Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1647Feb 28, 2018 9:17 am My building experience https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=91499 Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1649Feb 28, 2018 9:55 am Simeon McGovern Affordable Custom Homes, We design and build to your budget Ashington Homes www.ashingtonhomes.com.au Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1650Feb 28, 2018 10:19 am nada17 I am really surprised at how this kind of small to medium size company can't reslove their admin and coordinating issues that most of the people complain here. As I understand it is a family own business so I would expect to work much better than any other larger organization. What actually prevent them to restructure their organization to perform better? Where is the bottleneck and who causes that? I see everywhere the companies just hire good people and eliminate the ones who underperform or with negative attitudes. Why those guys can't do it? Wouldn't this way the entire company would sink with everyone in it? Anyways I really can't say anything yet as my experience is positive so far. I wish it will be same in the future too My building experience https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=91499 Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1651Feb 28, 2018 3:14 pm I think they don't see any reason to improve their performance. They have good sales team who makes a good company image. After the client pays deposit and then 5-10% of tender price, that's when they stop caring as they know they got the job. They will do it when it suits them and they don't bother much that their delays and mistakes cause you to lose money. Most people do not want to lose money already paid and time already spent that's why they just stick with Kurmond. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1652Mar 01, 2018 9:34 am Nada17 - Glad you’ve got your CC, nice to feel like you’re moving forward. Malik - glad you’re feeling optimistic! Good luck, and I hope you progress faster than we have. As for us, our CSO requested we do all the council applications for Roads Act etc (big fat lie on their website that they take care of all the council approvals), and said they will apply for the CC once we send the receipts. We asked for clarity on which Roads Act applications they require - concrete pump? Skip bins? Cranes? We didn’t know, and it wasn’t evident from the DA. Of course they didn’t tell us. So we did the driveway application, which we at least know we do need, and sent through the receipts, as requested. Long story short, after we asked several times if there was anything else we needed to do, a number of unanswered calls and emails, a few weeks later they declared they need the council driveway approval docs before they can get the CC. When we asked why they didn’t tell us this when we asked earlier it was the usual bluster and deflection of blame back on us. What the..??? It’s like talking with people who have never done this before, yet this is their profession. I would be embarrassed if I conducted myself at work in such a manner, so unprofessional. So, it’s now been almost 14 months since we paid our initial $2K to kick-start this build. I think we might move into a new geological age before its finished. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1653Mar 01, 2018 9:52 am Hi vegiegirl, you can actually see whatever applications you need to do in your DA. We got it from Kurmond. They sent it together with PCA appointing forms.I am just thinking now that my CSO is not that bad... It is bad that they did not give you that list. As for us, we are not very happy with the CC, because it doesn't move anything on. We are still waiting for them to start working on our file. They just put us on hold and don't do anything. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1654Mar 01, 2018 10:01 am Hi Nada17, yes I looked at the DA docs, but we wanted to make sure we weren’t missing anything, then have Kurmond tell us it was our fault we didnt do all the applications required. So I didn’t think it was unreasonable for us to ask them to specify, which they never have 😠 If your CSO is being clear and thorough then that’s great. 80-90% of a Project managers jobs is keeping people informed, so at the very least they should be giving us updates in the long waits between milestones. They don’t seem to be very good at this aspect of the whole customer service gig. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1655Mar 01, 2018 10:16 am vegiegirl, of course they had to inform you about needed docs. and yes, they are very good at blaming the customers. they also blame us in all their faults. one time I called them to remind them that they needed to pay council fee so council could issue the approval. i called them in 10 days after council contacted them and no payments were done yet. so instead of accepting the fact that they simply forgot about council request and quickly pay the fees, the compliance lady told me that the fact that I am bothering them with phone calls is actually slows everything down and causes delays. if I tdidn't call them then I would probably still be expecting council to issue the approval today. so guys, if you still have a chance to run from Kurmond - just do so. Don't just hope that miraculously your case will be different. it won't! We were also optimistic a few months back. and now look where we are. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1657Mar 01, 2018 12:27 pm nada17 and vegiegirl Thanks for your updates and tips. Please update your progress here frequently, this way our journey will be easier (at least we will feel so My building experience https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=91499 Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1659Mar 01, 2018 1:17 pm Nada17, it has been over 9 months since we signed the 90-day fixed price tender. So it expired over 200 days ago. Laughable, really. We did everything we could to get all the internal appointments completed within that timeframe, but our effort was not reciprocated by Kurmond (eg. How they lost our sign-off on the air-con in their internal email, which I had to chase up for them a month later when we hadn’t heard anything). Do you know if they have implemented any price hikes recently? Agreed, Mallik, don’t sign off anything until you have thoroughly checked it, both against their own documents for what they say they will provide, and for what you have requested. We found lots of errors (such as no doors on the set square doorways to the wardrobes and pantry, the wrong bathtubs, incorrect specifications provided to the kitchen contractors etc), sometime we had to ask three or four times for corrections. Re: Building with Kurmond Homes 1660Mar 01, 2018 2:49 pm same here, we currently have 20 revisions of our drawings because they just cannot do anything without errors. we had to comment again and again. they also keep changing things you didn't ask them to change. so when you ask them to move a partition wall you still have to check all the drawings just to make sure everything the way you want and nothing has been changed without your knowledge. before signing tender we made sure most of the critical for us things would be on plans. for example, we moved mixers in showers the way they are easier to access (we don't like it when they are directly under shower heads ). how surprised we were when couple months ago they put the mixers back to their original places and asked for extra money if we want the mixers to be moved. Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 76061 I would never build with Fowler homes. 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