P K Arun

Hi, I’m P K Arun the guy behind this blog. Our family constructed a house in Bangalore and I thought to share our house construction experience with this blog so users can avoid those common mistakes they do while constructing their house. Read Our Story

If you think a contractor agreement will be fine… think again

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All experienced contractors know where the difference between owners and contractors comes from. Because they have already built at least a few houses.

When you ask them to bring a building contract agreement, they bring the agreement, which is important to safeguard their interest. Not the owner’s interest.

Most new users planning to start construction don’t know about those insider construction points that must be included in the agreement.

So, to make their job easier, they go with the whatever the contractor bought agreement and deal done.

We also did the same thing. But while picking contractor, we filtered a lot. It helped! So everthing went well in our case.

Now… if everything goes well between you and the contractor, the agreement doesn’t matter.

If… you and your contractors have any differences, the contractors start ignoring your project, and you get angry.

Not just that…

Sometimes, even disputes arise depending on the contractor’s nature.

If you have a solid agreement mentioning the most important points in the agreement regarding work scope, payment terms, responsibility, etc.,

You have something to speak to your contractor regarding work scope and all… your contractor will listen in that case. Because it’s in writing. There is nothing to hide.

Suppose this is the first time you are trying to start house construction. In that case, I recommend at least discussing with a few of your friends who have gone through house construction experience recently so they can share their thoughts with you.

Before signing any agreements, show them to your friends and ask their opinion… if they give some suggestions, you can request the same from your contractor to make changes.

By doing this type of exercise, you will avoid making a few mistakes.

(or) You can also learn from my experience by taking a ready building contractor agreement template & guide on picking a good labour contractor by visiting the URL below:

https://houseconstructionguide.com/building-contractor-guide/

Whatever the option you choose, don’t take a decision in a hurry or alone.

Happy Weekend.

Arun

remember this

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Choosing a good contractor is definitely more important than choosing a good agreement.

A good contractor can make a lot of adjustments to his work scope.

Still, it’s always better to have a proper responsibility in written format than just taking it for granted.

We don’t know what happens once the work starts.

I remembered one bad incident in my first house construction experience for this context.

We picked an electrical contractor based on the recommendation of my dad’s very good friend, who is his own brother.

Everything was good until we started questioning his work quality…

Slowly, our relationship with our electrical contractor started falling apart.

We had a few verbal fights during the construction period.

During the final settlement, he simply demanded extra payment, saying, This is extra, and that is extra….

He even questioned what proof we have.

That’s when I started implementing House Construction Tracking System in my second building.

Thankfully, it also helped in a few such incidents during the construction of my second building.

After learning lessons from my first construction, I implemented everything in written format.

Only my building contractor has an agreement format; the rest are written in a diary with important contract details.

Because building contractors is one of the most expensive things, we went with the agreement format, which was bought by my contractor.

If you see my agreement, it contains only a few details and favours my contactor.

It is not an owner-friendly contract.

In my building contractor guide, I explained all the important points that must be included in the agreement.

Now, I have prepared the Labour contract agreement template itself. All you need to do is modify the template according to your requirements.

The agreement comes inside my building contractor guide. If this is something you are interested in, visit the below link:

https://houseconstructionguide.com/building-contractor-guide/

Sir, can you give me a receipt?

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It was raining outside.

Today three college students came and called me. One guy asked, “Sir, can you give me the receipt for paying the token advance?”

Me, “Receipt? What receipt are you asking for?”

Guy: “I paid a token advance to book the house for that one.”

For your information, this guy paid a token advance a few weeks before itself. Now, all of a sudden, came again to ask for a receipt.

I informed him we don’t give any such receipts. You paid through UPI, so transaction details are available in the app. 

I also confirmed the token advance received in a WhatsApp text message. You can check once. 

That should be fine.

To which the guy replied, let me check… “Ya. I have those messages. Ok sir”

I asked, “Why suddenly asking for a receipt?”

I had an issue with the PG guy, so I’m asking for it to avoid the same issue here.

Now I remembered why this guy was asking for a receipt.

Don’t worry. I have confirmed payment details in a WhatsApp text message. Keep those. Moreover, once we give the house, we will make a written agreement that contains all the payment details.

The student felt somewhat relieved after listening to my words. 

He waited until the rain stops and left for his PG with his friends.

This type of issue is common in my area. 

Most of the students join PG by giving Advance. Some PG owners play games when students planned to vacate the PG.

I have one such student who is staying in our building. He told me once he lost 15,000rs from one PG owner.

Now that the PG owner blocked this guy’s number to avoid communication with this guy. This student kept quiet from asking for his advance to avoid problems with the PG owner.

He is an outsider… so he doesn’t want any trouble from the local guy.

I guess the upcoming receipt tenant story is similar to this guy’s. 

When the student was ready to vacate, the PG owner created some issue with the advance amount. When he realised his mistake, he came here to avoid the same issue in future.

That’s why it is very important to have proper written communication to avoid such disputes.

In our rental property, all new tenants get detailed written rental agreements. Having such a proper agreement helps avoid disputes at the end stage.

Similarly, When you start house construction, ensure a proper agreement with contractors.

It should include all the important things in writing so both don’t get disputes when issues arise.

After dealing with two different building contractors in our building, I learned a few things about framing a good building contractor agreement. 

I have explained all those important topics in my Building Contractor Guide. However, after receiving a few requests from my buyers for an agreement template, I recently decided to create a Building Contractor Labor Agreement Template. 

This detailed template comes in a Word document, which you can easily modify according to your house construction requirements.

This agreement template is designed for house construction owners to safeguard from potential issues that few contractors make during construction.

Most new users won’t know the issues they face from their building contractor when they start. 

Once the project starts, they will realise their mistakes when they face issues with their contractors.

To prevent Most such issues, having a proper agreement helps.

If you plan to build a house using a labour contract method, here is my recommended building contractor agreement template. 

Building Contractor Agreement Template in English

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After the long festival break, I worked on creating products for my customers.

A few days back, I got a few customers requesting a Building Contractor Agreement Template. I avoided creating a template for quite a few days.

After noticing many of my buyers asking the same questions, I decided to sit and do the work for them.

For the past 2 days, I have sat and prepared this Building Contractor Agreement Template.

This is not some random template that you see anywhere else. This is the agreement that I created, putting all my knowledge and experience into it.

Whatever the tips and suggestions I shared in my building contractor guide, I implemented them in this agreement.

This is quite a detailed agreement.

It contains 8 pages of detailed instructions by keeping Owner Favor.

That doesn’t mean I ignored the Building Contractor’s point of view. I take care of them as well.

It’s a balance between the owner and contractor type of agreement. However, the agreement mostly favours the owners’ safety more than the contractor.

Not just that.

This agreement is written in simple English, making it easy to understand and make changes. Moreover, instead of creating a big paragraph of type of text, I created a point-wise. Hence, it’s easier to modify according to your requirements.

If you need to customise anything, it’s very easy to edit.

I’m providing the Word Document. You can download it to your PC and modify the agreement as required.

I highlighted a few places in the agreement. You need to look at those places and make changes to meet your needs.

This agreement comes in the English language. I created two popular versions of the payment structure agreement and will offer both versions for you to play with.

I’m offering this agreement template inside my Building Contractor Guide in the 2.4 section. If you have access to the building contractor guide, please download the latest version of the guide to see the download link.

If you don’t have access, you get it by buying the Building Contractor Guide here:

I still have not updated the Agreement template on the above sales page, but you will get access inside the guide.

We no longer need any Dish or DTH setup

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To this day, we have been using a non-smart TV.

For this sale on Amazon and Flipkart, we ordered a good smart TV and a home theatre to go with it.

Both came.

We installed our smart TV and plugged our 400 Mbps internet cable to see its performance on a 4K TV.

I was slightly sceptical about its performance as my single internet connection is shared with all my rental property (16 doors + 2 owner house).

And that all our tenants are college students. If you know college students… you know they always have something to download.

When I play some 4K videos on our new 55-inch TV, that video comes without any buffering.

We have removed the DTH we were using with our old TV.

Usually, only my dad and mom watch TV. And they have few requirements.

They watch a few serials and some Kannada news channels. Now, with our internet connection, their serials come with some OTT apps.

And regarding Kannada news? They are now watching it on the YouTube app.

So their requirements are finished. They are watching it in HD video on the internet without any buffering.

They enjoy TV on the Internet rather than on the DTH connection.

Moreover, with plenty of OTT apps, they can also watch some good serials and movies of very good quality whenever needed and whatever movie they want.

Some have even 4K quality videos.

When asked about the dish/DTH setup, they said we don’t need it now.

The picture quality 4K videos on TV are simply awesome. Watching videos itself is a pleasure.

By the way, we didn’t connect our Smart TV with the WiFi option. We used a LAN connection.

That’s the recommended way to get a good-speed internet connection.

If you think wifi will do its job… You are wrong.

A wired connection always beats a WiFi connection anytime and every time.

I never expected I would be able to replace DTH with an Internet setup. But I did plan to have an internet connection all over the building.

It looks like it’s helping us stop the DTH recharge.

By the way, it’s already almost 1 week, and we have not yet connected our DTH cable to the TV.

Our Smart TV runs completely on the Internet without any signs of buffering.

I guess I won’t be going back to any DTH service anymore.

If you are building a new house, plan the right way to have a proper network setup all over the building.

This is another advantage I’m experiencing because of having a proper network setup all over my building.

I will soon be selling my old TV with my DTH setup. We no longer require both of them.

If you also want to implement such a setup in your house, I shared all my knowledge in my Internet Everywhere Guide.

This setup requires some internet service provider with high-speed internet and unlimited data, or you won’t be able to enjoy this.

Fortunately, Excitel internet service is available in my area, and I’m using it fully.

Oh.. by the way. Don’t be disappointed if no Internet service provider offers unlimited internet in your area.

None of them were available in our area when we were constructing our house. Still, I implemented Internet all over my building.

Now, Excitel has come, and they are offering an awesome plan.

You cannot implement it once construction work is over, even if you want to. So implement at the time of construction itself, and when it comes, you can also enjoy…

After watching movies on my TV, I’m already falling in love with it. I’m the guy who never watched TV for almost a decade.

I fell in love after enjoying the video quality with sound effects with the new home theatre system.

From now on, I plan to watch new movies weekly once with my family.

Everyone sitting in the same room and watching something is a different feeling.

Oh… It’s too much to explain all of this in an email.

Anyway, don’t forget to install Internet Allover in your building.

A smart TV without High-Speed internet is like a smartphone without internet/mobile data.

Arun

Ayudha Puja collection

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Today, I saw our area waterman on the backside of my house going on his bike.

I called him to come and collect his monthly bribe…

He came and opened our sump cover to see our water level and collected ₹1000.

After collecting, he should leave. But this time, he asking ₹1,000 extra.

I was quite confused at first as to why he was asking ₹1000 extra.

When I asked why, He said, “Sir Ayudha Puja collection…”

People never stop asking for money when an opportunity arises.

After a little discussion, I paid ₹500, and he left.

Even our Bescom meter reader will come to collect the ayudha pooja fund.

When he came for this month’s meter reading, he asked about the Ayudha pooja fund. While he was leaving our house, I spoke with 4 to 6 of our tenants (college students), so he left without asking.

My guess is he will come once again.

Last year, he came and collected with us.

You will also get such extra expenses when you are constructing your house.

I shared a tip at 3.10 in my Building Contractor Guide to prevent this type of unexpected expense.

Keep those tips in mind while speaking to contractors.

This type of extra expenses added up a little bit in your construction budget. Depending on the owner, they collect such funds.

Repainting work going on in rental property

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Today, I was handling one of our rental property repainting tasks.

Feeling a little tired going and coming from the 3rd floor to the 1st floor. Luckily, I got a good painter who handled all the tasks from cleaning to painting.

All we need to do is show the work, bring the painting materials and remember if he missing some task. Thats all.

He handles the rest of the work.

Anytime repainting work comes, I check if any small pending work is left during construction time and execute such work now.

When you’re doing construction, it’s really difficult to notice small things. Because you’re quite busy with a lot of work already…

You should also be thinking about finishing as soon as possible. So, any small stuff goes unnoticed.

That’s why when repair tasks come in rental property, I check small things I couldn’t give attention to during construction and ask my painter to fix such issues.

When verifying such small attention to detail, I noticed Our Painting Contractors didn’t paint any outside window grill.

Which we cannot easily identify…

I need to put my mobile or any mirror outside the window to see if the outside window grill painting is done.

I didn’t notice that at construction time. Now I see that.

It’s difficult to paint the outside grill without a painter’s rope. But still, I asked my painter to do that painting from inside the house as much as possible.

No matter what, some mistakes always happen.

Another issue I’m actively watching in all my rental property is shared inside my Electrical Work Guide at 5.63.

I also got that issue in this unit as well. Once my brother comes, we will go and fix that issue.

It’s an important thing many electricians don’t care… but you have to.

I have a few things to share about rental property construction. I will write a guide (paid) once I’m in the mood.

Arun

Contractors are not ready to sign the Agreement

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Today, I was chatting with one of my customers on WhatsApp. The customer questioned me…

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In my experience, no contractor signs an agreement before the work is assigned to him, do you agree?

And how can this situation be handled?

—

I was a little confused about what this customer was saying. So I suggested:

First, have an oral discussion. Once You and the Contractors agree to the Contract Terms, Both sign the Written Agreement and Start the Work as I suggested.

To which the customer replied:

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They don’t sign after verbal discussion and refuse to take that work

They are okay working without written agreement

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A clear RED FLAG.

Now, I clearly understood what my customer was saying. None of the contractors are ready to sign a written agreement before starting work.

After listening, I was shocked to see the fact.

At least I never got such a contractor here. Moreover, the customer I was chatting with has done good research and is aware of a few scams and how they work.

Based on a chat discussion I had with this customer, he is quite knowledgeable.

Because of his knowledge, he is struggling to find an ideal contractor for his house construction. (When you know some facts its difficult to cheat/scam and red flag contractors also shows less interest in such projects).

Most contractors he encountered were not ready to sign the agreement before starting the work. (He knew what would happen if he started work without proper written agreement).

Now he said… “Then hunting contractors is a big pain.”

If you pick the right contractors in the beginning, the rest of the construction job becomes much easier.

Really… even if you took 2 or 3 months to find the right contractors, it’s still worth it.

Reason? You won’t face headaches, verbal fights or issues while at the time of construction. Speak to someone who has gone through it so you will understand better.

If you also come across similar situations, don’t work with contractors who are not ready to sign before starting work.

Once they start work without proper agreement, it’s really difficult to deal with when issues happen.

One my good suggestions to all first-time house construction users is to implement what I shared inside my House Construction Tracking System Guide to easily deal with contractors when any issue happens.

Arun

They are in the business to make money

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This morning, I got a WhatsApp message from some guy saying —

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Good to see u r regular updates on home construction

—

Based on the construction image DP, I guess he is in the construction field. Possibly some contractor, I guess.

Whatever may be…

Today, I want to share a small tip related to contractors. This applies to all contractors.

The thing is, I recommend you to always keep in mind that they are in the business to make money.

I see some owners treat them very differently.

I saw one of my dad’s friends here. They think they are paying the contractors and must extract as much output as possible.

It doesn’t work like that.

If someone is doing work, you should remember that contractors should save money on your project.

If their labourers are not properly working in your building? are their labourers coming daily late?

If you notice such stuff, you must notify your contractor and stop all such activities.

If you think it’s the contractor’s responsibility and not yours… and he is the one who will lose money. No no…

Don’t think or treat like that.

If Contractors didn’t save much money at the end of your construction, Give some extra money depending on his nature.

Our construction was never finished within the agreed contract amount for both constructions.

Both our contractors are good. None of them asked for any extra money. We understood they didn’t save much in our contract, and we happily paid some extra at the end of construction.

Both are happy.

Even today, we sometimes call our building contractor labourers for some labour tasks. He promptly sent them.

These days, it’s very rare for owners to have such a good relationship with their contractors.

It’s because owners just think about themself.

Nothing wrong with that.

But I recommend keeping contractors’ profit also in mind while doing your construction, and they will happily assist even after your house construction work is over.

Oh.. by the way, we executed our building contracts differently. That’s why both contractor didn’t save much money.

If we simply went with what the contractors wanted in the agreement, then I’m sure both could have saved from our construction.

My dad is knowledgeable about this agreement framing and wanted to go only with what he suggested. Because of such conditions, contractors didn’t save much.

I shared all such contract framing tips inside my Building Contractor Guide.

That’s for it today,

Happy weekend,
Arun

I locked the room, keeping key inside 🙁

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A few months back, I went to our relative marriage. For staying, they gave us 3 room Keys.

The management installed a Europa cylindrical lock for the main door.

While in a hurry, I turned the lock knob inside the room and pulled the door without verifying the door key.

For this cylindrical lock, you don’t need a key to Lock.

Before pulling out the door, I checked my pocket. I had one Key with me. I thought the key was this room key itself and locked the door.

After some time, I came back and noticed the door was not opening with my key.

It’s the other room key.

I mistook this key for my room key, and now I locked the door by keeping my room key inside the room.

Now, I need to look for the management guy to ask for the duplicate key to open the door.

Fortunately, after waiting some time, I got the guy in charge.

I informed him I kept the room key inside, and now the door is locked. I need a duplicate key to open the door.

He asked, “What’s the room no?”

I informed my room no…

His face immediately turned dull as soon as he listened to room no.

I asked why? What happens?

He replied, “Someone lost that room key a few days back. Now, we don’t have a duplicate key for that room.”

I also felt a little upset. I thought maybe I needed to call a locksmith to open the lock.

He replied no need. I will open it.

How? I asked.

He said, “With a screwdriver.”

Hmm… come, let’s try then.

He came. Within 3 min, he opened the lock with only a screwdriver without damaging the door or lock.

I was surprised watching this scene.

I informed him to get a duplicate key from Europa. He was also shocked to hear that he could get an original duplicate key from the company.

I explained the application process, and he thanked me for sharing this information.

I also thanked him for opening the room key.

When I came back to Bangalore, I searched YouTube about cylindrical locks. Multiple people showed different ways to unlock them very easily.

So… I want to remind you that if you plan to install a cylindrical lock for the backside door or any outside door, keep in mind that — it is dead easy to open the lock without key.

Avoid installing Locks that don’t require a key to lock. You may accidentally get locked out. Which is not something anyone wishes to be in the situation.

In fact, in the lock box itself, they say don’t install outside door kind of warning.

If you install it, use it only for convenience. Not for security purposes.