In the Australian building industry, there is a key milestone where a project is deemed to be “Substantially Commenced”. This phrase occurs throughout the legal, contractual, and financial documentation, as well as in both Federal and local government policies. The term is, however, not explicitly defined, neither as a legal term nor in any building code.
In most jurisdictions, in the context of private housing, it is deemed to be the date at which the foundations have been laid. For most projects, which are built in situ from the ground up, it is the first time that the builder breaks ground and does something physical. In our case, because the house is being built off-site, the building was in fact almost complete before it had been “Substantially Commenced”.
The living wing, with all of the edges now square-set (Oct 24) 
The under-floor heating is in, now for the tiles in the bathroom (Oct 28)
Our “Substantially Commenced” date was Wednesday 28th October. On that day, our concrete piers had to have been installed on the land, otherwise we’d miss a load of contractual and financial milestones and generate a whole heap of extra paperwork and expense.
By Wednesday of the week before, we still didn’t have our Permit to Build. On Thursday, the entire planning department took a day off. On Friday, the planning department were back at work, but the only person authorised to sign our Permit to Build, had gone on holiday. On Monday, despite continual prodding by our builders, we heard no more from the department. On Tuesday, our builders sent a work crew for a site check, and discovered that the builders of the properties on either side of us have been using our property as a work site and dumping ground.
Get off my land! This hard-core and mixer belong to other builders.
One of the clauses in our contract with the builder was that the site must be completely empty before they start work. We contacted the builders on either side, who both admitted liability, and promised to move their stuff immediately.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, only hours before the deadline, we received our Permit to Build.
On Wednesday, the work crew arrived on the property to put in the foundations, and found that (of course), neither of the neighbouring builders had done anything about their junk on our land. Thankfully, one of the crew took it upon themselves to push everything over the boundaries.
Because our project is a post-and-pier construction, which does not involve any excavation or poured concrete, the actual work of building the foundations went very quickly indeed.
A lot more than just the house is resting on these little posts!
Our foundations are now officially down, and we are Substantially Commenced!
Wow coming along rather fast now it will soon be done my friend xxxx