Feasibility of employing my 2 (unemployed) brothers for a self build project

[ebenzer]

Hi All
hope this is the right location. Firstly i dont know anything about construction but my 2 brothers do and are currently unemployed. How feasibile would paying them to build me a house? I havent mentioned it to them yet but im 100% sure they'd go for it, one built there own already. Its a bit of a win win situation for me if its feasibile. my budget would be about 250k.
how would employing them work. would it be on a contract basis? would the bank agree to this? would they even care?
ive got lots of questions but i thought id start here incase its knocked dead.

 

[mf1]

If you had your own resources i.e. money on deposit, then there is no reason at all why you could not employ your brothers to build you a house. They build - you pay. You take your own chances on their competence to properly construct a house.

However, if you need to borrow money from the bank to build, I think the bank will have an issue -primarily with some form of Homebond guarantee needing to be in place. If your brothers are not professionals will they be able to arrange structural guarantee insurance?

Apart from that, the Bank will require that the works are, at least, certified on a regular and a finla basis, by a competent professional ( Architect/Engineer) and, at worst, supervised by the said professional.

mf

 

[hastalavista]

+1 with mf re the certification to allow drawdown during the works and then for the final piece which will need to show planning and regs have been complied with

in addition the competent professional needs to prove to you he has appropriate insurance.

You also need to take advice on what insurance's you need so as if something went wrong on the site you are not bankrupted.

Not to mention all the wages will need to be transparent

 

[Complainer]

Family and business are not a great mix - what happens when you reckon that lots of further work is needed and they reckon they are finished?

 

[T McGibney]

Family and business are not a great mix

+1

In addition, before proceeding to this, you will need to define precisely what sort of deal this is - will you be employing them (ie paying a daily/weekly wage with appropriate PAYE/PRSI/USC deductions, along with holiday pay and all other related entitlements) or will you be engaging them as a contractor or separate contractors to complete the contract on their own terms (in which case they will need to register accordingly with Revenue and comply with a raft of tax-related obligations).

 

[onq]

+1 what previous posters have commented on plus I note the following -

If you are employing your brothers as direct labour, you will be undertaking the role of Contractor, with significant Health and Safety implications.
You will also have to deal with co-ordination of arrivals and deliveries, the normal builder's insurances (plural), scaffolding hire, erection and maintenance and all the other duties of a contractor.

This leads into the level of competence of your two brothers
- are they skilled tradesmen, able to work "on their tools" and contribute to the work
- are they experienced administrators, able to run the site as the contractor and relieve you of that burden, or
- are they occasional labourers who have worked as blockie's mates, chippies' mates and do forth, but have no trade or experience of running a site.

If its the latter, and you have no experience yourself, you might be foolish to entrust a quarter of a million Euro investment to your brothers.

Finally, certification of the monies if you are drawing from the bank is one thing, certification of compliance quite another.
Who will you get to design the house so that it meets planning requirements and later complies with the requirements of the Building Regulations.
Who will you employ to detail the building to ensure it is built compliantly and who will issue Opinions of Compliance so that you can sell on when the time comes?

This won't be your only house and you don't want to be stuck with a house that is difficult to sell because the necessary work wasn't carried out through lack of knowledge or experience.
Taking professional advice and ensuring the house is built compliantly allow it to be certified by a building professional to a standard that should be acceptable to a prospective purchaser or his solicitor.

You say your brother built his own - to what standard?
These are the questions a prospective purchaser will ask of you if you don't take adequate advice and ensure the house is built compliantly.
Poor compliance will mean that the house will cost a fortune to heat and the primary means of reducing heating bills is good design, followed by good insulation and use of ambient energy sources.

FWIW

ONQ.

[broken link removed]

All advice on AAM is remote from the situation and cannot be relied upon as a defence or support - in and of itself - should legal action be taken.
Competent legal and building professionals should be asked to advise in Real Life with rights to inspect and issue reports on the matters at hand.

 

[RKQ]

However, if you need to borrow money from the bank to build, I think the bank will have an issue -primarily with some form of Homebond guarantee needing to be in place. If your brothers are not professionals will they be able to arrange structural guarantee insurance?

I disagree - this would be a Self-build, so the bank won't be interested in the Contractor or Sub-Contractors. They will want the project inspected, for stage payments, by an experienced & qualified Certifier (Arch Tech, Architect, Engineer or Building Surveyor etc)

The mortgage lender will have strict guigelines on who they will accept to Certify the build. Certifier must have full P.I insurance.

As ONQ states as a Self-builder you become the Main Contractor and have obligations as such - Health & Safety & Insurances.

I do agree that business & family is rarely a good mix.

 

[huskerdu]

A lot of good responses here. If I were the OP, I would think carefully about this.

Here is my advice to add to the above.

Lets assume that you want a good quality house with good insulation / windows / low running costs that you can sell at some stage.

If so, you will need an architect to design it and supervise the building and certify the build.
The architect will create a detailed set of plans that your builder will have to adhere to.

You know your brothers better than us.

Will they obey the instructions of the architect ?
Will they come running to you and complain that the architect told them to do something again because its not acceptable quality ?
Will they expect you to side with them in a disagreement with the architect ?
Will they quickly and efficiently fix all issues on the snag list before they get paid the last tranch of money ?

If you think that you will get a good quality house and still be friends with your brothers, then go ahead.

You will be living in your house for a long time, and you will hopefully want to be friends with your brothers for the rest of your life.