signed first contract- proceed with kitchen, bathroom plans etc.

We signed first contracts today, with the closing date set for 3 weeks from today.
As FTB, would appreciate advice on the following:
Should we proceed with ordering our kitchen including appliances, bathroom tiles etc.
We are also getting our personal belongings shipped to Ireland and the builder has granted permission for us to get our stuff to be shipped to the house.
I personally feel that we should wait until the house is ours before we do anything, whereas my husband thinks we can proceed and even hopes to start tiling if possible before closing. He has previously discussed this with the builder and the builder has agreed.

Looking forward to your advice!!

Lucky you - your builder has agreed to let you store your belongings and start tiling before you take posession! Most builders refuse this because of the risk of damage or theft. Presumably you have construction stage Insurance but I would imagine that this insurance does not cover your belongings (I'm sure someone here will be able to confirm this). So, as the house is in a construction site, most likely the house is opened at ~8am until 5pm and if security isn't great, anyone can walk in off the street and into your house and perhaps walk away with your belongings! I know I'm playing devils advocate here but it could happen. What if some of the contractors damage your tiles? Also, the builder could fob off some faults on your snag list as damage caused by your contractors? Again, devils advocate but you should be aware. I appreciate if you don't store your belongings in the new house, you'll have to pay for storage but you'll have to calculate the risk yourself. Everyone is nice and pleasant until something goes wrong!

BTW - Best of luck with the new house !

Get house insurance, it will cover your unoccupied house and contents for 1 month from insurance start date, but you need to be in after 1 month or you will have to pay an extra premium. Else just get contents insurance.

we got permission from our builder to do work in the house before we took posession but we had to have signed off on our snag before we were allowed.

Also we had permission to store all our belongings as we were in a chain and had to get out of our own house before the site was ready for occupation.

We had two near heart attacks after doing this -
First I put down a really expensive solid timber floor in sitting room and dining room - went to Holland for the weekend and came back on the Monday - arrived at house to find that one of the joints in the plumbing upstairs in en suite had let go and was flowing all weekend - had to get driers / de humidifiers to try dry out the place - luckily the water was flowing down a partition wall to downstairs and then under the dpc/plywood I had put down so no major damage to wooden floor - however had a huge battle with builder to get them to redecorate/fix plumbing etc.

On second note - 4 days before we were to move in - went over to house to put in kitchen counter top and patio door had been smashed in and there were signs someone had been in the house - however they must have scarpered before realising all our expensive stuff was upstairs ! Again battle with builder - they wouldn't replace patio door - I then did a sneaky thing (went to site at weekend and took a french door from an unfinished house and put in mine).

I would advise you to proceed with caution. There are lots of storage places that rent by the month and aren't very dear (prob less than insurance!)