After talking with yet another builder/contractor on the island we now realize that if architect drawn plans were the equivalent of a Monte Blanc pen, ours would be in crayon…at best a #2 pencil lol! Apparently, our plans, that were drawn by the developer, who are engineers, bear no resemblance to architect drawn plans. Deep down I think we knew this, but it’s helpful to get confirmation.
In addition, the cost estimate given by the developer is, at best, high 5 figures off, and more likely, 6 figures off. So, armed with this information, we now understand we’re going to have to go back to the drawing board and start over. Good news, bad news? Well, by starting over we can keep the existing plans we have but have them professionally done by an architect, expand on the existing plans, or scrap them altogether and start from scratch. The latter two choices will involve running them back through VROMI (the government entity that approves building plans), which will delay ground breaking by several more months. Currently we’re discussing all options. Thankfully we’re not in a huge hurry.
Such is life on my beautiful island. We’re going to see this through to fruition and wow, when done, what a celebration it’s going to be!!
St. Maarten Move 
that sounds terrible. are you able to somehow get a builder from another island or USA as at this point I am not sure I would trust anyone there.
LikeLike
There are some reputable builders here. All of our friends in the industry reviewed the plans all agree, they’re useless. We fortunately have friends on the island who are exceptional architects and builders, the issue is money. We’ll have to pay to have a new set of plans drawn up that we can trust. It’ll be money well spent even if it wasn’t part of our original budget. I share all of this to hopefully help anyone wanting to build from scratch on the island. It went from being seemingly no big deal to, we’re essentially having to start all over. Someone not familiar with the workings of the island may have simply gone with the plans we had and gotten a not so good surprise upon completion.
LikeLike