So nothing has hatched...just more abusive phone calls / text messages / emails. When will this be over?
How did it all go wrong when we were so close? The afternoon that we were supposed to have handover, I went with my gut not to pay the final total and then claim later, and instead claim out of the final total, and our Project Manager blew his stack.
He threw a tantrum my 2 year old niece would be proud of..."what about showing me some appreciation for building your house" (ummm, it's your job!), "now I can't go on hoildays without the money" (not my business what you get paid - that's up to your boss), "wish I'd never been nice to you" (oh, OK, you were being nice? Sorry, I mistook that for incompetence and endless bullshit).
So it seems he has gone on holidays and now the Site Foreman is putting the heavy on me. Pleading to pay the Project Manager in full and all will be fine. The thing is, we have no Final Progress Claim invoice to pay (the Builder won't issue it despite several written requests), so are we just expected to pay a nominal amount into somebody's account and just think everything will be finished and fine?
The documentation for the Occupancy Certificate is what we really need. The money is what they really want. Our bank won't issue the final amount without an Occupancy Certificate as proof, so here we sit...stuck. The Builder is not responding to our requests for mediation, only sending demanding emails for money and (again) denying there is any contract between us. What? Why would we be paying you to build our house if there wasn't a contract between us? Bonkers!
Oh, and let's not forget that the house isn't finished yet. Just a few small jobs like installing a hot water system. We've been connected to gas for nearly 2 weeks and we still don't have a (working) hot water system due to the dodgy Project Manager trying to deny that he'd hooked up a natural gas appliance to LPG and voided the warranty. Now he's had to buy a new one (supposedly out of his pocket) and wants us to be grateful? Grateful for what? Putting our family and house at risk? For making us pay for a temporary unit? He even tried to purchase a 2nd hand unit and pass it off as new. What a dickhead.
The legal advice I sought strongly advised we write a letter with our intention to take the matter to tribunal unless all issues are rectified immediately. We also received advice to pursue the House Designer, after all, he filled in the contract (or rather, didn't fill in the contract), placated my queries about all of the empty spaces in the contract (like liquidated damages), and assured us that our house could (and would) be built on time (5 months ago). He also only recommended we build with one builder - the one we're in dispute with.
So unless the house is finished, certificates issued and a proper invoice generated, we can't go anywhere. They want the $$$ for finishing the house without doing any of this. I really hope it doesn't go to tribunal but it could be our only option. It's not like we're asking for anything out of the ordinary here - this is how the building process goes (I'm told). Who knew it would be this tough?
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