Ultimate Kitchens & Bathrooms - Bathroom Renovations

Gone Broke – I understand the company has become insolvent. Like so many others I have been left with a half finished project and limited options for getting it completed

Is Ultimate Kitchens and Bathrooms still trading? – Same as many others, signed contact April 2023 for start date June 2023. Start date passed with no communication. After chasing them up we were told they will check schedule and get back to us. Didn't hear anything until we received email from Jeff Richards saying unforeseen trade labour and supplier delays and the start date to be rescheduled by… Read more

7th October 2023. Since then we have not heard from anyone nor can we get in contact with them. Their Essendon showroom is closed, their Facebook and Instagram pages are "closed". We have made 2 instalments totalling over $40k and they don't have the decency to contact us.

Yet another similar tale – After reading all these reviews I can see we are not alone. First contact was in April this year, signed contract in July and paid $12.5K. Start date was 9th October. Received an email from Jeff Richards on 27th September saying start would be delayed, and he would provide an updated schedule by 7th October. Since then nothing. Have rung and emailed multiple times, and visited the (closed) Hawthorn showroom. Everyone has disappeared!

ULTIMATE DECEPTION – I first made contact with UKB in late April 2023 and decided to go with them for my kitchen renovation. At first everything went well and after handing over $14K I received plans and specifications. Signed Contract late June for start date of 7 September 2023. Start date came and went and then email from MD for new start date by 7th October. … Read more

it is now 30th October and all is silent. There is something deeply troubling going on and I wish I knew what is happening. At least I still have my kitchen and am a bit better off than some other clients. Also, on the advice of Beata I purchased new appliances from e & s in early May and they are gathering dust in their warehouse! Am sad and upset for everyone caught up in this mess.

UKB hell – Things didn’t start well with a week’s delay on the start date. After prompting from us the 8 week project started and for the first 3 weeks things ran smoothly then almost nothing was done for 5 weeks. I think the hardest thing to accept is the lack of response to communication, email, phone or in person. We can’t move home as it has no bathroom… Read more

or toilets so we are forced to move from one expensive AirBnb to another. We have contacted DNDRV but believe that process can take months and meanwhile we have to pay for more accommodation! Also contacted VMIA but can’t even lodge a claim until UKB go into liquidation! I’m unsure whether and how to attempt to rescind our contract with UKB or will that affect our claim with VMIA.

Disappointed in being mislead – We only signed our contract in early October, with demo due to start March 2024. When reading through all the reviews before me, the company obviously knew they had a major issue with being able to deliver what was promised. At this stage we have what turns out to be a very expensive set of drawings ($21k). I also have received no replies to… Read more

emails or returned calls for 3 weeks now (since signing on the line basically). I will be pursuing insurance and legal advice on how to claim some of our prepayment back.

Fraudulent, Insolvent Trading. Stay away from this company – We're in a similar position to so many other people below. We are about half way through our bathrooms and laundry reno, and everything stopped. We were supposed to start in February, then May, then finally it started in August. The day before they started, they sent us a new contract where the build time had gone from 56 days to 98 days (which… Read more

has now become infinity). Everything stopped in early October. After a few dozen phone calls to Jeff the director, he answered. He claimed that nothing was wrong and it was business as usual, despite the staff not being paid, contractors not being paid, showrooms closed, and no progress on my renovation. I've had absolutely no communication from the company other than that - which in itself is pathetic. To make things worse, VMIA has confirmed that UKB failed to take out DBI insurance for us, despite it being in the contract. I've spoke with a number of tradies who have been deceived by this man, and are out of pocket. From discussions with them, it looks like 60-80 clients have been impacted. I feel for all of the trades and clients impacted. I don't hold any hope of reclaiming our lost money, and don't believe I have any option than to finish work myself.

I'm happy to join a group action to put this company and the director out of business for good, however it's not financially viable for me to pursue legal action by myself.

I wish I could give a 0 star review. Stay away from this company.

Disaster – Same story. 8 week bathroom reno supposed to completed mid Sep. Started a week late on the demo and then nothing for the last 6 weeks. Won't respond to email or phone. Showroom closed. House has no bathroom or toilets so family is forced to hop from one expensive Air bnb to another, with no end in sight.

Buyer beware - and stay away! – Like many others, we are victims of this company. Handed over a huge amount of money for the deposit in July - they promised a project plan within weeks - three months later and we have nothing. They won’t return our calls or emails. We have contacted a lawyer. I also think it’s time to contact the media. It’s the only way to ensure the public knows what these people are doing. This experience has absolutely wrecked us.

How to reclaim our money back? – We entered into a contract with UKB in early June 2023, and they assured us that the Stage I project would commence on October 23 (yesterday), with Stage II following in early 2024. However, as of the end of September, after reaching out with multiple emails and phone calls to request updates, they seemed to vanish into thin air. There has been no… Read more

response to our emails, phone calls go unanswered, and the Camberwell office appears deserted. We have already made the initial installation payment to 'secure' the design and materials, and now we feel trapped!

It is disheartening to discover that we are not the only customers who have been mistreated. We are at a loss as to what our next steps should be, lawyers? insurance? customer affairs? Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria? If any fellows have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to share them. Together, we should unite and take action to reclaim our money and rights!! @Worldview87, just saw your post and will contact you by private message!

"ULTIMATE" NIGHTMARE – We are writing this review in the hope that it will save other customers from signing up with this company and experiencing the heartache, disappointment, stress and anxiety that this company has caused. We spent a lot of time researching the best company to take care of our kitchen, laundry and bathroom renovations. UKB seemed to tick all the… Read more

boxes; they had won numerous awards, beautiful showrooms, friendly and helpful sales consultants, knowledgeable designers that made the design process smooth. Furthermore the concept of having someone to project manage our renovations was appealing. We honestly felt like we were in good hands. We were given our schedule with a start and finish date much later than we initially told but accepted this. Our renovation was a Stage 1 & Stage 2 as we are living in the house with our family. The 'planned' schedule was 6 weeks duration for each stage, a planned total of 12 weeks to complete the entire project.

Initially the project commenced on time with tradies showing up daily for the first two weeks. Then it all started going downhill...'a plasterer' delay which lasted 3 weeks. Then a couple days of waterproofing and tiles were due to be delivered shortly after. Days became weeks and each week there was more excuses and the communication continued to drop off. In over two months under 3 days of work has been done, the 11th September was the last date of any work. Since this time it has been an endless and frustrating lack of communication, lack of updates and information, unanswered calls, unanswered emails. The showrooms are also now closed and by 'apt only'. Many calls are now diverted to management who say they will call you back and don't, say that they will send you a new schedule and don't...it has been one lie after the other. We are now only 1/3 of the way through Stage 1 and it has already blown out to 3 months with no plan, update, schedule or end in sight.

We had no choice but to call Consumer Affairs, even their intervention did not get any answers or follow up from the company. We have now lodged a formal complaint with the Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria. UKB have failed to meet contractual obligations or provide any adequate communication or updates. It has disheartened us greatly and caused great stress that the communication from UKB has become virtually non-existent. It is unconscionable, unethical and unprofessional that a company would treat their customers in this way after taking their hard earned money and putting trust and faith in this company. We wrote this review in good conscience of sparing other prospective customers of the same fate as we have come to learn that many of their customers are currently experiencing the same nightmare.

Insolvent Trading and Misleading Customers – The prior reviews about poor service are accurate - this company is insolvent and their director and management team have been acting unconsionably and misleading customers for months. We have filed both a report with Consumer Affairs Victoria and the police. They are no longer in the store and no longer answering phone calls. While they should… Read more

be in an external administration process (which will enable customers like us to trigger VMIA insurance), they are refusing to do so, leaving >100 customers now in limbo. Suppliers have not been paid, and therefore have not made or ordered products. This is an incredibly sad story for many customers who are now seriously out of pocket. We paid a deposit and first instalment, faithfully restumped our home on UKB's instructions, and have been living out of home waiting for them to commence. They misled us into signing the contract in May on the basis of a "spot coming up" in August to commence the built. That was a lie. We remain out of home, out of pocket, no ability to claim on insurance (yet), and having to now find our own trades and manage the job ourselves.

Looks like they've gone under !!! – Same as previous 2 people....they promised 6 weeks for the project, then extended it to 10 weeks and its now over 2 months and they have NOT started but they have my money. Watch out-looks like theyhave just gone under either last week or today. No one to speak to and no return calls or emails. Very very concerned.

Horrendous experience! Completely failed to deliver our project – Our experience with UKB has sadly been a carbon-copy replica of the review posted by Vinny below. We thought delays during the design phase and delays with our start date were bad, but when construction started it soon slowed...then stopped...then nothing. We also have been very distressed by (still) having no bathroom or laundry for 16 weeks,… Read more

whilst receiving nil responses from UKB to countless phone calls, texts and formal complaint emails. We also were forced to raise a complaint with DBRV. At time of writing, we have been forced to cancel our >$100k contract mid-project, and now have to quickly learn how to project manage a renovation ourselves, engaging tradies directly. The fact UKB are still advertising for new work, when they do not have the capacity to fulfill current jobs is at best incompetence, or at worst fradulence. I sincerely recommend to avoid this company for your home renovation.

Absolutely shocking! – A terrible ordeal! We contracted UKB to renovate our small ensuite bathroom in Nov 2022 with the job to begin in April 2023 that was expected to be completed within 6 weeks. It is now October and the renovation is only half completed with only 4 days of work being done over the past two and a half months. What began as an exciting project has… Read more

turned into a complete nightmare causing our family a great deal of stress with no end in sight. UKB can't seem to organise supplies or tradies and for months have not returned our calls or msges.

Before the job was due to start in April, we frantically prepared our home so that the tradies could work unimpeded. Sadly, no tradies showed up and no phone call from UKB for an explanation. We rang a number of UKB contacts but they did not return our calls. When we did receive a call from UKB several days later, they stated that the job would be delayed by a month due to supply issues, and the reason why no one called us was because we “fell through the cracks” – nice. We can understand supply issues causing a delay, but a simple courtesy phone call could have alleviated a lot of stress and confusions.

Due to a site check measure error that failed to identify our walls as being brick instead of gyprock, we required a plasterer to render the walls – a task that would take over a month to perform and was only done so after numerous calls. We were informed by the site manager that UKB only had the one plasterer and he was busy doing a bigger job.

We have been waiting for 6 weeks for a tiler but UKB have not responded to our calls or messages to provide an update.

During this stressful ordeal, we have honoured our payments in a timely manner, we have remained calm in our discussions with UKB, we have been flexible and accommodating to their many issues, but numerous recent attempts to contact the site manager and the owner of UKB via phone calls and messages for an update have been ignored leaving us in a heighten state of distress.

We felt like we had no choice but to contact Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) for guidance and they stated that we needed to write a formal complaint to UKB outlining the situation and steps to remediate, which they kindly provided a template. We did as CAV advised, but UKB did not respond to our letter of complaint. CAV has advised us to pursue the matter with DBRV, which we have, and currently waiting for the next steps.

It is unbelievable that a small renovation costing c.$40k could cause so much stress and anxiety and we feel very unlucky to have chosen and trusted UKB

Thrilled with design – Was a very old dilapidated room with a bath. Now beautiful (green & white), functional & minus bath. Designed by Stephanie. Small area to work with. Laundry created. Same with a very old kitchen. Now spacious, functional, light & with all modern appliances.

Excellent quality, professional staff, and a great result – We had a 25 year old bathroom completely stripped out and renewed. Stephanie was fantastically helpful with the design and help with selection of tiles, layout and fittings. Rosie did a great job of the documenting the design. The project manager, Scott, was the best. Nothing was too much trouble. He went above and beyond to ensure everything went… Read more ·  1

smoothly. Stephanie’s design, Scott’s knowledge, and the excellent tradies used on our job, resulted in a very high quality outcome. We couldn’t be happier with the entire team we had from ultimate kitchens and bathrooms.

Couldn't be happier! – From the moment Eugene, my designer, came to see the space, to the time that the cleaners finished up, my experience with Ultimate was flawless. My bathroom now makes sense and is absolutely stunning. Eugene’s design took everything I wanted into account and he was so patient when assisting me with the choice of finishes, which have come up… Read more ·  1

beautifully. Raymond, my project manager, was super responsive and on top of absolutely everything – even when lockdowns threw a couple of spanners in the works. I couldn’t be happier with my experience or with the result. I can’t recommend Ultimate highly enough. I’ll be back when it’s time to do the kitchen! Thank you Eugene, Raymond and the whole Ultimate team for making this experience easy and stress-free. I love the result.

So happy with the result – Thank you to all the people at Ultimate Kitchens and Bathrooms, especially Raymond, my Project Manager, Stephanie and Mariana for my lovely new bathroom/laundry. I am so happy with the results. This was a very positive experience and all through the process I felt that everyone I dealt with really listened to my needs and requests - very professional from start to finish. Much appreciated. Show reply

Very happy with renovation – We were very happy that this project was such a success. We used Ultimate Kitchens 6 years ago for our kitchen and other bathroom and whilst happy then, we found the business has improved. Areas of improvement include initial consultation and design, drawings, project management, trades and cleaning.  Show reply

Very happy with end result – We had our kitchen, en suite, laundry and bathrooms renovated by Ultimate Kitchens and bathrooms. The designer and tradespeople were were highly skilled and professional, cleaned up after themselves, and the finished product is a high quality job. We are very pleased with end result.

A Very Professional Job Done – Ultimate Kitchens and Bathrooms did a major renovation of 3 bathrooms and our laundry. They were very professional throughout and we were very pleased at all aspects of the work they did. The design process was very smooth and we felt we were listened to carefully. We were able to see the fittings to be used and select them with expert help. … Read more

During the renovation phase the house was kept as clean as possible and even though it was a major job they kept very close to their estimated timeline. The only changes to pricing that occurred were when we changed our minds about particular aspects and the change in costing was explained carefully at these times. I would highly recommend this company if you have renovations of this type that you want done.