Any recommendations or companies I should avoid

Hi Bronwen I had an extremely bad experience with BCL (Baillie Construction Ltd) and I’ve met 6 others that had similar experiences and have heard the stories from 7 other clients that had differing levels of bad experiences with them. I also have discovered information from a large number of local suppliers and sub-contractors that are left unpaid for their work months (and sometimes years) after dealing with BCL. BCL are based in Palmerston North but I’ve heard they do attempt builds down closer to Kapiti, so just making sure you are aware of them 🙂 Whoever you are considering to build your house, make sure you ctrl+F search this review website for their company name. There is a great wealth of knowledge on these reviews (wish I found it before my build). Regards Tim

Hi Bronwen,,,Having built within this region, if you can supply a list of those companies your looking to build with or looked at,, come back to this site and state who they are. If the building company I built with is on your list, I’ll respond back to you but will want to contact you off site whereby I can give you contact details of other clients who built with them who you will want to talk to before doing anything. Cheers and Good luck!

Thank you Tim. I am sorry to hear of your bad experience though….

Compass Homes is the only one I have looked at

And Navigation Homes just now…

Our Build with BCL was in Kapiti, we started consultation with them on February 2016, we cleared the land hiring a company in July 2016, BCL was applying for council consent which they said did not arrive until late December 2016, the actual construction was meant to start Jan 9th and they actually started mid February 2017. It was a nightmare journey and we moved into a partly finished house on June 10th 2018, 1 bathroom useable, electricity not fully connected, Kitchen not finished, wardrobes not installed, balcony just a frame, lounge doors missing. We were meant to move in on the weekend of the Queen’s birthday the week before after several promised dates had been and Gone, We were renting in Raumati and the owners had been very accommodating as we changed the move dates due BCL time and time again. We had two find a rental for a week with 2 cats and to elderly parents last minute on the Kapiti coast over Queens birthday weekend with no assistance from BCL. It took until February 2019 when we managed to get code of compliance and we had to do this ourselves. They put in our specially made lounge doors in the winter of 2018 but one off the glass panes was scratched, it took to August 2019 until the replacements were fitted . The experience with BCL was nightmarish at best. We met people who had received a worse service than us and many were frightened to comment. We have all email and correspondences to back up everything we experienced on this build. It took an age, dealing with the owners was not a good experience but dealing with several trades that worked on our build was wonderful, we had to take control of the management to get it finished, The heating engineer was excellent and he also built the framework for our balcony, his company stopped working for BCL, our project site manager was excellent and it was his help that got some outstanding issues resolved before he left BCL. The tradesman that put in our Kitchen, our wardrobes our Laundry and our vanities was amazing and his company stopped working for BCL, without him our house would not be as good as it is. I could list a whole host of issues and problems, and I have spoken to several others who had a worse experience. We wanted to build a steel house and BCL offered that, the management left much to be desired. If we ever build again we will do much more precise homework and project manage ourselves which at the end is what we ended up doing.

Hi Bronwen, Did you find a builder? We are looking for one in the Kapiti region