Last month I covered finding your plot of land, ensuring it was saleable by the vendors, finding a good lawyer and title searches. The next step is drawing up plans, finding an architect and subsequently finding a builder.

Before you go looking for an architect it is a good idea to have sketched out, however roughly, the idea for your dream home which is in your mind, either using a computer program for this, or even a pen sketch on paper. It is so much easier to explain what you want from a drawing than from thin air, particularly if language issues come into play. It is also easier to get concepts across from paper, rather than assume a two way telepathy between you and your architect. When looking for an architect make sure they are a member of CODIA - this is the professional association of engineers and architects. Without the architect’s CODIA registration number on your plans they will not be approved by the innumerable authorities to whom they need to be submitted.

When hunting for an architect take the recommendation of someone you trust who was satisfied with the service provided by their architect. Some of the development companies will offer you a ‘job lot’ of lawyer, architect, engineer and construction company. Personally, I am wary of these set ups as I am not convinced that this ‘team’ approach is in the consumers best interest. You may be told certain things are not possible simply because it is outside the team’s experience, or too much trouble. Your own independent architect is far more likely to work to your interests.

More and more foreign investors are buying land in the DR before they actually move to live here and more and more development companies are offering ‘trouble-free one stop shopping’ teams of lawyer, architect, engineer, construction company and subsequent ‘service’ to rent out your property. Be very very wary. And if it is a pre-construction ‘deal’ be even more wary. The DR has a history of unscrupulous developers absconding with the deposit. And they may not even be unscrupulous; they might just be overstretched financially or poor managers. One group of Dominican expats in the US found this to their cost when planning their retirement properties back in their motherland. They were unable to get their funds back from the developer as he was already in debt to a bank in the DR. The bank took legal action and the developer was forced to pay over the monies he already had to clear the bank debt. This was, of course, the money he had obtained in deposit from the Dominicans hoping to build their dream retirement properties………… Always remember that the type of institutional safeguards to protect the consumer from these sorts of practices are either non-existent or very much in their infancy. And as with the advice on choosing a lawyer, an architect who speaks English does not necessarily signify a good architect.

We ran a sort of ’selection criteria’ test for architects. We had our computer generated plans printed out which we handed over and asked them to draw up a draft plan. In our case we were breaking cultural norms in wanting a very large open plan kitchen which led directly to the dining area and then on to the lounge. This was to aid air circulation and keep the areas as cool as possible. It was also because the person doing the cooking in our household is me and I wanted to be able to interact with others whilst cooking. In rich Dominican households, the ‘lady of the house’ does not cook - she has staff for that, usually shut away in small kitchens out of sight of the main socializing rooms of the household. One of our potential architects actually altered our open plan design on paper and came back with a small, shut off kitchen on his draft. When asked why he said we would want the staff doing the cooking to be out of the way - this despite the fact that we had explained our intentions in detail. Obviously he did not get the job because he was not prepared to listen!

The architect with whom we decided to go turned out to be a real treasure - he was an absolute stickler for getting us to say exactly what we wanted, even down to the positioning of each and every electrical socket. He did not speak a word of English which was fine by us because we had adequate Spanish……..or so we thought until we got into these very technical discussions. Subsequent to these encounters we ended up with an extensive Spanish vocabulary which we have never found the opportunity to use again! I keep trying to weave ‘plinth’ into ordinary everyday conversation but find the opportunities are limited (zocalo for those who need to know)…………you can’t exactly walk into a neighbor’s home and greet them with an enthusiastic ‘Ah, I see your plinth is the same color as your cornice’ without being thought a little odd, to put it mildly.

While we are on the language subject, be careful what you ask for. We had decided to elevate our property so that it was higher than the road and other nearby properties, as a way of dealing with rain run off. When it rains in the Tropics it really rains and if you are lower than everyone else nearby you end up with an unintended swimming pool, as some owners who built underground car parking have discovered. So you put a lot of rubble on your building lot to raise the level at which the building starts. In UK, where I am from, this rubble is known as hardcore.

Some of you may be ahead of me here! I had to look up the word as these technicalities were not part of my normal vocabulary……..and got the wrong one! I will never forget the incredulous look on the faces of the engineer and master builder…..’You want 12 feet of what under your house, Ginnie?’ The correct word in DR for those who need it is ‘relleno’ pronounced ray-yay-no or by some ray-hay-no.

Back to the architect. As indicated, ours turned out to be exceptionally patient and seemed to have an endless supply of time for a very low fee. The plans cost 34,000 pesos (about US$1,700 at that time 6 years ago) and that included innumerable 2 to 4 hour discussion sessions as he checked back with us every step of the way to make sure there were no misunderstandings. He has, subsequently, of course, become a friend. Some architects offer a service of supervising the building work for an extra fee. We did not avail ourselves of this service because the construction engineer we decided on was also qualified architecturally and we thought it would not be necessary.

Wrong!

Our construction engineer was not the best thing since sliced bread, as the expression goes, but on the other hand, he could not even compete for the title of worst of the bunch, judging by some of the tales I have heard from other expats. And I don’t mean the whiny sort who would whinge over the slightest mishap, either.

We invited estimates from 4 different builders based on our plans and the quality of finish we wanted. Estimates are very detailed here and seem to follow a similar pattern so you can line all 4 up and see where builder A is charging you 30,000 pesos more than builder B, for example. Despite the adage that you get what you pay for, the most expensive estimate does not necessarily equate to good standards of workmanship. It might equate to how gullible you look! Only one of our 4 builders spoke English (that immediately put him in the suspect range!!) and he also brought his electrician to a meeting with us. The electrician was probably a New York Dominican - absolutely fluent English and a great line of chat that we would need to budget for our own electrical transformer from the Puerto Plata electricity company, because the one supplying our cul-de-sac was not good enough. That is when further suspicions came into play! But we had already lived here 8 years by then and were more than capable of checking the veracity of that sort of information. You can also do what we did and negotiate the price down, as the builder you decide to go with is shown the other builders’ estimates for sections of the work quoted as less than his.

We examined properties built by 3 of the 4 contenders (the fourth did not manage to produce a ’satisfied customer’, so that ruled him out). And we returned to the ’satisfied customers’ when the builder was not with us, just in case there was anything ‘else’ they wanted to tell us. I would recommend that, you learn a lot, plus word gets back to the builder (no secrets here!) who realizes that gringo does not equate with estupido. Of the properties examined, the builder with the ‘transformer’ electrician had produced some really upmarket, impressive but overpriced homes. The second had installed mahogany front doors whose varnish was ruined because the portico was angled in such a way as to offer no protection whatsoever against driving rain (maybe an architectural error rather than a building error, but one that should have been subsequently corrected). The third showed us adequate properties, nothing special, and some had plaster ’settling’ cracks. We decided on the third builder, whose estimate was reasonable and whose master builder was someone we knew.

You will see from this that building a house in the DR is a hands on job - this will become more apparent as the story unfolds. You cannot end up with what you want by ’supervising’ from another country. Most people building in first world countries would want to be physically present if not daily, then at least weekly. In DR it is absolutely crucial. And twice daily is better! To those who want their home built in the DR by their ‘trouble-free one stop shop’ in their absence while they live life as normal in their first world country, be careful what you wish for. Success stories under these circumstances are the exception rather than the rule. And subsequent rectification of what they got wrong while you were living a blissfully ignorant Stepford existence, is both costly and time consuming. One thing you can guarantee is that anything which is ‘wrong’ will be your fault, never the builder’s.

Once you have settled on the builder you will need to return to your lawyer (or use a different one) to establish a service contract with the builder. This will cover price as per the estimate, timing, payment arrangements and will denote land title number and location and size of the property. All of these matters need checking - you do not want to authorize your builder to build your house on someone else’s land! Otherwise he could turn round and say he was only doing what was specified in the contract. On timing, our builder specified 4 months and took 5 - we were not pushing since we would rather have had the job done well if it took a little longer, than rushed with a whole range of things needing to be undone subsequently. If we were to do it again we would take a lot longer - it is a good idea to allow for settling otherwise plasterwork cracks will appear. But it is all a matter of perspective - 3 years after we built, Puerto Plata had a 6.5 earthquake, the epicenter only 15 miles distant from our house, followed by a 5.2 plus hundreds of aftershocks in the following 4 months. The house withstood the earthquakes but not surprisingly there were a few more plaster cracks, slightly more noticeable than the ones caused by settling.

With regard to payment schedule our contract specified a half million peso payment up front (about 20% of the total) and the remainder to be paid monthly in 4 equal amounts. The good lawyer should not allow a service contract which stipulates any more than 25% of the total up front - you may as well be getting interest payments (anything from 8% - 15% per annum, depending on the currency chosen) on the balance of your money. Of course, prices can change! Whilst we were building the peso began to devalue slowly and the price of fuel increased. Fortunately we had completed building 4 years before the rapid devaluation of the peso in 2004 but increased transport costs did lead to higher costs in building materials. The builder was not ‘trying it on’ and the increases were all easily checkable (which, of course, we did).

So, now you have your land, plans, construction engineer and agreed contact. Are you all set to begin the actual construction work? Not quite……………Part 3 of this article will cover the range of building permissions required, the actual construction and the use of sub contractors. Yes, I know, another month……..but see comment at the end of Part 1.

Ginnie Bedggood: Bedggood_bush@hotmail.com

Dominican Republic Country Profile

Real Estate in The Dominican Republic