So my wife and I had our Tender appointment yesterday. Things were going along smoothly until we saw in the site cost an extra $550 to do another survey. I picked up on it and told him that the survey had already been done and that it was coming out of the deposit we have already paid. We were told that because when they did the soil test that there was some fill at the front of the block (not where the house was going to be built) that they had to do another test at our expense. Our land is finished but not settled yet.
Before doing the soil test I gave our customer service adviser (who is now on leave for 4 weeks) the number for the supervisor for the land developer and I told her to talk to him and see if she could do the soil test. I emailed her in the afternoon and she told me that she spoke to the supervisor and he said things were good and that she has ordered a soil test to be done during the week. Great we thought, things were moving along nicely.
So after I asked the guy doing our tender why we were charged an extra $550 he said that our land had fill at the front and that they will need to do it again. Now i'm no professional at this, but logic says if they went to the land and there was fill at the front and that it would require another soil test, then why the hell did they carry out the first soil test??? Apparently I have to fork out the extra money because it is my land I told him straight out, that it was between Henley and the land developer not me, I told our CSA to confirm with the supervisor. I didn't authorise anything, I told Henley to call up and see if it was ok to do it. I told the guy that there was no way I was paying an extra $550 and that I didn't like how they were putting the blame on me!!! big mistake Good thing I had printed out the emails regarding the soil test with our CSA which clearly states that she should contact the supervisor first before doing anything. So the tender guy went and spoke to the manager in CS and came back down saying that she will not budge and that we will still have to pay for the cost as it was my fault for allowing the soil test to be carried out. I was fuming by this stage and she had went home for the day. I got up and told him that if she won't change her mind then I will not be building with Henley because if things are this difficult already I can only imagine how much more difficult things will be in other aspects when they have more of our money. So I didn't pay the deposit and did not sign anything yesterday, he was not happy with us either, what a waste of my time and day off work.
I have yet to hear from the CS manager, but I have a very sour taste in my mouth from this exp and my wife and I are seriously considering not going through Henley anymore.
There were a few other things that annoyed me about our tender presenter, but I have gone on for long enough right now.
Just needed to vent my frustrations from yesterdays meeting.