Now 80 days overdue on our house

ricci · Apr 03, 2008 5:24 pm

M3tricon have had only 3-4 days of work left on our house for the last 4 weeks and they have done absolutely nothing. Have written a letter to the state manager today outlining the ridiculous excuses we have been fed by the construction manager.

Yesterday the construction manager told me that the 'elusive' carpenter who hasn't turned up for 4 weeks will be there today. When I told him that the supervisor told me another carpenter had been organised he replied: "we have to give him a chance to do the work"....lol - i am beyond anger now. He also said that this carpenter becomes frazzled very quickly, has anxiety and recently fell off some scaffolding and injured his shoulder. But despite all this - "he will be onsite".... and guess what??? was he onsite today?...No

Has anyone heard such blatant bull$hit before?

coljacqld · Apr 03, 2008 5:45 pm

getting a bit beyond a joke for you Ricci :roll:

I can only hope we are not in the same position in a couple of months time.

Maybe you should take a day trip to Robina, demand to see the state manage, if they say he is busy tell them you will wait and take a seat (on the floor if you have to). Better still do the above but take a couple of young children with you, fill them up on red cordial and feed them the crumbliest biscuits you can find. :twisted:

(I have a 3 & 5 yearold I could lend you

)

When you get to see the state manager produce a one page flyer that states only the facts of your situation and advise him that if your house is not finished by the end of the week you and a number of your friends will be outside every one of their display homes on Saturday Morning distributing the flyer :twisted:

Anne

Law18 · Apr 03, 2008 9:01 pm

Ricci

Sorry to hear about your delays. We to are in a similar situation to you, well maybe even a little worse as we are more than 14weeks overdue with also only a handful of days worth of work to go.

We have tried everything to get our house finished with the builder and it just seems if they dont want to do it they just wont. We have had every excuse under the sun and we are just sick of the ******. The more they promise us the tradies will be there this week or tommorrow or what ever and then we drive all the way out there to find that no tradies have been there the more annoyed we become.

Sorry I cant help you because nothing so far has worked for us so I will be following this thread very closely. The one thing I do know is it is about time these builders are held more accountable for the timeliness of the contracts they write and not the $15 a day that they dont even care about as it has been built into the costs anyway - that is not a penalty.

ricci · Apr 03, 2008 11:31 pm

Thanks for the tips Anne, you had me and my wife in stitches lol :lol:

I have no doubt that technique would work...!!

Law18 - sorry to hear about your experience, we know exactly how you feel. I hope things come good for both of us sooner than later.

to_do_list · Apr 03, 2008 11:37 pm

coljacqld

...if they say he is busy tell them you will wait and take a seat (on the floor if you have to). Better still do the above but take a couple of young children with you, fill them up on red cordial and feed them the crumbliest biscuits you can find. :twisted:

(I have a 3 & 5 yearold I could lend you

)....

Love it

I'd also add if you can get the kids when they're in the middle of a cold....dribbly nose...cough... :twisted:

perryr · Apr 04, 2008 7:49 am

Very poor form my the big M. Sorry to hear that you are still not in the place. At least your experience will provide input for people that are considering building with them.

Let us know how it goes.

Adrian B · Apr 04, 2008 8:18 am

Seems to be a big difference between M in melb and M in Brisbane. I hope for your sake they get ttheir act into gear.

coljacqld · Apr 06, 2008 10:10 am

Hi Ricci

I am glad I could be of some light entertainment in your situation. You mustn't get alot of that at the moment. :cry:

Was there any movement over the last couple of days?

My offer stull stands to lend you the boys

Anne

joaninhac · Apr 07, 2008 1:08 pm

coljacqld
that's funny... i might do the same as we are in a similar situation...

hope you've got some progress ricci... please let us know

coljacqld · Apr 09, 2008 10:18 pm

any progress Ricci?

Anne

ricci · Apr 09, 2008 10:43 pm

Hi All,

After getting in the boxing ring with the State Mgr, Construction Mgr and our Supervisor; M3tricon have promised the house will be handed over this Friday. The State Mgr reckons he will be there in person to hand it over...I'd like to see that

There are still an array of issues which we aren't happy with, but we have to move out now and have no choice. If they haven't completed the practical comletion items by Friday I'm going to only part with the cheque providing the give a written statement that despite final payment being received, we are not accepting the house is at a satisfactory level of completion and that they will continue to pay the measley $15/day until all items are complete.

clath · Apr 09, 2008 11:44 pm

Great to hear Ricci .... you finally have your house :}} You wonder how they get away with it :roll:

I had handover also this week .

perryr · Apr 10, 2008 12:27 am

They get away with it because:

a) There's not a lot of repeat business when building a house; and
b) not enough people read these forums!

Law18 · Apr 10, 2008 12:39 am

Let us know how you go with the final inspection and the statement to the finishing. Hopefully they will have the majority of the work done for you!

Paula · Apr 10, 2008 3:32 pm

ricci & clath, good luck with your handovers this week - very exciting for you both.

First_Timer_Ray · Apr 10, 2008 7:01 pm

All the best for tomorrow Ricci. I would be very interested in what happens on the day.

Ray.

aliand · Apr 15, 2008 10:37 am

We are up to 112 days over the due date of our contract ! What a total farce our entire building experience is turning into....

The house was basically finished by late Sept last year when we were told only a few weeks were needed to finish off....about a month after that not much had progressed and we organised an independent inspection which outlined a number of items to be fixed....some major but mostly minor.

Back in December last year we were told they needed "a week and a half" to rectify the issues.....we speak to the builder a number of times a week and we are told everything will be fixed.

We have been told a number of times the house will be ready by a certain date but it isn't and still we wait.

I have organised a time for handover this week as I was told last week it was only a few days away. The builder agreed it will be ready by later in the week but I am 99.99% sure it will not be ready but I am eager for the meeting to go ahead regardless.

By law we can terminate the contract if the contract goes 1.5 times the contract length which we are only a few weeks away from but I am not sure of the implications of this, maybe they would be happy to get rid of us....

It has been such a frustrating journey but as it has taken so long, we believe we should wait until everything is fixed properly....how many attempted handover presentations can there be ?

I really dont know what else we can do now...

3timesbuilda · Apr 15, 2008 10:56 am

Hi Aliand,

Your builder claims very proudly and emphatically that they have never had a VCAT judgement against them. It is a sales point for them.

Contact NW and tell him that they have 28 days to get everything done and hand over or you will be filing a VCAT application against them. Write a letter with similar wording and registered mail it to them.

This should get them jittery.

3timesbuilda · Apr 15, 2008 11:15 am

The relevant act:

Section 41 Page 39.

http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/Domin ... 91a063.pdf

41 Ending a contract if completion time or cost blows out for unforeseeable reasons
(1) A building owner may end a major domestic building contract if—

(a) either—
(i) the contract price rises by 15% or more after the contract was entered into; or
(ii) the contract has not been completed within 1½ times the period it was to have been completed by; and

(b) the reason for the increased time or cost was something that could not have been reasonably foreseen by the builder on the date the contract was made.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), any increased time or cost that arises as a result of a prime cost item or a provisional sum or that is caused by a variation made under section 38 is to be ignored in calculating any price rise or increase in time.

(3) To end the contract, the building owner must give the builder a signed notice stating that the building owner is ending the contract under this section and giving details of why the contract is being ended.

(4) The Director may specify that the notice is to be given in a form approved by him or her13. If the Director does this, the building owner must give the notice in that form.

(5) If a contract is ended under this section, the builder is entitled to a reasonable price for the work carried out under the contract to the date the contract is ended.

(6) However, a builder may not recover under subsection (5) more than the builder would have been entitled to recover under the contract.

aliand · Apr 15, 2008 11:20 am

Thanks for the advice and link 3x,

If it is not completely ready by later in the week when we meet, then I will advise them that this is our intention.

I hope you don't have similar problems.