CJ Homes at Capalaba, should you get them to build your home?

This is about our build with CJ homes, nothing made up and nothing false in any way, this is our story!


On The HIA building contract for your new home, there is a section on the last page for a start date and completion date to be put in, do this or do not sign that document!!!!!!
When they say it’s just a standard HIA building contract when you say you need to take this home and read it, don’t listen to that, take it home and study it or show a solicitor before signing.
There is a part of all this that builders can use to prolong your start date by putting permissions for you to sign along the way, this means that they can put off your build until 20 days after all permissions are completed, be careful of this, get those start and finish dates put in the last page of your contract!
In late 2020 we were trying to get a builder to do a small home of 20 old school squares for us and most were all full, mainly due to the governments home builders grant.
Coral homes, our second preferred builder after the best, being fetini of course, had no spots left for our build to happen; they were full by mid November and honest about it.
Coral homes had 400 on their books to complete the slab, as is required at that time, though extended later on, by 3 months from the signing of the building contract to get in on the home builder’s grant of which we needed to get a home built, and extra three months was added later on by the government.
The sign up had to happen and contract sent in to the home builders grant department by the end of December or you miss out on the twenty five thousand dollars builders grant to those renovating or building a home, that all up, was over the value of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, so we signed with CJ homes on the 21st of December 2020.

It was in November 2020, my wife found CJ homes at Capalaba and after consultations with the owner of the company, the builder called Uri and then office staff, it was said to us by the owner of CJ homes which is the builders companies name, that if the contract was signed by the end of December, and we achieved that on the 21st of December, the slab would be done before that same date in March as the home builders grant wanted, to ensure we got that grant money! The grant time frame was extended by an extra 3 months, no change to our time frame was mentioned to us by the builder at any time.
1.January 5th 2021, it all seemed fine, we were called in to select all that made up the home like bricks, colours, everything! This was in early January!
That went well and all that we wanted was available.

We organised the demolition of our home as the builders cost on this was far too high at over 33 thousand dollars, able earth moving did a great job for 23 thousand dollars.
They began a few days later then the day i booked them in for, so that stopped them from being able to get any gear from the home to sell. That was disappointing as we had a near new kitchen in our home and other good gear, all wasted as I thought by glancing at the home contract that i needed the demolition achieved within 60 days to be in line with the HIA contract we signed for our home.
On it was written, the build has to start within 60 days of signing the contract. But later on we found out unless permissions have not been finalized, they got the time frame legally extended by this part without our knowledge as it went along, the permissions could have been done in early January. If it was intentional to extend our builds time frame by doing this, i don't know, but it appears that way.
When wanting specific things like a concrete driveway and in my case concrete drive tracks down the side of the house for boat and caravan, when you put on your plan that when measuring the sizes of these tracks as such, 10 millimeters or 1 centimeter represents 1 meter. Don’t expect him to get it right, I did and that was my mistake, none of the mud map provided for him to quote off the plan from him for the work ended up correct. Why, I don’t know, maybe it was not understanding a simple mud map plan or cutting corners to allow for more profit. My plan for him to quote off was very clear and 1 centimeter representing I meter is pretty simple.
Demolishing your own home consists of finding an earth moving company that do demolition and most do that, so we choose able earth moving and i organized the abolishment as well with our electrical supplier, which means your homes electricity meters and power are taken off your home. We paid extra so the abolishment got done on time to not hold up the demolition team or the builder. That ended up being wasted money!!!
Though Able did a great job, they could not get any gear from our home to sell as is with demolitions due to the time frame, we needed it down, I thought by looking at the HIA contract within 60 days from the contract signed, i thought it was applicable here, it wasn't, the build time frame that was told to us by the builder, did not happen!
That was a screw up on our part by not putting a start and finish date on our contract! The rep from the builder said when i wanted to take the contract home and study it, it’s just a standard HIA contract she said and my wife started signing! It seemed later on as if we were conned, if it was read, which would be an inconvenience for them and good for us, the contract could have been made safer for us by putting in both estimated start and fish time frames in the last part of the contract.
There was much i could have used from our home as could have able earth moving, none of that happened, so much waste of gear and money on our side due to build time frame not adhered to by the builder!!
It was now obvious that by not going with the builders earth moving companies quote on demolition costs, this may have annoyed them as they say they advertise that they are the demolition/rebuild experts, we would have been even worse off!
We also found out that if the builder organized the demolition, it was part of the required 150k for the home builders scheme, but when we got it done, it could not be classed as part of the build to be included in the 150k any more, we found this out later on.
As usual, the government makes no sense with much of what it does!!!

From October 2020, the time frame for all this.
Tried working with coral homes From October by November, they were full by mid November, we lost them, they could not take any more new builds on their books so my wife found CJ homes.

Started talking to CJ homes-
He seemed honest and reliable and were told the slab would be completed within 3 months from contract signed and house built completed by around May/June, depending on weather, so I thought, June/July, sounds good, our lease on the rental property my wife found expires on August 5th. The rent for the build time was then paid at nearly 12 thousand dollars.

We signed the HIA contract signed on the 21st of December 2020 and we made a serious mistake, we did not get start date and finish date put on that contract as the rep from the builder said it was a standard HIA contract as if all would be fine, no worries, so we signed at my dismay, we had not read it yet!!!

We found a demolition mob called Able earth moving to do our demolition, they were 23k, the builder wanted around 33k, so we booked in the demolition of our old home.
I read the contract we signed quickly after it had been signed and on it was the home had to be started with 60 days of signing contract, so i pushed the demo mob and they did it just in time.
Little did i know this on the contract meant very little, we found out later on that the build does not have to start till within 20 days after all permissions are finished, so we got all kinds of things to sign that are classed as permissions until well into March that we had no idea were coming or needed!
There are several things you have to pay for beyond the actual contract build!
1 If your home is demolished, you pay for the extraction of your electricity meters and the wire take off your home, this around 6 to 7 hundred dollars. Then the builders pole and electricity connected to it then the reconnection to your new home.

1. January 5th 2021, we were called in for colours choice, this is to choose all that our home would be made of, and all that we wanted was available.
We wanted bricks outside of their selection, they were available at an extra cost, we agreed on this. These bricks became unavailable in March, we lost them, the builder took too long, also the roof tiles could not be done till June due to so many tilers working on the roofs in spring field lake area, so we could not get them done till June, so we agreed to go with a steel roof that is thousands of dollars dearer to get the build going, though now who knows when our home will be built or even if the roof will be ready before that time frame making the steel roof, a waste of money.
The land owner pays for soil testing, power disconnection, builders power pole connection and reconnection to the new home.
You pay for soil testing, not the one you want, we organized the soil test with their soil tester!! while our home was still up before demolition, they are in Noosa?
It found solid yellow sand stone at 600 mill down at the front of our current home and it is 400 mill to it at the rear, both tests where they were done, would be under the new slab.
We had a meeting with builder and told him we get water from rear properties, he wanted to put in stones and an ag pipe at rear of slab down 700 mill below the slab to drain off water, I said okay to the pipe, I didn’t know how he would do it at that stage, once I read how, I knew then that it was impossible to achieve.
Once the block was to be ready for the build, from front to rear there would only be a 400 mill fall, plus once the block is cut, the sand stone would be at the surface to 200mill down, the ag pipe was now redundant, the builder did not like that i did not want this to be done now, as it was impossible to be done anyway!
This one failing had me worried about the builder, which i figured this out from the soil test, but the builder did not??
1. February 15th the demolition team arrived and I got the site fence delivered, the demo team said they would pay the first 3 months and me from then on while the house is built. The builder normally dos this at an extra cost, but I got it cheaper and there may have been a lag of time between the demo and build start and I could not leave the block open to anyone. On the 20th the house demolition was completed and a great job was done of it. All council papers, sewerage capped off and certifier paper work completed and the block completely cleared on the 20th of February. I had told the builder before it that the demolition would be on time at our colour choice appointment in early January, of which is the decisions on all that our house will be made of and look like. I told them that the demo would be done by the contracts stipulation of the build commencing within 60 days from the signing of the contract which was done on the 21st Of December 2020. Able did a good fast job and at the rear of where the slab will go, the sandstone is now at the surface, no chance of digging in any ag pip without serious digging problems, as it was, the plumbers had to engage a jack hammer on the back hoe to get into the sandstone to put in a few pipes for the sewerage.
I went in to the builder’s office at capalaba and told them the block will be ready to build on before the end of the 21st of February!
Since the demolition, each day i go to the block to do an hour or two of work on my fence or landscaping or anything else i can do and told the builders staff that will have nothing work wise do with or will interfere with the build, i can’t do much each day, my bad shoulder and back and neck interferes with working.
CJ homes boasts that they are the demolition/build specialists, so by getting your own demolition completed outside of their preferred demolition group and not paying them at least 10 thousand dollars more for them to organize what you can get organized, this may mean they are not achieving extra money being made from our build and this may partly explain why our build is so far behind and possibly lacking much consideration, I would hope that this isn’t the case!
We called their preferred demolition guys and they wanted over 30 thousand dollars, we found three others from just calling around to earth moving companies that would do it for at the most, 23 thousand dollars, we chose able earth moving to do it, he seemed very capable.

2. April 4th 2021, a sign saying CJ homes went up in front of our block, still no work on our block done by the builder as yet!
3. In the second week of April I got to meet the supervisor for our build at our block, it had been said to me, to meet with him in the previous two weeks, but it was said in a way as if they were waiting to do this before the build would start, i replied with "can you please just start the build, it has nothing to do with a meeting with me, we need our home built". It was already way behind the schedule the builder gave us.
Once i met the supervisor, he told me he had only been given our block and build to organize in the last two weeks, which is around two weeks after the builder told us the slab would be finished.
Aspects of our home lost
It is now 2 months after all that our house will be made of was chosen and found to be available and in that time, we lost our bricks, ordering them took far too long; so being quite convenient to the builder, we had to go with a brick from their range. We also lost our bath room basins and lost our roof tiles. Our dream home has already become not what we wanted and was agreed upon and for two months from signing our contract, all of this was available!
The supervisor also said one of the office staff had told him unofficially to look at our site a couple of weeks back after a storm, the block was quite wet then, there had been three lots of heavy rain so our block had dried and got wet three times during March and early April, no one had looked at it during any of the dry times so far from what i was told.
4. April 12th, a load of stones was dropped in the drive way and moved around by a bobcat adding to the one and a half meters i got the demolition team to put in the driveway to satisfy council requirements as to prevent sediment run off.
The rocks dropped off were two meters all up, it needed four meters, not two meters beyond what I had to put in to do the job properly. The 20 mill blue metal stones i had the demolition crew put in was only from the curb to the blocks border line and were working perfectly at holding back any silt as i wanted the demolition guys to achieve thinking the build would be a week or two off yet.
When a demo is achieved, they usually leave the drive way section from the blocks border to the curb in till the build is done, then you pay for it to be lifted and taken away and they lay the new driveway, this helps keep the road free of sediment till the build is done, the 20 mill blue metal rocks did it beautifully.

There was mess on the road from the bobcat and i wanted to clean it for him with all the tools and hose required to do it as had them there then, he said no and used the bobcat on our road and scratched it up.

5. April 14th, block leveling as in prep/cut was done.

6. April 15th surveyor set out slab and told me where our fence line is which was very helpful as I do my own fences.

7. April 16th plumbers did all pipes ready for slab set up.
I looked at the pipe layout and something was wrong!! I wanted a drain in the 3rd bedroom as it was to be my storeroom and fish room, as in my saltwater aquariums. There was no drain in the middle of where the room would go, just a pipe leaning on the fence and one in a strange place coming out if the soil next t the room towards the lounge room?? Not wanting to cause trouble I did not bring it up and read the plan and here it was, my drain was to be a dry waste, shit!! That is what was leaning on the fence and that is not what I asked for or wanted. But by regulations, it had to be! I was not told it would be a dry waste, but I would have understood! Due to a lot of soil being disturbed by the cut and plumbers, I needed to move more soil down the rear of the block.
8. May 4th slab completed, due to my own extensive experience with concreting, I would give the surface of the slab an 8 out of 10 and the edges 6 out of 10.
This builder has rhe slab extending around 100 mill out from the brick work to avoid white ants entering via weep holes.
10. May 11th, frame delivered in pieces not a pre frame factory made set up.
May 12th, frame is started.

That afternoon we looked around and there was that rogue pipe, it was the laundries pipe that is now in the hallway and not in the laundry? I sent an email off about it that night and hopefully I am wrong and it is not the laundries waste pipe or the slab will have to be cut weakening the waffle slab design. The pipe is over 50 m ill in diameter ad the slab is only 85 mill thick, this means to put that pipe in, the steel in the slab had to have been cut through. Now I am quite annoyed again with this lot as it appears there were no checks done by this company on trades progress and outcomes so far, or their certifier is asleep at the wheel.
The problem here is the slab has piers under it down to the sand stone to roughly half way back from the front, which makes sense; the front has more soil between the slab and the sandstone substrate making those piers essential. Okay, where the slab will be cut, if that pipe is in the wrong spot, which it is, this will put, though slight, an extra weakness right at the edge of the cut off point for those piers, of which is where I would estimate the slab with crack in the future, if it can! Once they fix this by cutting a path through the slab for this pipe to go into the laundry, which means a section of the steel in the slab is cut, a section of the waffle aspect of the slab is both gone from the slab and a weak patch put in that spot!!! Things are not looking good, as has been so far for our build from near on day two!

June 21 roof goes on.

June 28th bricks and giprock delivered.

June 29th brickie's start

We moved in Late September.

What did we get at the end of all this?
We ended up paying thousands of dollars more for roof style we did not want making it so we have no mobile phone reception in our home at all, extra rent beyond what we had budgeted for due to the builder being incapable of delivering on the time frame that was said to us, which appears like it was never going to happen anyway.
It certainly appears like this builder had been building, as an example only, says 10 homes a year and took on maybe many more due to money to be made during this boom. But he took them on with the same amount of trades materials and so on to only build 10 homes within the usual time frame, so it seems like the least money to be made homes or the homes with owners that did now know to get the start and finish date put into their contract, were pushed back or just ignored getting the others done.
We got a home, of which I assume most any builder could achieve, but sadly for us, due to either a con job, or an inept builder that does not know his industry, or both, our home looks nothing like what we signed up for, or told we would get and paid for!