The builder makes good quality houses, and we were attracted towards them because of their reputation in the market however Its customer services leaves something to be desired
The closing dates for 2 houses we bought from this builder turned out to be fluid and have been postponed and delayed by nearly 2 years in one case and more than a few months for the other. Although we are told that the delays were not in the builder’s control and were because of the city authorities
The properties we booked were meant to be rented out.
One of the properties was handed over to us as occupancy closing and during the Occupancy Period they did not allow us to rent it out. After a lot of persuasion and persistence they did give permission to rent out but asked us for a fee (unnecessary in our opinion ) and asked us to put in a hefty extra deposit and imposed conditions such as not renting out to more than 2 people (effectively not allowing a family to live in the house ) and did not allowing us to advertise on MLS etc to get tenants (effectively ruling out finding any worthwhile tenants) ; however after further persuasion they did relent, and removed the conditions of not allowing renting to more than 2 people and to not advertise on MLS etc, and thus we were then able to rent out the house
We must however state that this house was completed on time and we were very pleased with its good quality work, which I would rate as exceptional
For the house, which is delayed by nearly 2 years, after it had overrun all contractual dates they offered to take back the property and compensate us by a token amount (as per Tarion Contract). We knew the market price for it was much higher than the compensation we were being offered hence we wanted to sell it in the market by using the assignment clause in the agreement, but they refused to give us permission to sell, saying they had unsold inventory hence cannot allow us to sell , but then reluctantly gave permission when we persisted, however did not allow us to advertise, again effectively ruling out finding buyers. We engaged 3 very well-known realtors over a period of 3.5 months to try and sell, with the intent of using their network and gave clear instructions not to advertise and comply with the builder's conditions. The first 2 realtors did not succeed, the third realtor did not succeed either however its staff lapsed and advertised on their website without our knowledge; the builder found out about it and wrote a rude and curt email reprimanding us and withdrawing the permission to sell on assignment, as if we were guilty. The realtor did immediately comply and removed the advertisement from their website
As a result of one of the houses being delayed by nearly 2 years its closing is happening very close to the closing of the other house, possibly overlapping it and thus creating problems for us getting our mortgages sorted out and approved; there was real a danger of us not getting mortgage sorted out in time for the second closing and thus running into all types of issues.
We reached out to the top management of the builder and complained on the way we were treated and also highlighted the issue of the two closings viz a viz our mortgages; pleasantly the management was understanding of our situation and has agreed to stagger the 2 closings to give time to our mortgage broker to get approvals for mortgages for both the properties. Athough an apology of the treatment meted out is still awaited
- Approximate cost of services:
- $7,520,000,000,000.00