meremortal wrote
hi froggy,
a) yes the former. so what do i have to lose?!! yes, i realized bad quality but is anything worse than margaret river tradesmen? i'd say no after 25 years of building and renovating! the last bathroom i designed and managed took 3 months instead of 3 weeks and cost $25k instead of $5k. everything i've had built here has had to be done more than twice. i know more than most builders and i've only studied construction 101 at a perth tafe when i was the only woman plus had no relative building experience and got the top mark against guys with over 10 years experience. common sense, creativity and practical skills make a good builder - australians have none of the prior!
b) i had a contract similar to what you stated. one of the partners sent me videos of what had been done but it was very scanty. sadly i cannot be in bali to manage the build for a number of reasons. most of it is just renovation. because one of the partners of the business, catu kreasi utama, is associated with an australian builder i know and, also, a jehovah witness i thought i could trust this person (up until now i have never met a dishonest or lazy jehovah - i think the fact that putut has come back and offered some sort of help confirms he's not all bad!). however, the business went bankrupt sometime after my first year of negotiations (2021), and i'm not there to manage the build. if your brother-in-law is intersted in another site manager/project manager job, please let me know. whilst putut (one of the partners - jeremiah was the other!) has promised to continue i need someone to follow up every two weeks. of course i can reward him (my friend (and business partner for 20 years - thought i'd add that before i got a rush of criticism on that item too!) in jember handles my finances in indo). otherwise i'll keep looking for someone who can take a few photoes and videos every two weeks and ensure what's left to do is not too awful! thanks
That was my post , not froggy's ( yea Balifrog, her words , not mine :) )
Building anywhere in WA and especially renovating is crazy. Material costs going up weekly , tradesman, and I use that word loosely ,doing half assed work , picking the easiest parts of the job and then moving on, never to return , long wait times, not even bothering to return calls when asking about new work etc etc.
The industry is heading for a hard landing though because interest rates coupled with crazy wait times is starting to bite on sales.
Yes I am WA and have just done a kitchen reno in Perth...
Anyway, I can't help with the project manager as the BIL is only doing it as favour plus we know the builder from previous builds and can trust him ( just) .
As you said though ,what have you got to lose as the money is already gone and he is going to continue without supposedly charging you anymore. Just find someone to keep taking pics and videos which gives you at least the opportunity to see if it's going pear shaped again and you can correct/stop/sack him.
