Membership

Membership

Becoming a member entails paying a joining fee, and agreeing to pay a monthly subscription or becoming a life member. This is not a cheap service to provide and is only possible working over a number of members and subcontracting the provision of services and administration to specialists. However compared to many other services and costs involved in the build the costs of club membership is not that great and should be recovered a number of times, through more informed decisions, help, smoother and faster operations and clever buying. 

You will realize that from the stage of getting a top consultant to visit and help you define your profile to looking at plots, negotiating, looking at planning issues and putting together groups, a lot of expert time is going to be used to help you achieve your dreams, and there is just no way that this can be done without the club incurring very large costs for each of you. For you individually to buy in all this help would be just too expensive, while getting the consultants and support people we use, to look on behalf of many members at the same time as for you, allows you all to get the same benefit, at an affordable price, yet still provide a very personal service for you.

We could have cut the membership costs by taking commissions from others for introducing members or selling specific services. Had we gone down this route, you would not get truly independent advice and it would have limited our ability to help you make the most savings. Most members are delighted we have not looked to sponsorship or commissions but kept all our income coming from members,  and that they can have the confidence that we are working for the members and no one else.

While a club could be set up and run cheaper by local volunteers or activists, these would not have the executive knowledge and we have chosen instead to buy in as needed the time of very experienced company directors and others who have the expertise and skills we need in order to make things actually happen. This also means that as a member you know those organizing projects in your area are working for all members, rather than arranging things to suit their own ends, or so as to get introductory commissions from others. This does not mean that club members cannot also help out, and by doing so each taking on a separate small role, if you have the time, things will move ahead far faster.

Even so, the cost of joining starts lower than some golf clubs, sports clubs and similar. The club has a number of types of membership aimed at different member requirements ranging from members who will be working together on an estate in an attempt to cut prices as far as possible, making a first home affordable, to at the other end of the rainbow where a person wants to build a very large personal palace in a picturesque location. The different member types and rates are explained over the next few pages, and costs relates to the amount of work required for each individually or that can be shared  by a group. A member can leave at any time but agrees to give 6 months notice of their intention to leave. If you cease to be a member or allow your membership to get 3 months in arrears and are therefore automatically resigned from membership, then you would have to apply and join again to get further membership benefits.

The cost of membership both provides the club with funds to allow it to 'buy in' the expertise it needs and make things move forward as fast as it can, but also has an effect of restricting it to people who are really interested in becoming involved in self build, so that the number of people who pull out once they have agreed to become a part of a group can be expected to be very small. For any group to work, it is important that people once committed stay committed, and where occasionally people cannot for some reason, that the percentage is small, so that they can be quickly replaced without upsetting the project.

Who can join

Membership is open to everyone, however it may be at times limited to capacity, and at these times membership will be limited to recruiting new members to form parts of existing groups being set up. In most cases membership will not be promoted nationally, but area by area, giving the club a better chance of setting up local groups faster and meeting combined requirements far faster. Click here if you want to get directly to the page on joining this club

When you join

As a new member you are sent some work books to help you think through your requirements and dream. You are then interviewed by a consultant appointed by the club. He will either visit you at your home, or arrange a meeting in a hotel or meeting facility. At this meeting he will endeavor to find out what you are looking to achieve, and discuss with you many possibilities. Together you will formulate a specification of the range of projects you would like to consider, geographic, size, style, price and other limitations, some factors you may at the time not know and you will have time to look at them and then get back to him when you do. You will not be encouraged to have an unreasonably wide specification, but clearly the wider the range of situations you could become involved in, the faster it is likely that you will be able to be matched with a project to suit these. The consultant will write up this specification and send you a copy to agree with. If you are not in agreement with this you will be able to modify it. If time goes by and no projects meet these needs you will be able to modify the specification further, to make a fit more likely.

A personal plan will also be agreed with the members, that may involve some initial design reading, visits to example buildings, or similar, plus possibly undertaking some research as to funding that will be available to them, so that they have sufficient experience and skills as required, to allow them when the opportunity arises, to make a decision and commitment faster. In some cases the club may arrange for groups of members to visit suppliers, see properties, or visit sites, and may provide background briefings either through a special section of its web site or via printed handouts as it feels are relevant to individual members. At all times the members are treated as individuals, you are not expected to fit a preset mould or being placed on a conveyor belt. Initially you may not see how much variation is available, but as you read more and get more involved you will discover that there are many choices available to you and help with selecting these will allow you to meet your dreams rather than having to settle for a one style fits all approach.

The club also provides you with work books to help you decide the route to take and later both packs to help you monitor the project and large numbers of standard letters, agreements and forms to make the whole process far easier and more efficient. A trade card also allows you to get materials at trade prices, making another very considerable saving.

Having got a personal plan, the club will then do two things, constantly look to see if your specification matches any of the projects it is establishing and look at specifications with a view to creating new searches and projects, to make the meeting of these possible. 

In most cases the club will look to put together several specifications that are similar, to make the finding of a site and the creation of a build projects that will make these possible, and a practical proposition. In some cases it will look at individual sites that will allow individuals with specifications that are considerably different to others needs to be met, as well as monitoring all single sites that arise to see if these could suit any individuals needs. Where this cannot be done and we need to look for an individual site, it is likely to take longer and be more expensive as the majority of self builders, who are not a  part of this club, or some other group, will be looking for single sites and therefore there is far more competition for such sites. In many cases recruitment will have taken place in a small area, allowing a group of similar needs to have been established faster, and in these cases a more proactive approach involving further recruitment to make more matches likely and often proactive projects to find sites will be organized. By creating a number of projects in an area, there is a far greater chance that members needs will be met and some groups can progress while others needs are still being worked on. The actual course of action taken will vary from one type of member to another, as one may have requirements that are best met as a part of a group projects, while another may have a specified need for a larger unique property that is best sourced in other ways.

Finding or creating sites and putting together compatible build groups, you will realize is far more difficult than it sounds,  and will often involve having identified a need, actively searching for potential sites having  first looked at the local plan, discussed with councils and others how our requirements are most likely to be met and then set about meeting the need, looking at planning permission and more. Many sites looked at initially will turn out to be not suitable, either in that it is unlikely we would get planning, or that there is something against the site such as flood risk, or something in the vicinity that would spoil the enjoyment of those who were to live there. In other cases the economics may not make sense, in that the price being asked for the land is far too high. Where we do have great strength is that we have a number of members who are already very seriously looking to become involved, so property sellers know that we are likely to be able to complete quickly, if they do agree terms with us. 

People with land may also find approaching the club beneficial at an early stage, as we may be able to take on the whole process of getting planning, drawing estate plans etc, ahead of planning being sought at no cost to them, on the understanding that we have an option to buy if planning can be obtained. This saves them considerable cost, risk as well as agents fees on the sale. We may also have a greater chance of getting permission than they would without us, as we are often able to work out ahead exactly what we will get planning for and to slant our applications to suit what local planners will encourage. Working with self build groups of local people, we are less likely to meet demands for substantial supplementary investments in infrastructure often expected of major developers, this is particularly advantageous where we are looking to develop sites for first time home owners and budgets are particularly tight. In these cases we both solve a local need to provide more starter homes for first time buyers, and at the same time enable more people to become home owners.  We have another  page on this site for those who either have and they feel we may be interested in, or who would like to combine land provision and club membership , if you want to read this click here.

Once you have become a part of a group actively involved in a build, or on a lone project once the site has been acquired, you continue to get advantages of club membership, by utilizing the clubs trade card to get materials at trade prices as other builders would, even when sourcing individual finishing items from a  range of outlets. Suppliers know that you are a genuine and active self builder not a DIY person looking for a discount. In most areas we will have already approached all suppliers you are likely to approach, so they are able to educate their staff, prior to when you show your trade card. We have no arrangement for the club to have commissions from any suppliers, but do pass on information to you where we think it is relevant and where suppliers are able to offer club members specifically good terms. You also have a lot of systems and information available to you to allow quotes to be obtained, contracts issued and monitored, as well as disputes resolved, through the use of the wide range of forms, standard letters and agreements.

The club does not have a social programme, we do not  wish to match up people ahead of projects or produce newsletters etc, as it has to work as fast as it can and in most cases, keep at least some parts of what it is doing confidential, until a group has committed. Social programmes are avoided so as to concentrate time and resources on the main functions and so as to not prejudice members by either the expectations of other members or in members taking a liking or disliking to each other. The club strives to meet the needs and aspirations of members, not to make members change their desires to fit within a social group. Local groups can meet however to hear about design items, get to understand techniques or to visit example builds.

If you were to look at buying a house on a new development you would not normally look to get to know all other prospective buyers of neighbouring properties first, so working within a club without a social programme presents no difference. The exception to this could be a group of people who within their specification wished to actually become involved in the build process. Such a group may well be introduced so that a compatible range of skills and expectations can be worked out. Such a group may also be assisted by the club to do more of the site location and front end work amongst themselves if they wish.

Full details of the membership conditions are available by clicking here, you can also get to them by a link on the how to join page, , or from the contents list on the left.

This is the 2nd of 6 pages which explains the club, click here to go to the next page in the sequence, the next page looks in more detail at membership types.

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Self Build Homes Club is an international club and trading title of Self Build Homes Club llc. Local services
 to serve members are commissioned for the club by New Atlantis International Services Corporation.
All major commissioned companies involved, have New Atlantis trust status.