Hotondo Homes QLD, Browns Plains

Mark and the team from Hotondo Homes Browns Plains built us our dream two-storey home! We selected them because of their elegant and functional designs (we went with Acacia 261 Alt) that worked perfectly with our block. And we were so incredibly happy with the result! Also the process was seamless. We were able to affordably make our modifications… Read more ·  1

and selections and were engaged throughout the build process. Thank you Mark, Gianna, Jade and the rest of the Hotondo crew!

Modified Acacia 261 - Brisbane – I recently built a modified Acacia 261 with Mark and the Hotondo team, and I couldn't be happier with my new home! The entire team was incredibly patient and understanding during the planning stage, and they kept me updated every step of the way. To have this built in under 9 months deserves recognition and I couldn't recommend them highly enough. Show details ·  1

Hotondo Hell – If you're looking for a builder who is extremely disorganised, struggles to get trades to work for him, is great at not answering phone calls, constantly gives rubbish excuses, hits you with ridiculous Extension of Time notices (well after the occurance dates) and after you finally move into your home, is completely uninterested in fixing any… Read more

defects and faults.. well, these are the builders for you. These guys were great to deal with, until we paid a deposit and then it went down hill and the communication was terrible from there - to the point we thought they might've gone out of business. The build took over two years and while we understand it was a tough period to be building, the complete lack of organisation and inability to have regular teams of trades onsite, just made matters worse. We were hit with an Extension fo Time Notice for 133 days, because he couldn't find a renderer - what a joke! After all is said and done, we can overlook the hell we went through during the build process but to have been in the house for over 4 months now and still have a long list of defects and incomplete works (as per our plans), with no contact from our builder to schedule times to rectify, is completely unacceptable. And when I say defects, I'm not talking about minor paint touch-ups, I'm talking about sub-standard workmanship and cutting corners to save time and money - not at all what we expected when we chose to build with Hotondo, who we thought could build quality homes. Some of these defects include: * Failing retaining wall * (still) Unfinished rendering * Dodgy repair to a gap in the facade - just screw a piece of colorbond over it.. she'll be right * Water pooling at our slab when it rains, because our land falls towards our house, rather than away from it * Collapsing ground around drain, where plumbing has been laid * Sliding door frame that's bowed, due to incorrect installation (confirmed by manufacturer) * Missing door handle to internal cavity sliding door * Bathtub unusable, due to large sections of missing sealant * Chip to stone benchtop * Missing built-in desk and breakfast bench (as per plans) And the list goes on.. We paid a lot of money to build this house and all we want is what we paid for. It'd be nice to get some sort of acknowledgement from Hotondo and some reassurance that the long list of defects and maintenance items is going to be fixed, as a matter of urgency.

Building with hotondo homes – Building with hotondo homes logan,  signing up and meeting the team was exciting for my wife young daughter and I being our first home and new to Building we thought yay this is going to be awesome.  The plans went along some what smoothly and emails flowed nicely,  after our 1st payment things started changing slightly wife emails in regards to… Read more

some changes that she wanted no response.  It took sometime for the plans to be signed off by this stage we noted that the changes were not going to happen and the delays so far were disappointing.  Unfortunately it didn't get better unanswered emails and if they were it was because they were wanting something,  unanswered phone calls and messages with no response.  Delays along delays throughout the build the BIGGEST being the POWER connection failed attempt after failed attempts,  air-conditioning ran to the wrong side of the house that was emailed to them about but no reply at this stage gyprock had not been installed so at that stage would have been a easy fix but no.

The state our site NEW HOME looked was disgusting there was never a skip bin or section off area for the rubbish and was just dumped in a pile across the back of the property very disheartened as it looked terrible and we didn't want to show our family any photos of our what should have been exciting build.  Attached are photos that can be seen from road and car park.

Lock up stage inspection found some issues 1 still being the aircon I brought to the supervisor's attention this is were he said just let me pull up the plans, that will have to be fixed so the walls need to be patched and new lines run to the other side of house with this being said now the pipe work has to run down the wall external with a plastic cover not overly impressed as we sent email that never got answered and could have easily stopped this.

We booked a walk through with the supervisor to see how things were coming along we arrived and [Name Removed] was not there we rang and to our surprise he had forgotten 1hr latter he arrived. When we finally started the walk through we noticed that a manhood had been draw on the inside of our house  on the dinning room wall we were disappointed and discussed at this as our 10yr old daughter was with us. We also brought to [Name Removed]'s attention the kitchen cabinets were wrong.

Moving forward our lease in our current house was coming up to be resigned we emailed asking would our house be finished before our lease was up we were told yes,  unfortunately this was not the case our power STILL has not been connected at this time after many failed attempts because it had been deemed in a unsuitable position they decided to move it.  Our lease is now up and we had to move and put house belongings into storage UNFORTUNATELY we never got a follow up email or phone call apologising for the STRESS that this has now caused or any sort of compensation. We all had to separate and live with friends and family. This has been one of our worst experiences and has put us off thinking of building another like we had planned,  definitely not a exciting experience nor enjoyed.

Finally hand over 17/6/23 cleaner still at house cleaning and gap filling still being done remembering this is hand over. Kitchen cabinets still not replaced were given paperwork saying this would be done within 8 weeks. 10/11/23 the cabinets were finally installed in the process being damaged we got straight onto [Name Removed] about this remembering this is our brand new home still have not heard back from him on any of the issues to be fixed. Only some photos have been attached there are plastering that hasn't been sanded nor painted and poor patch work as well.

Day after hand over we noticed All glass on our sliding doors have from 40 to 60 scratches on each panel from there cleaner this was brought to one of his supervisors attention and im still trying to continue to resolve this issue with [Name Removed].

Thank you Hotondo Homes, Brown Plains – We wanted to say a massive thank you to Mark, Gianna, Rob and team at Hotondo Homes. We have been in our new home for just over 3 weeks now and we are in love! Our home was executed and finished to a first class standard. Thank you for supporting us on our journey to be in our forever home! Show details ·  1

I feel deceived and mislead by Hotondo - Browns Plains – I did not have a good experience building with [Name Removed] (Hotondo Browns plains). His approach left us with a house that was over our budget, didn’t meet the functional requirements we had requested and gave us significant stress and heartache. I approached [Name Removed] to enquire what house could be placed on a plot we were interested… Read more

in. [Name Removed] indicated we could achieve everything we were after within our budget. On this basis we proceeded with the plot purchase and signed up to the preliminary agreement with [Name Removed] in Feb 2018. When I first met [Name Removed] on site he asked me “What are your most important requirements for this build?” I told him that my highest priority was “The ability to easily transition (without steps) from our house to our garden”.

It was for this reason that we elected to build a split level home, as this would lower the living area to meet the level of the garden.

After we paid the deposit to [Name Removed], it became very hard to get hold of him, this continued to be a theme throughout our build. I chased [Name Removed] repeatedly to get the plans and contract confirmed. It took 4 months before [Name Removed] came back to me to say that the certifier would not approve [Name Removed] proposed house on the land. [Name Removed] likes to put everything on the client, so when I asked what he was going to do about this; he pretty much put the issue back on me. I tried to work with [Name Removed] to modify the plans to work on the land, but this proved to be like pulling teeth. I would suggest a concept to meet the compliance requirements, this would sit with [Name Removed] for 3-4 weeks, then I’d hear back that some aspect of the design wasn’t correct. This meant that the design portion of the work went on for 7 months, during which time I’m paying the land loan and all rates. [Name Removed], on the other hand, has no impact by the delay.

[Name Removed] never really produced any plans that met my requirements. The proposal he came up with took me over budget by $100,000. [Name Removed] knew what my budget was and so presenting a quote at this level was just pointless. Given that my requirements for the house hadn’t changed from my initial request I can see no justification for the price hike. At this point, 9 months after signing the deposit with [Name Removed], I decided to go to another builder. I found a builder and started work on the plans. Within 3 weeks they had produced a design that worked on my land, and met my specifications, which just goes to show it wasn’t that complicated. At this point I was ready to sign the build contract with them. However, their price was a bit higher than I really intended to spend. [Name Removed] then calls me out of the blue and asks me to send the plans through that I’d drawn up with the other builder. A couple of days later he says he can build that house within my budget.

Now, of course, I’ve already had all the warning bells going off with regards to how [Name Removed] manages his projects, but at this point I’d been hemorrhaging money on the land loan payments, not to mention other expenses with the purchase and design work with the other company. So I decided to proceed with [Name Removed] in the hope that he could keep me within my budget. The plans I had designed with the other builder were almost exactly the same square meterage that I’d specified to [Name Removed] in my original requirement, the one that he managed to make $100k over my budget. So how he came up with the original figure, only to then find he could now build within budget is anyone’s guess.

I found [Name Removed] to be very flakey and disingenuous. I could write War and peace on this point, but the following illuminates just some of the issues I had with [Name Removed]:

[Name Removed] led me on several wild goose chases. For instance he indicated that I could get the trees on my property removed by consulting the ‘right arborist’. I contacted several arborists, who all said this really wouldn’t fly with council approval. [Name Removed] gave me the impression he knew someone that would be able to get tree removal approved, but this never came to anything.

During design plan changes, we would discuss what needed to be changed, however when the plans came back to me I would note various other changes (things we hadn’t discussed) made. This was usually to my detriment and would be a cost saving for [Name Removed] (e.g. smaller windows, or removal of laundry counters, or wardrobe doors). These changes were never detailed in the drawing notes which meant I had to review the complete drawings to see what had been changed. Obviously several things slipped through that I wasn’t happy with.

I requested that the front door colour should match the garage door. No effort was made by [Name Removed] to achieve this and he used a default, generic Merbau door from the supplier. (See attached photo which exemplifies that they clearly don’t match).

We found a lot of builders dust impregnated into the tile grout. [Name Removed] initially tried to get this cleaned, but when it didn’t come out, he just said “the grout colour can change over time”. It is clearly builders dust, caused during the build, but [Name Removed] didn’t want to fix it.

We had to take [Name Removed] to the QBCC. We had several major issues with the way [Name Removed] had left the build. [Name Removed] had made the decision to remove part of the retaining wall I felt was needed to prevent water erosion of the earth next to our property from being washed onto our property. Although I felt this retaining wall was required, I perceived it to be the builder’s call to confirm what needed to be done. Obviously [Name Removed] chose to remove the retaining wall to save himself some cost. When we moved in, every time we had heavy rainfall the earth and detritus from the neighbouring property would be washed onto ours. Not only did this leave a significant mess, but it also caused our drains to back up and water to pond against the walls of the house. I’ve attached photos showing this. Our neighbours ended up building retaining walls to retain this land and hence [Name Removed] got way with not having to address this issue. However, I still hold him 100% responsible for this issue, even though he has been able to worm his way out of correcting it.

We were also left with a hole under the house (photo attached). In this case the QBCC forced [Name Removed] to correct the issue, but he made numerous arguments for why it wasn’t his responsibility.

We asked [Name Removed] to give us a date that we could expect the build to be completed. We had already been waiting for 12 months (we’re now in Feb 2019) for [Name Removed] to get the plans complete and start work. As such we had been paying for the loan on the land all this time. This didn’t bother [Name Removed] as it had no impact on him, but left us with significant additional debt. Despite having all this time, [Name Removed] then landed a bombshell on us, telling us that the certifier wasn’t happy with the plans. We couldn’t believe we’d gone through all this for [Name Removed] to have not got approval in principal from the certifier. [Name Removed] again put the issue on us to sort out and wanted us to pay for the additional work required. Needless to say I was furious and contacted Hotondo head office. Hotondo did nothing to address the problem and so we were back to more design work and cost amendments. [Name Removed] did not get certification and build approval until June 2019; Another 2 months after signing the contract.

[Name Removed] suggested that we would be in the house with 4 months from signing the contract. As such, to ensure we could get our kids into the local schools/nursery’s we enrolled our kids to coincide with this date. Needless to say the actual build went far longer than this and meant we added an additional hours commute onto our mornings and evenings throughout this period. The build was announced as complete on the final day before [Name Removed] would be contractually culpable for additional late completion fees (what a coincidence, right?).

Despite all these problems with [Name Removed] evasiveness and, frankly, dishonesty, Our biggest issue with [Name Removed] is that despite numerous conversations, and emails, specifying that we wanted our house to give us direct (walk out) access to our garden he has placed the house on the land in such a way that we have a very steep 2m fall directly abutting our alfresco and living room area. We had made it explicitly clear that this was why we were designing a split level house in the first place and was the main design theme for the house design. [Name Removed] says that we signed the contract plans that site the house as it is on the land. This is why we feel [Name Removed] is so disingenuous. [Name Removed] knew exactly what we were aiming to achieve with this house. He says that because the height of the house is specified on the plans that it is our fault if we are not happy with it. I consider [Name Removed] to have deliberately mislead us in this regard. He knows that we are not experienced at reading building plans; the only thing specifying the height of the floor level on the plans was a small note stating ‘FFL’. Without understanding this, and having had so many conversations and emails with [Name Removed] on our requirement for the house, I can only draw the conclusion that [Name Removed] deliberately didn’t draw our attention to this issue when we came to sign the contract and plans. [Name Removed] amendments to the design, which differed from the plans I gave him to work off, simply made it cheaper for him to build and was to his benefit only. [Name Removed] boldly stated when we queried design issues with him, that “We haven’t built with him yet, and he will build us a great house that we will be happy with; you need to trust me”. Well trusting [Name Removed] worked to our detriment. The house was built to the plans I gave [Name Removed], so the layout of the rooms etc. is fine, but the way [Name Removed] performed the earthworks and left us with an unsafe drop out the back of our house, not to mention the mis-coloured front door, holes under the house, lack of retaining walls and water ponding against the walls, means that we were very wrong to trust him. I hope nobody else receives the same experience on their builds that we had with [Name Removed].