Coral Homes

[NGE]

"We are still in warranty and have contacted the company [who] have refused to take any action and or responsibility," says Trilobite

We have recently had some very severe cracking and movement in the internal walls to our master bathroom.

The movement in one wall is so severe that the vanity has come away from the wall by approximately 1cm. We have also had water damage to the ceilings as a result of the builders not affixing the sarking properly under the roof tiles.

We have severe pillowing in our entire ceiling due to the fact that Coral Homes took a short cut and did not use battens to affix the gyprock to. Rather they affixed it to the roof trusses to save money. We are still in warranty and have contacted the company three times and in all instance that have refused to take any action and or responsibility.

They now refuse to even respond to my requests.

[NGE]

Trilobite writes:
(due to length, intricate details of building faults have been edited)

Coral homes are denying everything. They have at least started listening. They have managed to get their rep out who said nothing. He did say he would get the various reps out from other companies (Monier & Boral) to examine why the roof leaks & the ceiling is cracking & sagging. First rep from Monier roof tiles rang while I was at work & asked why I wasn't home to meet him even though he had not made a time. He asked why me wife was not home to meet him as if it was taken as granted - working parents. The 2nd time he came out he examined the areas of the roof where it had leaked. We found a few things. After all that he did not fix it (only replacing 6 tiles 1 of which was broken by a previous rep) & said that it wasn't his problem & it was between me and Coral homes to sort out.

Coral homes has since then got a rep out from Boral Plasterboard. He arrived with Coral rep to see what is causing the cracking. After viewing the cracking in the ensuite, the hall way, family room & kitchen he asked if that was it - inferring that he had waisted his time coming out. He asked to go into the ceiling to have a look at how it was affixed to the roof trusses. Whilst in the ceiling he was very patronising saying that this is the best built house he had seen in 30 years & that he wouldn't expect to see such quality work in a house of today. He inferred that the cracking was due to soil movement due to wet summer & dry winter. That implied structural damage & the Coral rep denied that immediately. This I can support Coral homes on as we have no a single crack in the brick work. He did not have an answer. However, what came out of the inspection was the fact that in the areas that had the most severe cracking was not backblocked (a strip of plaster board put over join to support it from with the ceiling cavity) & where it did have a backblock it was done with timber not plasterboard (timber expands & contracts causing cracking, plaster does not expand & move as much & provides more stability). Also we found that the cause of the pillowing in the ceiling was due to the fact that the stud adhesive that they used to affix the sheeting has now perished & let go. Also in a latter inspection by myself I found that the trusses have in most cases been placed at greater than the max of 600mm apart which is the max that you can affix plaster board without battens & is also not according to the building code. Again the rep said that he could understand my concerns of the quality decline in the 5 years we have had the property, but said that is what they would expect from the product. Again he was of the belief that his product & the way it had been affixed were not at fault.

[Trilobite]

can I correct some of the facts Coral homes has misrepresented in their response.

Yes the home is nearly six years old in another 4 months, but when Coral Homes was contacted it was nearly 7 months ago. Either way the warranty is 6 years from handover. I sent a fax to Coral Homes on 3rd March, they acknowledge receipt of the fax on the same day. I faxed them again on the 13th of May after not receiving feedback. I lodged a BSA claim on the 9th June. I then sent them an email around 10th June advising them of same. It was not until Friday 15th July that I received a call from Scott Fleet at Coral wanting to apologise that things had been neglected so bad and that he would be endeavouring to look into why things were not followed up and that he will be getting Chris Bouffler his building supervisor to contact us to organize a time to perform and inspection and assessment.
Yes their rep did come out on 21/7/04 at 5.30am because not as they had said we would not make ourselves available, but because I offered to meet Chris on the afternoon before between 1630 and 1700. He declined because he was heading up to Hervey Bay on Tue and it suited him to come to our place early so that he would be there for his 1400 appointment. As we were having breakfast ourselves we extended a morning coffee to him in appreciation of his efforts.

[Trilobite]

Coral performed an inspection last Tue and the area rep said that he would be in touch the next day. So far I have heard nothing from them. I then contacted the BSA again as they had requested to do and the BSA said that they had received a call from Coral. Coral are saying that they would not be doing anything as they don't believe it is there problem and that they would be writing a letter to us informing us of same.

[Trilobite]

We have a second inspection organised for Monday 9th Aug to veryify my claims. Despite this we recieved a letter from Coral Homes last week stating that the problems that they had inspected were not their responsibility and that every thing is in order. They aslo state that they are waiting on the report from Monier tiles who did the inspection some 3 weeks ago now and still no report. However Coral also state in the same letter that they will fix the problmes nevertheless. It asked us to sign the contract and get it back to them ASAP. I have run the contract past a barrister friend at work who advises there are some flaws in the contract. I have to discuss this with the inspector. The BSA are also sending an inspector out next week.

[Trilobite]

We have had an additional inspection by Coral Homes on Monday 9th and the area rep rang me that night after the inspection and they have agreed to rectify the existing problems.
We have now had a carpenter out to try and rectify the overspaced trusses. Coral have indicated that they will be getting plasteres to reaffix the roof and other remedial work to correct the ceiling issues We have also since had a BSA inspector out together with the Monier rep to inspect the building defects and investigate the cause of the leaking roof. Currently we are awaiting the report from the BSA inspector to advise what needs rectification.

[Trilobite]

We recieved our BSA inspection report and we are glad to say that the BSA has requested that all of the issues I have raised are to fixed.

[Trilobite]

Ok we have had the builder out to fix the overspaced trusses - he only fixed three of the dozen requiring fixing . We have had the plasteres out also and they did not affix the plaster in the areas where the new timber trusses have been put in. The plasters did not sand the plaster back. My wife and I both took time off work to allow the tradesmen access to do repairs - and in typical tradesmen fashion on the second day they didnt turn up. The painter only turned up after being phoned - he then left as he said he didnt sand - my wife wasted a day off work due to the standard of service that is so typical of tradesmen these days. Anyway after 21 days we will get BSA out again. Maybe the tribunal will be next.

[Trilobite]

Hmmm. Ok another week has passed and the Builder has returned again to fix up the remaining over spaced trusses. In the normal builder standard he did a less than optimal fix, nevertheless a patch. I was at Home again on Monday to allow the plasters to come and affix the sheets where they hadn't the first time round. Also the Monier tile people came out to fix the faults. The roof was fixed well, although in the process some ridge caps were popped. Simple solution was to silicon them down again and not worry about fixing the flex pointing. The plaster came out and put in a few more screws and said that he would be back to sand in the afternoon - it is Wed and we are still waiting :- The painters are waiting on the sanders so who knows when it will get completed. This just typifies the general standard of the building industry today.

[Steer clear]

Everything Trilobite and NGE have said is still the practice of Coral Homes. How are these crooks still in business? Come on people, lets go to A Current Affair or Today Tonight. Read the reviews on ProdUct Review and you will see a common theme, denial and ignoring you. It's in the Coral handbook. Even where they are in breach of Australian Standards and contract requirements they still deny it. They rely on people just giving up. So the advice is DO NNOT BUILD WITH Coral Homes. We complained several times about something that was clearly not to contract and only after threatening to have fair trading inspect it did Coral SEND OUT TWO VERY TRANSPARENT MYSTERY SHOPPERS pretending to be building at Ballina and conveniently building the same house and conveniently walking down our dead end street just at the time we were at the build. and conveniently asked about the exact thing we complained 20 times about. If you have unfotunately commenced building with these morons WATCH everything very closely and DO NOT give in and do not appoint the certifier that they recommend. Even though the certifier is supposed to be working for you believe us, they aren't. They will sign off on the most blatant breaches of building standards. So choose your own certifier and do not buckle when they suggest someone because they are in bed with Coral. I see that there are no reviews on this site for many years and i know why, because NGE charge you $9.00 for the privilege of complaining. But people need to be warned so i'm happy to pay the $9.00. Beware of any reviews of this company that are just too good to be true, because they are. No builder is 'fantastic' especially when they name building supervisors when they then say they aren't at the building stage. How can they be fantastic when you haven't eeven started building? Really would like to hear from others who are willing to go to the media.