Our ID and Contractor walked out on us, leaving unfinished jobs and damaged equipment albeit saying no need to fulfil remaining payment.
Design Consultancy firm
First of all, all credit to their design capabilities. Our place did turn out quite nicely ON THE SURFACE. But their NONCHALANT AND ARROGANT ATTITUDE throughout the project, especially after we paid up 90% of their consultancy fee, is ATROCIOUS. They were supposed to in-charged of project management and supervision but did none of that!
There were soooooooooooo many times my husband was the one who spotted an error / defect. When we raised it to the designer, he either
i: Refused to admit its oversight
ii: Insisted it’s no big deal but will accommodate our comment
iii: Blame it on other vendors when he didn’t put in any effort to chase
iv: Despise other vendors (sales assistant from Best Denki) saying they don’t know what they are talking about
v: Using “Industry Norm” as excuse
If not because of my hubby’s experience, we would have been shortchanged on a thousand occasions. My hubby has been the one dealing with the contractor 80% of the time. Too many examples on what happened, those interested can PM me.
All these scenario tell us the same two things about this designer:
1) He is incapable of understanding client’s need even when explicitly told.
2) He didn’t bother factoring client’s concern regarding practicality even when told multiple times.
Contractor
Since the ID is only design consultant, we needed to put up a tender to get quotes from different contractors. This “Just Build” came highly recommended by ASP, saying they have skills for the complicated stuff we are doing and responsible and honest. And turns out their quote is marginally more than the other two who gave the quote, we went for them.
When our initial problem with ASP surfaced, we thought this guy from JB is really nice, trying to mediate things between us and the designer. Agree to us that all the defects we pointed out are valid and helped us rectify most of them. We even checked with him if we have been unreasonable and being very difficult. His reply was “no, you guys are not at that level of being difficult!” I even refer friends to him even though his team’s workmanship (手工) was CRAP. We thought he is responsive and accountable.
But when we pointed out our last defect (laminate of one of the shelves was inconsistent to what was stated in the contract) and multiple installation defects [EVERYTHING in the Kitchen installed WAS WRONG, including washer and dryer. I only hope the ceiling fan is correctly installed, otherwise it’s a matter of life and death], his attitude turned 180°.
Our last conversation from him was “YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE THE LAST PAYMENT, WE WON’T COME BACK ANYMORE”. Even when there are so many things left undone:
i: Installation of a particular light
ii: Installation of CCTV cameras
iii: Faulty Installation of convection oven
iv: Damaged Hood (RRP of $3k+)
v: Incorrectly made shelf
Everything became apparent to us. He is trying to stop-loss. We are left with about 10% payment and fulfilling all the damage and rectification will be equivalent to the outstanding payment. Taking into account the opportunity cost and effort, terminating the contract single-sidedly is more cost effective for him.
After my hubby got into an argument with his IRRESPONSIBLE, SUB-STANDARD, PROVCATIVE carpenters, he THREATENED my hubby saying my hubby’s shouting at the carpenters can be viewed as a form of harassment!!! He is exaggerating on this point, citing safety of his carpenters (when they are well-built and there were 2 of them). Saying if there is any further form of harassment, they will go to the police.
Well well, walking out of contract itself is a breach. Of course there needs to be a basis to cover and justify themselves. I see this as an exaggerated effort to threaten and persuade me not to take any legal action against them.
Not to mention all the delays and zero-standard workmanship we have to tolerate. The original committed deadline was first week of March and it's mid-April now.
