once we download this contract and start filling in the blanks we will send it to the Owner Rep to look it over and make suggestions. At least he was impressed that we are doing all the leg work up front to protect us and the GC we decide to use (better then trying to resolve issues after the fact). It's so much easier when it's all laid out with as few surprises as possible. In the next couple days we will be writing up which materials we want for what and the expectations that come along with the gig. The other advice we received was to absolutely not sign any contract the GC gives us.
Such a huge learning curve!! The interesting thing is at the meeting the Owner Rep asked about the relationship that Austin and I have. I guess divorce rates are high when you try to build a house. Prayers are definitely appreciated as we go through this crazy journey. We were joking about writing a contract between Austin and I that does not allow us to divorce each other through this :). At this point we are good, we are very aware of the need to communicate and verbalize our expectations and be good at conflict resolution within our family. I'm not sure how much is out there on having your relationship survive a build and I don't think I'm interested in looking at this point.
The plan is to (fingers crossed) have out proposal request sent out by Saturday or Monday at the latest if we can pull it all together!!!
