Henley in Melbourne

tonyp · May 01, 2007 11:49 pm

I'm thinking of building a single storey house in Point Cook with Henley. After hearing about all the horror stories, I'm a bit wary of the building process. Does anyone here have experience with them? What pitfalls or things that I should watch out for?

Thanks,
Tony

Ed Perry · May 01, 2007 11:57 pm

Henley had a lot of trouble with quality 4-5 years ago, it was all over the media. I am sure it's over now , they learned their lesson - and Melbourne is their head office so I think that they will be on their best behaviour. Ed

Emi · May 02, 2007 7:20 pm

Be willing to check your site EVERY day and hound your supervisor if you see anything you are not sure about. That is the advice a tradie who used to work on Northridge (was part of Henley) gave me. Nuf said?

nswreview · May 03, 2007 1:53 pm

As weve said b4, important things , main one was Frame...if the frame has been installed not square or perpendicular, everything that follows creates a problem...also ensure roof is installed immmediatley the frame is finished ...our 2 storey was in the elements 4 months, without coverings, ensure mortar is mixed to correct levels , everytime, ... rain washes out weak mixtures.
lots of other things, but as Henley now provide an independent person to check along the way (they pay the bills , so its not really independent) then thats a move in the right direction...
previous log said hound the Supervisor, not sure ours had any real building experience, he was lazy, and did not correspond with their office on the list we gave him every fortnight (we lived 1 1/2 hours from where we were building) , so if you can visit evreday day its a plus, make sure you take pics, and make a diary, send any complaint by fax/email...keep a copy... it helps when you go to Fair Trading if you have to.. apart from all of that, enjoy the experience.. we are happy with the design, and the cost....but did have a lot of trouble with the actual building... lets hope they are right now.. ps do not leave any of your personal stuff/tools on site, our 2 storey ladder dissappeared for 6 weeks, "noone Knew where it had gone" then turned up ....the supervisor seems to be the key person, hope you have a good one..

nswreview · May 03, 2007 2:08 pm

tonyp
Have you looked at previous subject like" Any problems with Henley " (like?)on page 2 of lists of subjects under Building a New house.... good stuff in there, from Ist meeting, contract and thru to building

nswreview · May 03, 2007 2:11 pm

tonyp ...also " Site costs with Henley"

tonyp · May 04, 2007 1:24 am

Thanks for all the replies. After reading all the comments and posts here, I'm a bit worried.

I've been looking through all the homes and found the design from Henley is most suitable and have already paid them the $550 deposit.

There goes 550 if I back out now.

Ed Perry · May 04, 2007 7:24 am

Hi TonyP

I am ex-industry, never been with Henley but know them and I sincerely believe that Henley is one of the better builders these days. Every builder will have problems it is the nature of building with material variations and sub-contract trades.

Henley carries the legacy of their brush with the media from past transgressions which makes them very sensitive... but if you are still worried then $550 is cheaper than years of counselling at $100 + per session.

I recommend either run with them and be happy - sorting out problems as they may arise - or change. There is nothing in between.
Ed

conchi · May 04, 2007 9:22 am

Don't worry TonyP. You can still get your money back. We just got our $550 refund back in the mail two days ago. We also fell in love with the Henley range (the wilshire specifically) but were scared off by the site costs that could have amounted to $30,000 since the plot of land that we had put a deposit on (subject to soil test) had come back as p-class.
All we said to Henley was that we were backing out of our land purchase and would not be needing to build anymore. They didn't give us any problems. The check did take 2 weeks to arrive though. Good luck!

Corusant · May 10, 2007 1:44 pm

Hi all, we are building through Henley, we have just gone to site, the slab is due to be laid either today or tommorrow. We did not have any major concerns through the process from start through to site but our administrator was quite annoying.

I'll keep everyone up to date regarding how things go from now until completion. Chose the Monterey single storey.

As with other posters here, I too was concerned about Henley's negative publicity a few years ago but I did alot of research and also spoke to a number of others who have built with them recently. I got positive feedback so I would say that they have learned from past mistakes.

Thx guys.

chidylan · May 10, 2007 4:54 pm

we are currently building with henley (northridge) and are up to the frame stage at the moment.

the only thing we find lacking is the communication with the site supervisor who doesnt pick up the phone and doesnt return phone calls which is starting to be a bit annoying

also we have been advised that we cannot put extra insulation in ourselves as some other people in this forum have been able to do, they did however quote us an inflated price for them to get a contractor to carry this work out along with a $250 late variation fee!!!

tonyp · May 11, 2007 6:35 pm

Corusant, I am also building the Monterey. We are still at the colour selection stage. So far so good for us however it's been 2 weeks and we still haven't receive the soil test report yet. I don't know how long it take to do it.

Touchingcloth · May 11, 2007 7:10 pm

Corusant

Hi all, we are building through Henley, we have just gone to site, the slab is due to be laid either today or tommorrow. We did not have any major concerns through the process from start through to site but our administrator was quite annoying.

I'll keep everyone up to date regarding how things go from now until completion. Chose the Monterey single storey.

As with other posters here, I too was concerned about Henley's negative publicity a few years ago but I did alot of research and also spoke to a number of others who have built with them recently. I got positive feedback so I would say that they have learned from past mistakes.

Thx guys.

We are also building with Henley and are also due to have slab laid this week.

I haven't checked as to whether this has been done yet but when I got home from work 5 mins ago, I found that I had received an invoice for the base stage, payable within 7 DAYS!!!

I checked my contract and it says that payment terms should be 14 Days UPON COMPLETION of stage!!! :evil:

This has really annoyed me.

There is also no credit for the rock content. I really need to know this incase I get a bill at a later date for excess rock...but then again..I wouldn't want' to remind them of this!!

Any thoughts?

Thanks
TC

Corusant · May 11, 2007 11:25 pm

tonyp

Corusant, I am also building the Monterey. We are still at the colour selection stage. So far so good for us however it's been 2 weeks and we still haven't receive the soil test report yet. I don't know how long it take to do it.

Hi Tonyp, how are you finding Cosham for the colour selections? We were very pleased with how all that went, very helpfull.

Have you chosen just the base Moneterey plan or have you added things in like an extra room or anything like that?

The soil test for us took about 2 weeks to get back to us so you aren't that far off receiving the results!

tonyp · May 12, 2007 2:08 am

Hi corusant, the service at Corsham is excellent.The girls there are really helpful on advising me with the colour scheme and material selection. I'm still working on this so haven't finalised the colour appointment yet. I went for the basic plan without any room additions. Let's hope all goes well...I will come back and update this thread regularly.

Corusant · May 18, 2007 8:27 am

tonyp

Hi corusant, the service at Corsham is excellent.The girls there are really helpful on advising me with the colour scheme and material selection. I'm still working on this so haven't finalised the colour appointment yet. I went for the basic plan without any room additions. Let's hope all goes well...I will come back and update this thread regularly.

Slab is down, luckily it did go down before the rain came!. Also got the first invoice for the base. How are you going tonyp?

lesha · May 18, 2007 1:19 pm

Hi Guys,
New to the forum...My partner and I are building with Henley and the house is almost complete. We didn't have many problems at all apart from a few details that they said were included, but then turned out to not be.

In relation to the rock invoice I was also concerned as we had been told to expect a lot of rock. I was told that they don't credit this until the house has been complete incase they still hit it (very unlikely). However if they had hit rock in the site cut we would have been notified straight away.

All in all they have been really good, they started on site on the 2nd March and are now at completion stage.

Hope that helps..

Corusant · May 18, 2007 1:39 pm

lesha

Hi Guys,
New to the forum...My partner and I are building with Henley and the house is almost complete. We didn't have many problems at all apart from a few details that they said were included, but then turned out to not be.

In relation to the rock invoice I was also concerned as we had been told to expect a lot of rock. I was told that they don't credit this until the house has been complete incase they still hit it (very unlikely). However if they had hit rock in the site cut we would have been notified straight away.

All in all they have been really good, they started on site on the 2nd March and are now at completion stage.

Hope that helps..

Hi!!,

Didn't take Henley too long from start to nearly completion, inside 3 months?

vpande · May 18, 2007 1:39 pm

One of our friends built in the new estate in Taylors lakes (single storey 1st home)- they strongly recommend Henley. However we have decided to go with M'con as one of the floorplans suits our needs- without ANY changes-- as wirh others, we have to pay more for alfresco, rumpus, balcony.Almost a 30K saving there.
If you get the floorplan right just go for it.
vp

lesha · May 18, 2007 2:03 pm

Yeah I know.....Our contract date for completion is the end of November and I spoke to our sales consultant last week, and she said they should be ready to do the presentation in the next 3 weeks.

Although I got a call yesterday to advise that our supervisor has left and now it will be shared between two, so I hope they keep up the same pace!!

Its been surprising as we have been out there on public holidays and weekends and there have been tradies on site working. I guess the only concern you have with the pace is that you are getting a sub standard product? But in saying that all work so far has been top notch....