have built and finished lvl 1 house, but when i go to finish off the first stage of small garage it says i have to finish building lvl1 house first.
any tips help or advice gratefully appreciated in advance............spuduk3

Once you have finished building a house or any other structure, before you can start laying foundations for another there has to have been a restart on the sever. Once the restart has been done you will be able to lay the foundations for your garage

another issue now built stage 1 and have waited til the next restart and when go to build stage it first said player near by cant build or something very similiar, took all the items out then put back in and tried to build stage2 it went through all the action but didnt build the next stage, all gear was still in the inventory of garage, any help or advice would be helpful........spuduk3

I actually posted a similar issue a few days ago and discovered the issue myself. You might find your stood to close yourself, sounds odd I know as it says another player is too close, as that's what confused me. I moved back a little and it worked, give it another try hope that's the issue