Weeks & Macklin Homes Questions & Answers

They were unable to make progress when we tried to do a straightforward single build. I hate to think how they would manage a sub divide and rebuild.

Lots of delays

What happened. We had three houses built and had problems too

Val

Hi Anton81, I am very sorry to hear such a huge loss to you from Weeks & Macklin. I believe you 100% coz we are also one of the victims of Weeks. We have faced a lot of stress for almost a year while dealing with them. Luckily we pulled out of Weeks with out signing the final contract, which indeed was a wise decision and saved us cutting further loss.

Jagu

I wish I did the same thing. I've now moved in and still encounter problems after problems. I've even advised three of my clients who looked at building with them and exactly what to look for and they've stated they are now it going to proceed with weeks. This is what i tried to tell Weeks, I encounter clients and property each and everyday and the way I see it, I'm very much all about my clients and I will continue to provide an honest experience to anyone who wants to consider this builder. My advice is simple STAY away!

Hi Anton,

We have signed up with them but wanting to cancel. I am not too sure if it will cost us more money besides the deposit. We thought it would be better to end the contract with them than continue with something that we're not a 100%

We feel your pain. We signed the contract then soon started to regret doing so. We eventually gave up and wrote off our deposit. Then they sent us a further invoice for 'progress made'. They really were an appalling company to deal with.

Hi there, can I ask why you are thinking of changing? We are also in SA and in the same stage of planning with Weeks as you...

Hi Swa23, can you send me a private message? If you click through to my profile, you'll be able to see a review I wrote for a mobile phone on this site with an option to PM me. Happy to discuss in more detail in private :)

I too was going to build with Weeks & Macklin & if it weren't for the stupid attitude of the female sales rep & not responding to my emails or text messages, I would've continued with them. She seemed to get uppity when I didn't want a block of land she decided was just right for me. I know that it is on a very busy & cut through road, as my brother has lived in the area since the late 70's, but the sales rep argued with me about it. I eventually sussed out Distinctive as I built with them in 96, but the young sales rep there was just the same as the female, never responded to my text messages. I had to stop sorting & packing my home of 20 years, to go to the display home at Seaford, to discuss anything with him & wasted so much of my time. Then he also put me onto his friend, at Magains at Woodcroft, to sell my home there & he was an arrogant a-h, who did everything wrong & was nasty & bullying to me every step of the way - don't ever go to them either. Just before Christmas last year, I got the soil report for the block of land I eventually chose, in the country & it was over $32,000, so I couldn't afford to go with Distinctive after that & it turned out to be just as well - sales reps attitude was that they were all going on Christmas/News Years break & couldn't do anything to help me then anyway . So I looked at the Celeste design with Rivergum, as it is much like the one I was going to have with Distinctive, but 4 bedrooms instead of 3, ensuite in master bedroom & basic cost is $30,000 cheaper than the Distinctive one. It has taken all this time for the land to go through the processes & to get to Lands Title & settlement should be next week, so I would never have been able to have my home built if I was still with Distinctive, as I've had to pay close to $15,000 in rent so far & at least a couple more months to come, before my home will be ready for me to move in. There are so many builders out there who are only thinking of the money they will get & not about doing the right thing by their customers.

We had one large and two smaller homes built by Weeks ten years ago. We still have them. The larger one has had a lot of problems with sloping and cracking. We engaged an engineer to check things out. And yes there is a slope in the floor but weeks allow such a big tolerance they covered it in their guarantee so would not do anything about it. Hence we have cracked walls now. It's in the small print you see also they blamed stormwater. They just shoved the blame. One of the smaller homes was having trouble with the windows recently it turns out they were put in the wrong way. Whoever you build with do yourself a favour. Employ an engineer to make sure the contractors do everything right as there are so many contractors who can't do their job. It's a big investment you need to ensure things are done right. Best of luck.

Hi Jagu06, in another question/anwer, you mentioned you went with another builder who was able to build more promptly. Just curious, but who did you end up going with?

We have moved into our new home built by weeks on the 7/7/17. We signed our contract on the 26/8 /16. No trouble. We lived local and were able to keep an eye on our build. My advise is if you are building with any builder visit your site regularly. Debbie.

Hi Debbie, congratulations on moving to your new home with in One year with weeks. Yes,we also did the same, and we already have moved to our new place in March ------ All good. Cheers.

Jagu

Read the other comments, they do take a long time before they start the build. Probably like most builders once they have your money they don't care about fixing things. We paid over and above for our foundations, yet the house appears to start to slope and move again, they blame it on drainage around the house. My advice is whoever you build with get your own building consultant to go out and check everything that is done. There are so many terrible so called tradesmen, it gets covered up and sometimes you don't find out until years later they did not do the job properly. You check everything also as it is a big investment. I have had three built with these because of steel frame work. The workmanship was not bad, don't pay for brick washing no need too. Try and get a finished date and ask what happens if they go over a lot.

I would not recommend Weeks and Macklin. After 10 months of frustration and disappointment we were still nowhere near getting council approval (not the council's fault at all) so we gave up as W and M appeared incapable of making progress. Their quote was worthless as the costs just spiralled. They made several errors and then came back each time with increased costs. Their internal communication appeared non existent and trying to get answers to even basic questions was like pulling teeth. We decided to write off our $4000 deposit as a bad experience. After we pulled the plug they then had the cheek to bill us for another $1652 "for progress made". I have since become aware of two other people who had similar experiences with the same company.

I would not recommend Weeks and Macklin. After 10 months of frustration and disappointment we were still nowhere near getting council approval (not the council's fault at all) so we gave up as W and M appeared incapable of making progress. Their quote was worthless as the costs just spiralled. They made several errors and then came back each time with increased costs. Their internal communication appeared non existent and trying to get answers to even basic questions was like pulling teeth. We decided to write off our $4000 deposit as a bad experience. After we pulled the plug they then had the cheek to bill us for another $1652 "for progress made". I have since become aware of two other people who had similar experiences with the same company.

Thankyou for your time in letting me know how you feel it looks like there are a lot of unhappy customers thanks again

Hi Neil - we are currently trying to cancel after 16 months of waiting, during which our preapproval for finance lapsed and my grandad passed away which meant my Mum could no longer be guarantor on the loan (as she had to help my Nan into a retirement village). I am trying to find contact details so I can send a letter through to management, as we only have the Building Consultant's details and nothing is progressing - we send the initial advice regarding cancellation in June. Could I ask if you had any other contact details we could try? Many thanks :-)

Sorry I don't have any information on weeks they were going to get back to me 5 weeks ago and still have'nt heard a thing.

Do not build with weeks, worst decision ever, just wasting your time.

DO NOT build with Weeks. Their process is slow. You will be hit with higher footings cost than they initially provide, and negations after signing contact is hard. We cancelled contract with them, and they did not respond for two years. After two years sent us a letter requesting more funds and profit although we did not start any building construction with them.

DO NOT build with Weeks. Their process is slow. You will be hit with higher footings cost than they initially provide, and negations after signing contact is hard. We cancelled contract with them, and they did not respond for two years. After two years sent us a letter requesting more funds and profit although we did not start any building construction with them.

Thanks for your email, I went to Weeks in July to get a quote and never heard anything back from them,I am glad they didn't bother to get back to me as I have found out why not to build with them in melbourne, he was suppose to ring me in 3 days but never did, they mustn't need the business in Melbourne. Thanks again

Never .this has been our worst nightmare.we sighned contract with them since last year march.upto know not done with paperwork.not started building.i think they should change their name to years instead of weeks.

Never .this has been our worst nightmare.we sighned contract with them since last year march.upto know not done with paperwork.not started building.i think they should change their name to years instead of weeks.

I was very lucky that Carlos in Melbourne who i went to see about building a house didn't even bother to get back to me with a quote, i spent a couple of hours with him telling him what i wanted and he was suppose to ring me back in a few days but never heard a thing from him, which makes me very happy as a lot of people are not happy with WEEKS building. I would try and get out of contract and start again with someone else. Thanks for you feed back but i was one of lucky ones.

Please do your due diligence here, if not you may suffer a financial loss. I've got proof and would be happy to provide you with any information to ensure what happened to me, doesn't happen to you.

hi sharon, were you able to pull out your contract with weeks? did you have to pay a cancellation fee?

Barbie I didn't get that far with them they didn't get back with a quote which l am pleased about I found a really good builder and my house is nearly finished.

Deb, we built with them in 2008/9 While their workmanship was good we particularly knew the soil was bay bisque soil, we had a house demolished because of this. We paid more than double for the slab to correct this problem. The house is sloping inside, the ceilings are all badly cracking. Weeks say it is because of storm water leaking outside and have washed their hands of the problem. They do not advise you that with weather conditions to make sure you water around the house etc. we now have to have underpinning done, what that will cost I do not know. And what proof do we have that they did the correct footing when we paid more than double for them?

They tell you get your own gut to do the storm water it's much cheaper, but it's a way out for them to void the warrant in my opinion.

Mob 0427803778

Yes we have built with them twice and each time were very satisfied with the result. They are somewhat slow to get things started, but in our case it didn't matter. Once they started, the build finished on time although the preliminaries did take a long time. We ended up with a quality finished product, had a great building consultant who provided fantastic service even after we signed the contract and followed things up for us. We also had a very enthusiastic and capable site supervisor each time. On one of our homes we had a problem 3 years after handover and they fixed it without complaint. Would certainly recommend them above some of the other builders in the area. Our only complaint, and a minor one at that is that some of their administration could be improved. Despite this, their staff were courteous and always returned calls and emails. Pia

HI there, We have tried to build our 150sqm single storey home with Weeks in Adelaide. We paid $3000 towards our initial deposit in October 2015. Eventually we have ended up not signing a building contract with them after 8 months.

There are many reasons, few of them are as below:

- They took 6 months to finalize our design. ( Normally the standard time for this is 4-6 weeks)

- The total duration we waited to know the footing costs was 7 and half months. (Other builders in Adelaide are doing the same in 6 weeks Max.)

- We have been quoted a footings cost of almost $34000. Which is insane for a small built of 14 squares.

- Their service wasvery very poor and they don't bother about the client when you once sign the preliminary contract & pay the deposit.

- They don't even offer you at least the' soil report' ( which is worth of $1000) if you don't want to continue with them.

(Many builders in Adelaide will give you this report if you don't want to proceed with them coz its your property and you have paid for it in the deposit amount)

- According to my experience with them, they will at least take a minimum of 18 months to build a home. ( This is very long when compare with other builders)

- We have faced a lot of stress and pain in dealing with them, eventually suffered severe financial loss & 8 months valuable time for taking a wrong decision to go with them.

- MOST IMPORTANTLY IF YOU ARE A FIRST HOME BUYER/BUILDER I DON'T RECOMMEND WEEKS - PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THEM AND SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY.

ITS NOT ONLY ME ALONE - PLEASE GO THROUGH THE ANSWERS FOR THE NEXT QUESTION ON THIS SAME REVIEW, YOU WILL FIND SOME MORE CUSTOMERS WHO HAVE SUFFERED WITH THEM RECENTLY.

cheers

Jagu

Hi Jagu06, Thank you for contacting us with your question. In general it takes up to 4 weeks for a single storey home and up to 6 weeks for a double storey home. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Kind regards, Ailsa - Weeks & Macklin Homes Communications Coordinator

It is not true!! Preliminary agreement was signed 6 MONTHS ago, PRELIMINARY PLAN is still NOT READY!! At first we waited 2 months for the registration number, in order to give our plan to the builder's drafter.

Two months later we received our plan re-drawn and it had a lot of mistakes, although we provided it in full detailes. We disscussed all these faults with our sales consultant and were told that they will be fixed shortly.

Next two months we waited for a corrected PRELIMINARY drawing, but received a list of builder's drafter faults with price that we have to pay to correct those mistakes!!

6 months of our time were spent by builder for nothing!! The sales consultant said that construction will start in 6 months after preliminary agreement was signed!! We could be on the slab stage now, but still stay at the start!!

VERY ANGRY AND DISAPOINTED!!

Hi there, thanks for sharing, I am sorry to hear that and wanna tell I am going through the same process now. Its been 4 months and they have given me Preliminary plans twice with lots of errors/ mistakes which doesn't really match with our custom design which we have agreed with the building consultant. This is really frustrating and don't know what to do except to wait.

Really confused and Blaming our self .

Hi Jadu06, we terminated our preliminary agreement and found another builder.

I would recomend you to do the same until it is too late for starting from scratch.

HI, may I know which city or you located and who is your current builder?

thanks

Hi there I would also like to know from you whether you were able to get your initial deposit back or no?

Deposit is non refundable, under any circumstances. Have a look on the clause 2 of your preliminary agreement. Even if they have done nothing, you probably will not get your $3000 back. We consider to lodge a formal complaint to authorities (CBS).

I have to agree, there are no concerns for keeping things moving at Weeks. Its been 8 months for me and we are just about to submit for development approval. The council has not delayed us at all. Constant errors for each set of plans, constant errors for each quote and each time plans are amended it takes over 2 months to do!!!!. If you're in a hurry don,t bother with Weeks.

We are building in SA.

Paid PDA fee on Jan 12, 2016 and they promise 4 to 5 weeks the drawings and reports will be ready for submission to the council. They lodge the preliminary design order only on Feb 17, 2016 and promised to send the drawings on April 1, 2016. However initial drawing was received on April 13 with errors. I waited again for more than 2 weeks just to amend the a door and a window (non-structural amendment). Had to give them ultimatum after waiting almost 4 months. And still they did not completely deliver the drawings and reports. They cannot even give a timeline for the building construction stages. Had to cancel the agreement and seek legal advise to refund the 3K PDA fee. Very frustrated with this builder even I have a very good first impression when I initially saw their sample build and talked to the consultant and looks like they were very professional, I was wrong. I believe they have very big issues in their company as I saw a lot of bad reviews about them already. I cannot take anymore delays and unreasonable excuses so I opted to change to another builder. I don't trust this builder anymore.

Hi Ed Saldana, Sorry to hear that, same here, we have faced a lot of stress and pain with this builder. After staying very patiently for almost 8 months we have pulled out of Weeks, these guys are crap, they are very very unprofessional and tried to rip me off with a $34000 footing costs for a small/tiny build of 150 sqm. One of the members above in this same forum advised me to get out of Weeks as early as in January, but I have waited for too long and paid the price. We have made a very big mistake by choosing Weeks.

With the Weeks particularly the drafts/design team is useless, believe me they have taken ages to finalize my design. Only the design took 6 months with silly and childish mistakes which reflects their attitude towards customers. They don't care about the clients once you pay the preliminary fees.

Weeks, may be the Only builder in Adelaide I guess, won't let you walkaway with the Soil report even though that's your property and you have paid for it.This is very much unethical and immoral practice. We are very much relieved when we finally decided to get out from there. We are happy now, and confident that any other builder in Adelaide can build a reasonably better home than Weeks in a much better time.

Good Luck for your new build with your new builder. I am sure you will be more happy than staying with Weeks.

Cheers

Jagu

Hi Jagu, FYI, I got my new builder and paid the PSA on May 18 and I have finished the final Selection last Aug. 19, 2016. The engineering reports and drawings were completed and submitted to the council within 6 weeks. Overall I'm happy with this builder and my consultant. They are all very professional and efficient, even the CEO met with me to discuss the issues and the plan. Just waiting for the final contract and the build so I can write a full review for this builder. I am definitely happy that I did not continue with Weeks, although I am also not happy that I may not be able to get any of my 3K (PSA fee) back. But I have reported them to CBS SA and they have record of my complain about Weeks.

Cheers,

Ed

For those in this thread that changed builder, who did you go with and how has your experience? In particular, Jagu06 and Ed Saldana, who did you end up going with? My partner and I are considering going with Weeks and the experience has been slow so far like everyone else's.

If you are able to message me privately that would be great. Thanks!

Hi, we have signed our contact in June 2016. and moved in to our new home in March 2017. Which is around 8 months. We are pretty much happy with our new builder, very flexible, very fast. The built overall was very good and the final look was excellent. We have made a wise decision to get out from W & M. I know a person who is still with them for almost 2 years now and still waiting for the build to get started.

Regarding the name of builder I sure can share the name with you via a private email.

In my opinion any builder other than Weeks and Macklin are good to go.These guys are a real NIGHTMARE.

Hi Deborah, Thank you very much for your enquiry. At Weeks and Macklin Homes we specialise in this type of situation so we are sure that we will be able to find a suitable solution for you. One of our Building Consultants has contacted you directly via email to assist you.

Thanks again, and we look forward to speaking with you.

Kind Regards, Ailsa – Weeks and Macklin Homes Communications Coordinator

Hi eltel71, thanks for contacting us with your enquiry. Each house and land package varies, so it is best to contact the specific Sales Consultant with your enquiry. However, our standard inclusions are the following: Supaloc steel frames, R2.0 Soundscreen external wall insulation, stainless steel appliances, Colorbond roof, gutters, fascias and downpipes and more. All house and land packages are completely customisable to ensure your personal requirements are met. For more information please feel free to call us on (08) 8292 7288, or view all our house and land packages online at external link  Kind Regards, Weeks and Macklin Homes Management