Builder discussion about budget

For your own well-being stay away from Enjoinery – years of work and massive cost and time overruns and sloppy work which was non compliant and inthe end I had to fix myself have wrecked my health and financial ability to keep the place. Can provide photos such as bird sized holes in flashing, sub standard insulation and literally dozens of other faults – sadly as he was the freind of a friend I trusted him and had him on an hourly contract. To add insult to injury, they promoted my place on their website as an example of a successful project.

Platinum Homes – Hawke’s Bay We are considering building with Platinum Homes in Hawke’s Bay. Does anyone have any experience building with them or another franchise across the country? Henry has been great to deal with to date. I am especially interested in: – Quality of the final product – Adherence to budget and timelines – Communication throughout the project Thanks.

Hi there, we are about to sign the contract with Peter Ray homes in Christchurch. Can I please have some feedback about them regarding their time, cost and deliveries? Many thanks,

Well if you’re looking for shoddy workmanship, a mismanaged project, total lack of ownership, significant delays, cost overruns and a build eventually having to be picked up by MB then look no further than John Ross Architectural Builders (Christchurch)! The word “Architectural” Builders is an illusional step too far and is more aligned with the Tui’s advert – Yeah Right! To say the stress of the past 3 years has been significant is an understatement and we’re not finished yet as with all the issues that need to be rectified via MB we will need to vacate the house whilst the repairs are carried out (Still waiting on final quote for repairs but have been advised it’s many hundreds of thousands $$$). My husband has been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the move into the house at the end of last year, (even though it wasn’t finished but we were desperate) caused him unbelievable anxiety and stress so to have to move again is heartbreaking, but appreciate we need to to get the house to an acceptable standard and get code compliance. You’d think by paying many millions $ to this builder (Jack/John Kelleher) and MB having to pick up the mess that JRB would go quietly into hibernation but alas, to add insult to significant injury, we received another invoice from JRB for $15K plus interest a couple of weeks ago and now he’s submitted a claim through the Disputes Tribunal since we refuse to pay him another cent. Just want this nightmare to end!

Does anybody have experience/ comments with Benchmark Homes in Christchurch? Was trying to look through using CTRL+F but didn’t find much information relating to them. Few questions for new builds: 1. Common pitfalls to look out for in a new build contract. I see that PC sum is something builders can use to add on cost. Any other glaring clauses one should pay attention to? 2. What is a reasonable cost now to build psm in Christchurch? 3. For land and build (staged payment, not turnkey), does sunset clause apply? 4. Any idea what is the typical number of homes builders like Greenland/ Orange/ Benchmark would build in a year?

My husband just finished getting his Nelson, NZ retirement home built. (I’m from USA) He used Signature Homes and learned a very expensive lesson. Signature Homes lured him away from Jennian Homes with lower prices and comments about Jennian being way over-priced. Turns out, Jennian was probably the honest builder, whereas Signature Homes took us for a wild ride. At first we thought they were just making lots of costly mistakes in judgement, but, in the end, we realize how they used the PC Sum trap to deliberately underquote the build. Some of their “costs” were 164% higher than their quotes! In all, we lost $58,000 due to their overages. We changed NOTHING in our plans. We are starting the process of a formal complaint. Has anyone here ever had any luck with getting these builders to honor their contracts or “price guarantee?”

Just doing some due diligence, anyone built with Greenland Homes Christchurch? What was your experience? How did they deal with any mistakes and were variations due to undervaluing of prime cost or provisional cost items common and add much to the contract price? Would you build with them again? Thanks

Hi, Has anyone used Latitude Homes Wellington Alix & Zach (a typical sales man). They look cheap but to start with they are giving estimated build price only with some allowances, I am concerned once signed they might raise the costs or find a way to raise costs. Zach says they are cheap but when I said the other builder doesn’t change so much for x work he then says if they are cheap whatever you will get will be cheap quality as well. He doesn’t know that will apply to Latitude homes as well LOL. Regards, Peter

Being in construction all my life I having sold multiple products in the industry and dealt with many building companies throughout. I am disgusted with the amount of shoddy building work that is being performed in our industry and the attitudes towards customers. It is crippling our industry and reflecting badly on the good ones striving for best business practice. It is a minefield of stress and worry for most people building and/or renovating and getting the right fit as a provider is paramount plus its nearly always the biggest amount of monetary investment made in most peoples lives. The public need to do their due diligence and I mean do their due diligence. Point 1 – we have just completed a build addition and renovation and the two other providers were nearly $400K above us (yes, $400K) and we didn’t cut corners and have made good coin and thats because we have good process, a great team and we pick the right sustainable jobs to build our business. Building does have a right price point but cheap is not always the way to go. Cheap comes with a low quality finish. You need to tick off all the boxes for supply, communication, follow through, personalities and robust business ethics. Contract contract contract limiting the likes of variations or where there are to be variations a set margin added. Point 2 – People think they can manage a build. Some might but some are just plain kidding themselves, want to supply items but don’t realise the ramifications on delays, wrong product and then expect builders to sit and wait whilst not charging for time. This is unethical and not good business practice and any builder who is prepared to do this will not be in business in future and as such you have no warranty comeback. Point 3 – selecting an lbp does not get you the right supply partner. An lbp can be anyone that is a builder but hasn’t done roofing, hasn’t installed windows, hasn’t laid flooring, hasn’t done foundations, has never built a complete residential dwelling from ground up. And people are selecting a builder just because they are an lbp not knowing this. Did you know that most group home builders use contract builders in their businesses and those same contract builders hold the lbp licence for future issues, not the group home builder. Most of these group home builders pay low rates to their contractors and that is why we have so many shonky workmanship comments on this site. Point 4 – there are companies out there marketing renovation franchises specifically detailing they don’t want builders in the business. This is a major issue for NZ going forward and the overheads for any franchise company are huge with franchise fees you pay for a build starting around the 5% mark upwards and all that goes into head office coffers. All I can say is that our industry is amok with disreputable and greedy companies who are not there for a win/win but just to take your hard earned cash and ce la vie so this brings me to my final comment. Do your due diligence, ask them what builds they are currently doing (minimum of 5) ask for referrals you can physically visit and demand to go to the ones of your choosing. Do not take their offered selections. Go to some of their suppliers and ask them what the business is like to deal with and if they are current in trading terms. This will give you a good indication of who you are signing up with and give you some perspective on what they are like. Sales people from most build companies don’t know anything but basics in building and will promise you the earth to get you to sign up and make that deposit. Then you are a captured customer and on the path of no return when the build cost climbs and the variations kick in. Diligence is paramount people PARAMOUNT !!!

It has taken me a long time to get up and write this as I try to move forward with building my home, managing the project with my Husband and watch as he works all hours to figure out how to fix all the problems that Gavin, one of the worst builders created. We probably have one of the worst building experiences on this website. We Hired Gavin and Peter Stewart but can’t presently give you full names or company names yet for legal reasons. They are both still in business though. I have learnt to cope with living in a very unfinished house for 5 years now as we save money, fix issues, learn new skills and build our own business to pay for it all. I simply just cope from day to day, month to month and winter is hard. Please anyone who is going to take on the challenge of renovating or building their new home don’t hire Gavin from Albany or Peter Stewart. I want to take them to court and I have consulted Lawyers but getting my house built has been the priority, and even writing this is hard because it forces me to remember everything and think about what has happened because I hired those two builders. We spent $330k with Gavin and Peter before firing them, leaving us financially hit hard. Our house was 90% new build. I can list all the things that were built badly and that list is long so you would need some time to read it all. Two of the major issues is that my entire house cladding was done really badly, the cladding was at all angles, the sizes of the weatherboards were all different and some of the cladding wasn’t even nailed onto the wood underneath so it was held up by the building paper, which was also done badly. The other huge problem was that all the walls, floors and ceilings were not plumb, not level, some on a stupid angle. My entrance way was a parallelogram when it was supposed to be a rectangle. The floor was so bad that most doors would have not opened/closed properly inside unless fixed, and figuring out how to fix all of this has cost my family about $200k. Most of the prenailed frames were way out of plumb, out of square, in fact I don’t think the builder ever used a level? The steel beams had to be re-done because they were so badly installed, the engineer failed them at first inspection. We had to recladd the whole house, ripping out the brand new cladding as it was installed so badly. Face sizing all wrong, out of level, boxed corners not meeting around corners. Even our foundations have needed extra repairs as the poles were done badly. Even when Gavin was on site he was fixing his own mess, but badly and at our expence. Our replacement building firm had a huge task fixing this, costing us another $200k, then they went into receivership so we are trying to manage this ourselves. No building firm is willing to fix this mess, most won’t even return a call.

We are the victims of a cowboy builder in Wellington. $50K of defects and associated costs so far. Our situation aside, was disgusted that he was already the subject of a LBP Board investigation for negligence while he was busy constructing our extension not to plans, consent or building code. Further inquiry reveals that to be an LBP you only need a carpentry qualification, two referees and a telephone interview. No character referees, drug tests, or even a police check. Investigations take months and months, with no restrictions or supervision of the builder (unlike other professions where they are either stood down or work under supervision). No wonder we still have leaky buildings. Of course if it goes wrong, the LBP can quickly shut down their company to avoid all claims. Good to see the government has announced a review of the construction industry: https://www.mbie.govt.nz/have-your-say/building-system-legislative-reform-programme-public-consultation?fbclid=IwAR0R3iEJk1jX86m5bJMjyxmnvvws1sGrV3M1uY2dhUOz3kwpqa4zfwrnC0U Hope other affected homeowners submit their experiences! If you are entering a construction contract, I suggest you add a clause for drug testing and police checks seeing as the licensing board doesn’t bother. Odd that a hammer hand or forklift operator may have to pass these basic requirements, but an LBP director can do what they like.

We recently had a terrible experience with latitude homes hawkes bay. Please don’t use them! Debbie the owner is unprofessional and worse customer service ever. They don’t seem to understand the variation process. We thought we had been very thorough in our specs and drawings and every turn they added money or delivered anything but what we had specified with excuses at every turn. We went over time and budget and still didn’t get what we wanted. The final product was rubbish. We went to lawyers but latitude homes didn’t seem to care and didn’t comply. We have now found two other couples in our small neighbourhood who have the same problems recently. We’ve had issues with costs for site works and foundations. Windows and doors arriving too large so the builder hacked away at the framing to get them to fit then made the holes too large and used extensive amounts of expanding foam to just fill gaps. They installed sliding doors that weren’t the ones we asked for then made us pay for new ones. We still have a double bed sitting in our hallway as they made the hallway unusually narrow and used narrow doors. We now cant fit a standard bed in to a 4mt by 5mt room! to be honest we didn’t think to even check. Terrible paint finish we still have holes in our walls where the electrician has moved plug sockets even though we moved in in October last year. Trying to get anything remedied has been a nightmare. Weve sent lawyers letters but they just don’t listen. We are not sure what else to do. We have concrete patios that are uneven and rough and multiple colors. The list goes on. The head office seems to have no control over the other franchises so these sorts of companies are terrible to work with. One piece of advice would be don’t go with a group type builder. In this case it seems latitude homes is just a logo that any ‘builder’ can buy and head office have no control over quality or if things going wrong. The business owner is unprofessional and extremely defensive as the builder is her son. Her son was often rude to us and had terrible time management often showing up to site in the late afternoon and then rushing to get things done leaving a un satisfactory result. In our opinion he was too young and inexperienced and if we had met him prior we would of cut our losses. We’ve built before and know the process and the two companies couldn’t have been any more different. Debbie at latitude homes is terrible to deal with and seems to have no process for anything. On our final inspection she showed up with no paper work and kept denying being able to see any issues. She took a scrap paper out of her handbag to write things on. It’s ridiculous. They kept using different contractors as they burn bridges and contractors don’t want to work with them. Then when work isn’t to standard we just get left with the mess or an additional bill. If you want to speak to us please contact me or reply to this message. Small claims court looks like our only other option.

Spoiler Alert: If you believe a Master Builder is actually giving you a “fixed price contract”, you are probably wrong. We have spent the last 2 months “dating” A1 Homes. We found a plan that could work, with a few revisions, and agreed specs down to the taps and window latches. We have built before, so know exactly what we want, and they provided a fixed price estimate (crucially, not a quote) to our specs. It seemed like a fair price so we were keen to continue. They then said we would need to spend $3,000 on drawings and colour consultants before they could give us an actual fixed price quote. That is a lot of money – we have previously had quotes done on concept drawings that cost us $1,500 and $1,955 respectively. Eventually we came round to the idea, but we asked to see the contract they intended to use before we forked over $3,000. That’s when it got hairy. A1 presented us with a “standard” Registered Master Builders Association contract. The problem is that Clause 46 of the contract (2018 edition) specifically allows the builder to charge us more if ANY aspect of the build turns out to be pricier than the fixed price quote. i.e. it directly contradicts the claim of a fixed price quote. Further, Clause 101 of the contract (which has grown by about 60 clauses since we last built, practically all of them skewed toward the builder), specifically allows for a situation where A1 is building for Mrs Smith down the road and if that gets delayed, they can delay your start and end date. And with Clause 46 locking in their ability to on-charge any costs that might arise because prices rose since they gave you a not-fixed fixed price quote, they’ve ensured whatever their project management skills, you will pick up the tab. Oh and by the way, they have your deposit of 5% while they retain the right to delay indefinitely while they finish Mrs Smith’s project. We queried these 2 clauses and a couple of others. A1’s response was simply that they don’t ever change clauses. They had no answer for my question of how they could claim they offered a fixed price contract when it wasn’t. They said they hadn’t charged more than the fixed price on the 2 years they had used the contract, which frankly didn’t give me enough peace of mind to hand them $500K on the back of a contract that still says they can crank up the price at any time. I spoke to a Director of Master Build Services who confirmed there was nothing stopping them deleting irrelevant clauses in the contract; A1 was simply choosing not to. In the end, we were not willing to risk our money on a “no surprises guarantee” that isn’t any guarantee at all and could potentially hold a very nasty surprise. We suggest you give this a lot of thought and question whoever you build with if they have the same wide-open clauses in the contract.

I have question about fencing in a new subdivision. When we purchased we were told by our building company that the cost of fencing was shared by neighbours and for most of us, this has been our experience. However, a builder has build a speck home situated in the middle of three recent builds with fencing in place, but refuses to pay his share. Unfortunately due to council and covenants, fencing has to go up before or soon after a property is built, so there is little room to move here and the Fencing Act seems to cover fencing only between existing neighbours. There are young families involved here, so some kind and helpful advice would be appreciated.

Hello We are looking to build a home probably 3 bedroom house with double garage in Raumati Beach. Our section is sloppy and it requires earthwork and retaining walls. It will be a split level house, garage underneath the house. I have found that most of the builders have very specific plans which are usually for plain land. Can anyone please suggests some builders who can design a house according to the section? We are really struggling to find a good builder. We do not want anything fancy, just a simple house which fits in our budget. Thank you in advance Mahi

I’m looking to build in Franklin (South Auckland) and am unsure of which companies to approach to provide estimates/quotes and how many as there are just so many, any suggestions??

I wish to build a 2nd dwelling on my current section in Howick area probably around 60-90sqm. Since it will be for investment purpose, I would like to know which would be best builder to approach. On the other way should i approach an architect, get drawings and approvals done and then get the quote from different builders. Also if someone has gone through a similar process, i would love to know approx cost breakdown for surveys, architectural design, building consents and any other cost to consider before can build and what is approx build cost per sqm for a basic house set up.

Has anyone built with either Greenhomesnz or Bainbridge. Their showhomes all very well presented and they seem to build above NZ building code. Very responsive to questions and both are looking at costings for us. Just wanted some feedback if anyone had any? Thanks Chris

Hi guys, I’ve read quite a bit reviews of companies in different areas. I know the big franchises companies are more or less the same. Just wondering if anyone have experience with building companies in Queenstown. We’ve visited Classic builders, GJ gardener, Jennian, Signature, Trident, Mike Greer, A1 homes, and some builders. As a first home builder, we tend to go with a big company as we know nothing about the industry and finding a builder by ourselves could ended up with more trouble and more money. We’ve also heard lots of different opinion about the same company, good or bad. And cannot find any of the comments online to help us make the decision. We are interested in GJ, Signature and Jennian. Then I read about all the bad stories with GJ here, so they are probably out. Not sure how different their QT branch will be… They did offer an attractive price though… So anyone here in Queenstown has any recommendation? Cheers

Hi. Has anyone had recent experience with Wilson Built Homes out at Lincoln? Just had a good recommendation. Also, would anyone have any thoughts about building companies using a different criteria for insurance rebuild quotes rather than just to a private paying customer?

We are in the process of building with Stonewood in Rodney. Chaos! The left and right hand are doing different things. They are sending us variations to contract with huge additional costs with a complete disregard for our finances or any form of consultation before making changes. Their policy is not to give cost breakdown for these variations but instead you are expected to sign off thousands of dollars with a one line explanation in a language that someone not in the trade will struggle to understand. We are pushing back but believe me it is not making for a pleasant customer experience. I have heard that this is the same of any building company out there….it probably is…but would it not be nice to be with a company who does not make you feel fleeced every day? PS…at the time of writing this we dont even have the slab down so it is a long road ahead!

Having built a couple of homes in Nelson and knowing a number of people who have also built I wanted to share my knowledge. We chose Milestone Homes as we liked their approach with the showhome being standard and we knew exactly what we were getting. This isn’t common and friends have been caught out by misleading reps / companies. We dealt with Adam who we had a great connection with and was very helpful. They were upfront with time frames and had the house finished within 17 weeks from wo to go. Orange were quick to put everyone down but have a reputation for poor quality and going over budget. Friends built with Signature and had a lot of extra’s through the process and as I’ve read on here there are a lot of unhappy GJ Gardner customers. Jennian have a strong reputation for quality & service and haven’t heard any negative comments. Hope this helps potential builders.

Hi, re the comment about builders getting fed up with clients seeing fixed price and then not doing proper research/not understanding bespoke designs…Some of us are reluctant new home builders, having lost our original homes in the Christchurch earthquakes. I knew absolutely nothing about building. Why should I? My occupation and background do not require it. Yet, over four years on, I am dealing with the complexities of an architectural rebuild. I think it would have been great if the building companies I dealt with had looked out of their own bubbles and realised that in this case, their clients’ ignorance is not something to be disdained and exploited. It is just normal, and so just realise that things need to be explained really well. For example, I never knew what a Variation was, never knew there was the margin I had to pay for anything after contract was signed. I did ask the BC, now is there anything I should know about extra costs, and they said no, assuming I suppose I knew about Variations and GDT. Hence i blithely signed the building contract 3 years ago, and now face forking out nearly $100,000 in variations, including margin fee and GST. Stuff like carpets and better wooden flooring, and upgraded bathroom fittings (the contract ones were underspecced, i later learned) I would have organised to be in the contract had I known…..