Signed Our Lives Away!

Well, we did it. We signed our lives away and the game is truly on! Our contract appointment was yesterday (April 30th) and we met with Melanie, who won some big points back and went from "Little Miss Uselss" to "Little Miss Helpful" which was nice to see. Becuase we had her express post the contract to us, we had time over the weekend to read and review it, which allowed us to go in prepared with a few (but not many) questions. We went over the details with Melanie and she answered our questions pretty satisfactorily, with one item she was going to check up on and get back to us. We have come to the conclusion that she is probably snowed under with several clients at the moment and if you want something to happen or you want to be in the 'front of the line,' you probably need to hound her a bit to get things done for you. She admitted this somewhat, so now we know how to play it and are hopeful everything from here on out will be done in a timely manner with as little 'surpirses' as possible.
The contract was pretty well laid out and the explanations for everything in it was pretty clear and concise. The questions/requests were:
1. Adjustment of the incorrectly stated deposit amount and subsequent deposit payments. This was done right away, no issues.
2. Deletion of the price of the riser pipe and retaining wall from the tender price as it had been deleted on our final drawings by the engineer's report. It was explained that this price deletion will come out later, when we pay the next deposit.
3. Recommendation of an "H Class" slab (foundation) despite the original tender suggestion of an "M Class" slab. Melanie did not realize the change had been made and was going to check on that one for us and get back to us. More on this one later!
4. The language in the contract states that we need to provide Henley with written documentation that the house has been demolished, trees and plants removed, old footings removed etc. Melanie said that if I can provide that when I get it, but that if I just inform her that the house is gone and the lot is clear, she'll order the second soil test that day, which will take about a week to have done and then (possibly) another week before any alterations from an engineering perspective that need to be made given the results of the 2nd test.
5. My final question was if the TV points & coax cable could be taken off of the plans and refunded if I had my personal 'smart wire' electrician wire the house? She answered that today stating that a certain clause in the contract specify exaclty what Henley require to happen there.

Melanie then informed us that an arborist report was recommended and would be ordered and carried out by Henley at no further cost to us, which was fine. Mainly it had to do with some large trees on an ajoining property, which (oddly enough) were recently removed! So, we are guessing that the concern of these trees and their roots will not be an issue nor affect our slab design.

She came back to us today regarding the slab classification change and her answer was: "The soil report has been revised since being first obtained, therefore the recommendations have changed, and we are now designing the slab as a class P."

My answer to this was:
The answer you provided below re: the soil revision does, (I’m sure you knew this was coming) pose a couple more questions.

1. Will the revised slab design affect the site costs that we signed at tender and what will those costs be (if known)?
2. Why is the design of the slab a ‘Class P’ when a ‘Class H’ was recommended on the Engineers report? (Realizing that on the report the soil was classed as ‘P’ due to trees, which of course will be removed entirely when we begin demolition).
3. Is there a potential for all of this (slab, soil and class design) to change again after the second soil test is completed and analyzed?

I didn't hear back today, but will update you as to the answer to these intriguing questions as soon as Melanie gets back to me, so watch this space!