Be very very very cautious when getting Rivergum Homes to build your new home.
Apparently they win lots of awards, no idea how the way we were treated was disgusting.
We have finally finished dealing with this company and what an absolutely horrible experience it has been.
You hear about how building a house is stressful, but to be handed a house at handover that is 73 items short on being completed was extremely disappointing at best.
The “customer service” is an absolute joke and is poor at best, no one at the company seems to know what’s going on, especially in the customer service team.
There were constant embarrassing mistakes and guarantees that just didn’t come to fruition.
For example I was sent pictures of someone else’s house, not one but twice, (even after me pointing out their error they did it again at the next stage), during the build when they were asking for the completion stage money.
The entire list is just to long to list here, it’s an embarrassment for a company of this size to make such large errors, but here are a few...
Rivergum sent my bank was sent someone else’s house plans as part of our loan.
They didn’t order my kitchen.
The site manger had advised me to use an extension cord to plug in the rainwater tank that was 2 metres away from the power point. WHAT?
24 fence sheets that had to be replaced and the down pipes repainted and three storm water pipes snapped off (and not replaced), this was due to their trades that had to use my property to access the build next door due to bad time management.
The driveway wasn’t completed before handover
There were errors picked up on in pre hand-over that were marked, some of the markers were simply removed and not fixed.
The garage floor was disgusting with many things being split on it.
Hallways up and downstairs needed to be fixed as the joins were obvious
No control joint was installed as required by law
Scratched the rainwater tank
Downpipes and gutters that weren’t straight
Front porch tiles covered in paint and other spills
And many many more.
During handover the aircon ducts were being cut and the dishwasher being installed, then they removed the kitchen tap without advising me why.
I was advised and guaranteed everything would be done prior to handover but 73 things, some big issues, had not been done.
It has taken 6 months and 100s hours of my time and days off for their trades to come and many phone calls and emails to arrange their trades to get the issues fixed.
Handing over on the day given by Rivergum was are only option as they guaranteed it would all be done so we gave notice to our previous house. But unfortunately as soon as they got the money from us, no one cared and they hoped I would give up.
My building inspector came around at the 3 month mark and was shocked in the errors and unfinished work that was handed over. With his report being sent in, Rivergum ended up giving him a job to check over houses before handover, avoiding others having to go through what I went through, but it didn’t help me.
They sent their maintenance man around to fix the items and he was shocked and said “most of these things should have been done before handover” so when their staff admit to it, you know it’s bad....
The garage floor was a disgusting mess and the site mangers boss said “mate it’s a garage floor” meaning it’s fine, when I said it wasn’t acceptable to have this in this condition, this is the mentality of the staff at Rivergum homes, no one cared from start to finish but especially after the money was handed over.
It was one of the worst experiences of our lives and won’t be recommending Rivergum homes to anyone.
I highly recommend that you use someone else to build your house.
My Experience with Rivergum Homes
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Hello,
To those thinking about building their first home, their forever home, or investment property…. Think twice before picking Rivergum as your builder. Rivergum will seem like the ideal choice at the beginning, but things start to get out of hand once you sign the documents and put a deposit down. I warn you as I thought things could be avoided if you are diligent and do your research. Currently Rivergum does not care about the way they treat their customers, and it shows. I have reached out to a whole community of new homeowners and in the matter of minutes I got so many messages about peoples horror stories involving Rivergum. Please do yourself a favor and pick a different builder…
Reasons to NOT build with Rivergum:
1. What you get told by the sales associate is different than what gets told to you after signing documents.
a. We were told that we should have always had a lawyer present with us recording all of our conversations. Because clearly trusting the information a representative of theirs tells you is not enough. You are required to have every bit of information written out by them for Rivergum to go through with what they promised. Unfortunately, the sales associate left Rivergum in the middle of our process and we were left to fend for ourselves. So if you want to build with them make sure you hire a lawyer for all your appointments with Rivergum pre-signing documents.
b. You may also want to hire an inspector to go through your house as many of the other homeowners I spoke with had STRUCTURAL errors in their build. And that did not surprise me because Rivergum is WAY understaffed and they are building too many houses at once to put any care into your home.
2. The locations as to where you put your lights or you power points or anything really in your house is… pointless. Why? Because when it comes time to build your house they will decide where all of these things go. They will move them wherever they want without that telling you, but god forbid you decide the day after selections you want to add in a power point or downlight. You will incur a $1,000 fee and the fee for the added things. But hold on it gets better. They make you feel like you are indebted to them because they will so graciously tell you “as a gesture of good will” we will remove the fee. It’s sickening how they make you feel like they are so gracious in not charging $1,000 that would literally require no extra work to them….
3. They also never answer their emails. So, if you have a question or if you need a response as you are trying to coordinate tradies after handover. I hope you have a month and 30 emails ready to send so that you can get a response. This will become your second job. Making sure that they are aware of your emails and that you are in the loop of what is going on with your home.
4. If you thought oh maybe you can be more diligent in your walk throughs… well, you thought wrong. We had to pay $800 for a conduit system for our solar since Rivergum would not allow other tradies on site while the frame was bare so that our solar providers could run their cables through. So instead, we paid $800 for pipes to go through the house for our solar people to run wires through after house is built. Through all our walk throughs we asked about the conduits and we were told if it is in the plans, it will get done. We emailed the main office confirming that it was done as our site supervisor didn’t give us much confidence and they too said it would get done. We asked every walk through and sent emails to confirm. They never did it. Instead, we had the hassle of having tradies come to the house during work hours 2 days to do what we paid to get done in first place. So, they are allowed to break their contract with you but when you want to make a minor change you’ll incur a $1,000 fine, or not but you sure as hell will hear about how giving they were to you.
5. Are you thinking maybe you were not speaking to the right people? Welllll…. When you email the founder, managing director, national general manager and things still get messed up then you know they really do not care how they treat their customers.
6. What if you hold your last payment and make sure they do everything right before they get their money? I thought so too… They will actually start charging you interest every day past the due date because they just can.
7. Do you have a maintenance sheet of things you found wrong in your house? Well expect to wait 3 years for that to get done. Or make it your second job to send their maintenance team an email every day to get it done. Why? Because Rivergum did sooo many botched jobs that their maintenance team is probably overloaded with work and your house is at the bottom of a VERY long list of wrongly built homes.
Maybe you know exactly what you want from the beginning, down to EVERY single detail or you don’t mind that things get changed or you don’t care if your house doesn’t come out the way you envisioned. Then yeah Rivergum is the builder for you. If you at all care about customer service or your home then save your money and go somewhere else. The headache you get from Rivergum’s incompetence is not worth it. Rivergum could avoid 90% of their issues if they had more employees to even out the workload. Their employee turnover rate is shocking and their communication with their tradies is non-existent. Whatever you think you could do to avoid these issues is never going to work because Rivergum has a systematic issue within the company that not you or me will be able to solve. So, you are doomed from the very beginning. I mean begin by asking how many homes 1 site supervisor, 1 customer service advisor has at once for you to see why they are so many issues and add in bad communication and there is your recipe for disaster. GO ELSEWHERE!!!!!
To those thinking about building their first home, their forever home, or investment property…. Think twice before picking Rivergum as your builder. Rivergum will seem like the ideal choice at the beginning, but things start to get out of hand once you sign the documents and put a deposit down. I warn you as I thought things could be avoided if you are diligent and do your research. Currently Rivergum does not care about the way they treat their customers, and it shows. I have reached out to a whole community of new homeowners and in the matter of minutes I got so many messages about peoples horror stories involving Rivergum. Please do yourself a favor and pick a different builder…
Reasons to NOT build with Rivergum:
1. What you get told by the sales associate is different than what gets told to you after signing documents.
a. We were told that we should have always had a lawyer present with us recording all of our conversations. Because clearly trusting the information a representative of theirs tells you is not enough. You are required to have every bit of information written out by them for Rivergum to go through with what they promised. Unfortunately, the sales associate left Rivergum in the middle of our process and we were left to fend for ourselves. So if you want to build with them make sure you hire a lawyer for all your appointments with Rivergum pre-signing documents.
b. You may also want to hire an inspector to go through your house as many of the other homeowners I spoke with had STRUCTURAL errors in their build. And that did not surprise me because Rivergum is WAY understaffed and they are building too many houses at once to put any care into your home.
2. The locations as to where you put your lights or you power points or anything really in your house is… pointless. Why? Because when it comes time to build your house they will decide where all of these things go. They will move them wherever they want without that telling you, but god forbid you decide the day after selections you want to add in a power point or downlight. You will incur a $1,000 fee and the fee for the added things. But hold on it gets better. They make you feel like you are indebted to them because they will so graciously tell you “as a gesture of good will” we will remove the fee. It’s sickening how they make you feel like they are so gracious in not charging $1,000 that would literally require no extra work to them….
3. They also never answer their emails. So, if you have a question or if you need a response as you are trying to coordinate tradies after handover. I hope you have a month and 30 emails ready to send so that you can get a response. This will become your second job. Making sure that they are aware of your emails and that you are in the loop of what is going on with your home.
4. If you thought oh maybe you can be more diligent in your walk throughs… well, you thought wrong. We had to pay $800 for a conduit system for our solar since Rivergum would not allow other tradies on site while the frame was bare so that our solar providers could run their cables through. So instead, we paid $800 for pipes to go through the house for our solar people to run wires through after house is built. Through all our walk throughs we asked about the conduits and we were told if it is in the plans, it will get done. We emailed the main office confirming that it was done as our site supervisor didn’t give us much confidence and they too said it would get done. We asked every walk through and sent emails to confirm. They never did it. Instead, we had the hassle of having tradies come to the house during work hours 2 days to do what we paid to get done in first place. So, they are allowed to break their contract with you but when you want to make a minor change you’ll incur a $1,000 fine, or not but you sure as hell will hear about how giving they were to you.
5. Are you thinking maybe you were not speaking to the right people? Welllll…. When you email the founder, managing director, national general manager and things still get messed up then you know they really do not care how they treat their customers.
6. What if you hold your last payment and make sure they do everything right before they get their money? I thought so too… They will actually start charging you interest every day past the due date because they just can.
7. Do you have a maintenance sheet of things you found wrong in your house? Well expect to wait 3 years for that to get done. Or make it your second job to send their maintenance team an email every day to get it done. Why? Because Rivergum did sooo many botched jobs that their maintenance team is probably overloaded with work and your house is at the bottom of a VERY long list of wrongly built homes.
Maybe you know exactly what you want from the beginning, down to EVERY single detail or you don’t mind that things get changed or you don’t care if your house doesn’t come out the way you envisioned. Then yeah Rivergum is the builder for you. If you at all care about customer service or your home then save your money and go somewhere else. The headache you get from Rivergum’s incompetence is not worth it. Rivergum could avoid 90% of their issues if they had more employees to even out the workload. Their employee turnover rate is shocking and their communication with their tradies is non-existent. Whatever you think you could do to avoid these issues is never going to work because Rivergum has a systematic issue within the company that not you or me will be able to solve. So, you are doomed from the very beginning. I mean begin by asking how many homes 1 site supervisor, 1 customer service advisor has at once for you to see why they are so many issues and add in bad communication and there is your recipe for disaster. GO ELSEWHERE!!!!!
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20/03/2024
11
I apologise for any confusion, but your understanding is correct. We approached our situation differently based on advice from…