Hi everyone.
Hoping someone out there might be able to offer some advice regarding a relationship with our jilted ex-would-be-builder.
After a really long and tedious process (probably around 12 months more or less) we finally arrived at a plan that suited us. We signed up, paid our $3000 deposit and waited for contracts. After 2 months the contracts arrived. They sat there while our family prepared for the arrival of our 3rd child. A couple of months later I gave birth. We then spent the next month in hospital with a very sick newborn baby.
By the time I got to sit and go through the drawings and contract. I discovered quite a few excluded items which were included in the price and asked for the contract to reflect this. However, our 6 months was up and the contract was a few weeks past its expiry. It was sent to be re-costed. OK, fair enough we thought. We procrastinated, we pay. Couple thousand extra? Think again. $60,000. What?! Waaaaay out of our budget.
Naturally we were shocked and after a wee while thought we should shop around. Again. Found another (volume) builder, well known big company, who offered us very swift service and 2 weeks later we had a great layout with $50k added value for $40k less than the new price of the previous builder.
We paid another $3000 deposit and wrote to the previous builder politely parting ways, no hard feelings, sorry for everything. We asked only for the contour survey and soil report, which was paid for with our deposit.
Today I received an email from the previous builder bagging out our new builder and the quality of their product. Please reconsider coming back to us. As I expected. Thanks, but no thanks.
But I did not expect to be threatened to be "charged more money that the builder is entitled to for the work already done not covered by the initial deposit."
Can anyone tell me if I am subject to further charges, and what this could be for?
I am annoyed to say the least. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks heaps.