We had a very trouble experience with his builder. They verbally agreed numerous times to build us a house, then had us wait for months to start the build, during which time we passed on other opportunities. They then suddenly refused to build for us and dodged our email/phone calls when we asked for an explanation as to why. Their word is NOT their bond. see below for more details.
We met with Don at CODA after expressing interest in his lot. We met and he gave us a ballpark figure for a build: $980k. After further talks Don stated that since we were not using a realtor etc, he could come in closer to $925k for a 3000-3200 sq/ft foot house. We agreed.
We picked a layout and discussed some things we may want to have such as extra drawers in the kitchen, body jets in the shower etc, and Don never blinked an eye . He stated these were very easy to do during the build phase and even suggested a few things to add. Again, Don verbally said he would build for us and sent us title/covenants/sample contract to us for review and send to our lawyer.
Don then emailed us: “We would be prepared to move forward except timing is an issue…Having put that caveat out there, we will probably be 2 months before we spend serious money, so as long as we build in a bit of start up flexibility, should be fine…We wanted to be up front that if sales don’t happen, we may need to delay the bricks and mortar phase a bit ”. We were nervous with no set contract in place, but Don in person said “Don’t worry, I’m not building a house there for anyone else”, so we waited.
Later, we noticed an ad online for “our” lot. Confused, we emailed Don checking that our deal was still on. He said: “I’m holding lot for you but frustrated we can’t proceed at this time. Hopeful something will break soon”. This is a person who had been in our home multiple times, shook our hand, met our children, so we felt his word was good and agreed to keep waiting.
Don later emailed stating that as of July 4th they had a sale closing “We are clear to progress on your project” “ The way is now clear for full steam ahead”. Don said he wanted us to meet his sons, Dan and Colin and set up a meeting.
We met with Don and his sons and went over the specifics of the build, changes we wanted made, and Colin said he would calculate the total cost for the build. We said that we were prepared to get the red pen out and cross things off the list. At no time did we say that we had requirements or must haves. Everyone shook hands and we waited for their email. Everything seemed fine and there was no hint of any issues.
We eventually received the following email: “We have reviewed the full list of requirements gathered. On review against our standard presale terms, the scope of changes requested is greater than what we manage within a presale arrangement. A custom build contract would be required to proceed. As we are not a position to take on a custom contract at this time, we respectfully decline to further pursue a contract.Thanks for the opportunity.”
We were baffled. We had never stated we had “requirements” and we were confused why they didn’t just say that our list was too long. We wrote them back saying we didn’t have “requirements” and they needed to call us or arrange a meeting as Don had made specific promises to us.
Our email went unanswered. We waited days for a response. We called Don, it rang a few times then went to voice mail. He never called us back. We tried to call/texted the next day, no response. Don had looked us in the eye and told us he would build for us, and now he would not even return our phone call or email. It was beyond insulting and unprofessional.
5 days later they wrote back saying they had only agreed to discuss a presale agreement, and no further promises were made. In my opinion they got a last minute offer for more money and took it. I could never trust this builder and I would never recommend them to anyone. Not Trustworthy.
Disappointed Buyer
