Homes by Maxim or Maxim Homes

We had the exact same problem with Homes By Maxim, appalling service. Our house was painted the wrong colour and they didn’t want to know. Constantly ignored calls and emails. Stare clear of this company.

Just so everyone is aware – Maxim Homes have apparently gone under yesterday – if you are currently building with them please seek advice from Master Builders immediately – they have been organising other builders to take over contracts.

Hi Sally, Thanks for the information. On this topic of builders ‘going under’, as you put it, I assume you mean going into liquidation. Which I believe means Liquidators will be brought in to wind up the company, and sell off the assets etc, to try to pay off any creditors (but themselves first of course!). Part of those ‘assets’ are jobs which are progress, which in theory another builder can take over to make money on. We had the same experience a few years ago, and as our builder was a Master Builder I suppose they were theoretically liable for paying out on the MB Guarantee. Which means they had an interest in trying to get another builder in to finish the jobs. So it appears the Liquidators let MB have first crack at finding new builders. I had some discussions with both the proposed new builders, and what they were offering me initially sounded quite reasonable. But in the end neither of them took over, apparently because the Liquidators wanted too much money from them for the privilege of taking the jobs! In the end I was ‘permitted’ by MB to find my own builder to finish the job. Which turned out fine in the end, albeit with a few months delayed completion. But here’s the interesting part, and the caution. A few months later one of the builders offered up by MB himself went out of business. If he’d taken over our job we’d have been in a very complicated mess. So even though a builder is proposed (recommended?) by MB, you should still check him out and do due diligence. It seems in the NZ building business there are very few you can fully trust to do a proper job.

Yep all true – its a bit of a mess really. I’m not building with them, I only know because one of their clients has approached our firm to take over their build – so will be interesting to see if any issues come up with the liquidator…….

Hi Sally, In that case it will be interesting to see whether, first, MB agree to let the Client employ you. Maybe they will have no objection, if you are also a MB. But if you’re not the Client may need to try to get MB to at least agree that their Guarantee (for whatever it’s worth) covers those parts of the build already completed. In our case the house itself was more or less finished, and we did not continue the build with a MB, so based on lots of record photos the MB organisation agreed to cover it. The second issue will be whether the Liquidators want money from you to allow you to take over the job. Which I guess will depend on whether they think there’s money in the job for you, ie still a profit to be made from the outstanding work. Also possibly money still owed by the Client for work completed. Although builders who know they’re about to go under usually try to get all that in, plus more if they can, so they go under ‘owing’ rather than ‘owed’. Since you’re in the business I’m sure you know all that. But other ‘Clients’ reading this may get the message that, during a build, you need to keep you’re ear to the ground for any whispers that subbies or suppliers are being kept waiting for payment too long. In which case you need to be extra careful you’re not paying the builder for more than the completed work to date is worth (ie the builder needs to rob Peter to pay Paul).