Hi all,
I have visited the forum a number of times and thought it was appropriate for me to share my experiences with you. I have refrrained from posting until now as I believed that McJones would do the right thing but nearly 2x months on we are still waiting.
We have recently built the Milano 16M in the Hunter Valley.
This was to be the house of our dreams. We have built previously in WA and had no real issues to speak of and brought our experiences across to this build in the hope that we could make this a painless experience and to ensure our money was spent where we needed it.
We had high's and low's during the build and worked through the issues as they came about. At times I felt like I was managing the job and having to follow up up on items that were outstanding.
I won't detail the dramas we had during the build, however I will bring you up to speed on where we stand now, especially considering we have recently moved into to our new home after taking possession just shy of 2x months ago.
Nearing the completion of our home our Supervisor advised us that he would be taking Annual Leave in the coming weeks. He advised us that we had 2x options: Wait for the outstanding items that were picked up by myself and the Area Manager to be rectified which could take up to 2x weeks or take possession of the house now and the outstanding items would be rectified ASAP. We opted to take possession as we needed to have the driveways, excavasion etc done.
We took possession and handed the final cheque across stating at the time to the Supervisor that this by now means meant that McJones would be forgetting about us due to the numerous outstanding items from the defects list. We also informed the Supervisor that we were not intending to move in for a couple of weeks due to the fact that we were heading away to Bathurst for the Big Race and would be away for that week, leaving free reign to the contractors to do their defect repairs and also left the door locks as construction locks for their ease of access.
This was all acknowleged and confirmed twice more before we left. However, we returned to find that NONE of these defects had been rectified and that the Supervisor who was now on holidays himself was not contactable.
To this date, we are still having items repaired that were picked up prior to handover and almost every day of the working week we have a contractor on site performing repairs and disrupting our lives which is the exact reason we opted not to move in immediately and to give them access to the premesis whilst we were on holidays.
We were also extremely dissapointed with the tiling in our home and still are even after multiple tiles have been replaced. So much so that it has effected us greatly and as much as we love the design of our home and it's location we loath the very moment we walk through the door to see lipped, warped, high and low tiles everywhere! It gets brought up in conversation time and time again and at this stage (we are still awaiting a reply from Bill McDonald) it has ruined the whole experience of the build and ownership of our home.
I hope beyond hope to be able to come back to this forum and tell you all how wonderful McJones have been in their response to the tiling (considering I have been raising it as an issue and also a safety concern since they were initially laid).
If not, then I am sure I will inform you all of our entire experience in detail as there is alot more to the story.
If you take anything from this, make a note and photograph all defects and don't let your suspervisor push you through your inspections, take your time and note everything. Do not hand the final payment over until you are satisfied.
We are also not the only ones in our area to have issues and as a group we are considering our next course of action if McJones do not fulfil their duty and obligations.
I really cannot convey how dissapointed we are and how much this is effecting us every day.