Homeowners upset at long wait for new builds

Thursday, 15 February 2018

One of the sites on which building work has been slow.

Building times are blowing out for a Wellington and Wairarapa construction company, leaving property owners frustrated.

Concerns have been raised by clients of Platinum Homes. Work on more than 10 building sites across areas including Martinborough, Masterton, Levin, Feilding and Tokomaru has been slow starting or has stalled.

Some of the clients signed their contracts for the work in 2016.

A source who did not want to be identified said contractors had complained they were not being paid on time.

* Why do we build such big houses?

In one case, a client had reportedly waited 20 weeks once their concrete slab was down for the building frames to turn up, a wait that would normally be three weeks. Staff were allegedly being pressured to sign up new buyers.

Franchisee Jason Strange also held the South Island Platinum Homes franchise until it was hit by cash flow problems in 2016. His Platinum Homes license was suspended.

He said the industry generally had been hit by delays over the last year due to inclement weather.

There had also been issues with suppliers and getting subcontractors to sites. Pressure on the industry meant some might offer a week's notice that they were available, he said, but it would take six weeks to get a build in the pipeline. There were delays accessing joinery, which had to be brought in from Taranaki or Tauranga.

He had since employed staff on employment contracts to tackle that problem, he said, and was working through a backlog. Everything should be back to 22-week build times by mid-March.

Platinum Homes chief executive Shaun Riley was aware of the issue.

'Where there have been delays we are working with the licensee providing support to make sure there are no further delays and the builds are completed.'

The work is backed by a Homefirst Builders Guarantee, which offers deposit protection and a completion guarantee.