Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 21May 08, 2008 11:26 am Blog - http://clageonewhouse.blogspot.com/ Building Thread - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=10886&hilit=milan I am in, with my husband and my beautiful bunny Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 22May 08, 2008 8:24 pm \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 23May 09, 2008 10:48 am Blog - http://clageonewhouse.blogspot.com/ Building Thread - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=10886&hilit=milan I am in, with my husband and my beautiful bunny Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 25May 09, 2008 9:59 pm \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 26May 09, 2008 10:03 pm \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 29May 11, 2008 11:40 am \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 30May 14, 2008 2:02 pm \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 32May 19, 2008 9:28 pm Hi all,
Well we are in the process of singing up with Simonds…or at least I think we are, I really have no idea what is going on because no one bothers to reply to any of our correspondence. Anyway, I thought I would search the web for other peoples experiences with Simonds and stumbled on this thread. We paid our deposit way back in March, the early stages were great, the sales rep was friendly, appeared to be very knowledgeable but once the deposit was paid and we were ‘in the system’ the honeymoon was over. I had always expected there to be a few problems along the way when building a home, everyone says there are, but this is getting ridiculous. I can certainly say the ‘home building journey’ outlined in their sales brochures is nothing more than a hopeful suggestion of what might take place, or rather a deceptive outline of how long the process should take. I won’t continue on my rant, rather, I am interested to know if this just the price you pay for going with a volume builder or if this is uniquely Simonds? Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 33May 19, 2008 11:41 pm Hi played, we are building with Simonds and have also had a fairly hard time with customer service (or lack thereof) We've already signed and done all of the appointments and were due for a start date in a couple of weeks. Today (after not getting any response to several emails and calls) I finally got through to someone to be told our CSO had left the company!! Several documents needed to start building suddenly can't be found and I have to go through the hassle of sending them though again. The only positive is that our original CSO was pretty dense so maybe this could be a blessing in disguise. To be honest I am absolutely dreading the building process if getting to this point has been so hard! Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 34May 20, 2008 8:17 am Hi Sharee,
Well congratulations for getting as far as you have, I find it difficult to believe anything they say anymore so I cant honestly say I know what to expect. Our main problem is that as it stands, given the delays by Simonds, we will not have anywhere to live next year. I will have to see if we can rent for 6 months. All that aside, I am curious Sharee (and all others too) could I get an indication of how long each stage has taken? The “Home building journey” is useless, I would like to know real life time lines, things like, what month deposit paid, when was tender, and then site start. Also if when they told you a site start, was this the actual site start date? I am with you Sheree, as much as I want this house build ASAP, I have some serious concerns about the building process. Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 35May 20, 2008 10:57 am i paid the deposit in March as well, so far i am quite happy with their services.
The sale consulant is excellent, he does follow up my coorespondent before or after the deposit. The CSR is responsive although i talked to the sales consultant more than him Due to the late variation submission (including some structual changes), my drawing was put on hold a bit and caused a bit of delay, but they confirmed that the drawing should complete next week and then i should get the gallery appoinment shortly after it So hopefully everything will go as they said and i can keep my faith with them... i have the tender appoinment set in mid June, hope there is no delay Blog - http://clageonewhouse.blogspot.com/ Building Thread - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=10886&hilit=milan I am in, with my husband and my beautiful bunny Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 36May 20, 2008 2:29 pm We paid our initial deposit in mid December and chased and chased them to eventually sign our contract the end of March. The issue wasn't so much the time for us but just the lack of communication and the fact we had to fight every step of the way! We were called two days before our contract signing and told it was ready (even though they had promised they would send it out for us to read prior to the signing) , we had already told them (and followed up several times) that we wouldn't sign anything until we had our colour and product appointments so when they realised we were serious they organised that appointment for the morning before our signing.
As I said above our CSO has left and speaking to our new CSO today was absolutely painful. After asking him when our anticipated start date now was and how long it usually took to get the permits we needed he told me 'I have no idea I only started yesterday!' When I asked him to put someone on the phone who had a clue he said 'Everyone has gone to lunch I don't know when they will be back!" I have told my husband we should prepare for the fact we will be living in our current rental for the rest of our lives... Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 37Jun 06, 2008 11:28 am Hello everyone.
I stumbled upon this thread and I think it is a good one. I also signed up with Simonds in December last year and thought it would be useful to give my account of how things have proceeded so far. Here goes ... We paid the initial deposit ($1500) on 12th december 2007 so they could start with the soil test and prepare a Preliminary Quote (PQ). The sales assistant was very cluely and knew what he was talking about. We chose the "Villa Grande" and made some changes to suite our needs. The sales assistant advised the house will be scheduled to start in June/July. We whinged a bit but had no choice. We got a call from our CSO end of April for us to make an appointment to come over and sign the contract. I was surprised to hear that from her as we wanted to sight the PQ prior to going to the contract. Anyway, I told her this and she agreeded they made a mistake and prepared a PQ for us. I got another call from a chap who said he will discuss the PQ with us when we came over; he also kept insisting we went straight to contract and bypass the PQ stage but I disagreed. We went to Simonds yesterday to sign the PQ. The guy representing simonds was in rush was pushing us all along to sing the PQ asap. We singed the PQ and got him to write down all changes we wanted. The bottom line is they have been pushy and you have to keep telling them what you want and not let them have everything their way. I have also done the colour selection and I have emailed by CSO to arrange an appointment with YHC to sort out the electrical stuff BEFORE we sign the contract. I have a feeling they will tell me to sign the contract before agreeing on the electrical layout but I wont let this happen. Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 38Jun 06, 2008 12:44 pm nlx We went to Simonds yesterday to sign the PQ. The guy representing simonds was in rush was pushing us all along to sing the PQ asap. Interesting. Our PQ appointment was anything but rushed -- we actually went over the entire tender about three times making sure that we were getting all of our required changes recorded (and there weren't actually that many actual mistakes -- just a few changed minds on our part!). We've also done our colours, landscaping and home theatre stuff. We are being delayed by the YHC appointment, so we've escalated that to Simonds management that they're being slack. Should see some movement there soon. Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 39Jun 06, 2008 1:31 pm I will put this lightly.
Sales consulatant - wonderful. Once you leave the sales office - Miscommunication, too many people involved, not enough knowing what they are doing. Double check everything on the contract (doubling up, not giving promotions, paying extra) With a fine comb go through plans - correct product numbers, wrong pictures of products. this CAUSES lots of errors. You know the commercial when the happy couple go and sign for a loan and then as soon as they sign on the line, the walls are removed, the desk is taken away and they are left simply sitting on two chairs alone? EXACTLY. (But the house we chose is perfect for our block and i love it's layout Re: Anyone wish to comment re their experience with s*monds? 40Jun 06, 2008 4:06 pm interesting, looks like i am and will be in a similar situation..
they booked me in for contract signing next Friday.. i told them that i never have a tender appointment, i don't even seen my plan, no color selection (booked in on 20 June), so how i can sign a contract? So they suddenly changed and said that if I want it to be a tender appointment, then it will be a tender appointment... i feel a bit ??, really can't think of a word to describe their reaction.. Anyway, i just email them and make sure that tender will happen without confusion, i do not want to be rushed to sign anything (i will not do anyway), i just want to see my plan and everything is correct before moving to the next stage, lets prey for next week.. .. Blog - http://clageonewhouse.blogspot.com/ Building Thread - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=10886&hilit=milan I am in, with my husband and my beautiful bunny I apologise for any confusion, but your understanding is correct. We approached our situation differently based on advice from… 11 53624 Hi All, I have been dealing with icare for insurance in completing our house after our original builder went bust. We have gotten to tender stage and one of the companies… 0 20852 11 41891 |