Following six failed attempt to Close this fifteen month overdue sale of a home, here we sit today without a clue if the sale is going to Close tomorrow! That’s . . . . . Tomorrow!
Having realized early, just what kind of unethical, irresponsible and incompetent builder I was dealing with I took control of the construction of the house (it wasn’t hard as this clown had lost the few employees he had, and Trades contractors would not work for him due to lack of timely payment, and his site foreman walked off the job!).
Had my wife and I not voluntarily stepped up and taken control of this “key stone cops-like situation“, this house would literally be a disaster.
I’ve preached for years here at simplycharles.com and simplycondos.com to: “Believe NOTHING that you hear and HALF of what you see” when it comes to talking with builders and their salespeople.
I should know, I was top gun salesperson for years working for developers/builders to sell condos back when they were first introduced (previously we had only rental buildings and/or co-ops for multi-unit residential buildings).
Today, most condominium buildings have perpetuated the “rental building nightmare“.
The concept of “condominium living“, in my professional opinion after four decades of day to day in the field life, was lost shortly after it came out of the box (entered into legislation).
It is no secret that I no longer endorse Toronto as a quality condo investment market and that goes for Ottawa also.
Let me qualify that a little as I still work with clients looking for a quality home to live in (not only in Toronto but also in Oakville).
Renters historically have shown no concept of “pride of ownership” in the buildings in which they live.
When condos came into law, the concept was for owners to form the key component in each condominium community but that’s been totally lost as speculators turned the condo market into an unregulated (and until recently untaxed) “Futures Market“!
Over the forty years that I’ve been a player both as a Realtor and as an investor I’ve watched this massively under-regulated industry that totally lacks oversight (or more accurately is set up to “skirt” oversight) operate at the peril of the “consumer”!
My question is why is it set up in this way?
Developers/Builders have been given a free hand to do whatever they want and there is literally “NO PROTECTION FOR THE CONSUMER” and the consumer is the ONLY ONE PUTTING UP ANY MONEY!
We put up our money two years ago to buy an upscale home in an excellent location in Bronte with the published Closing date of September 2015.
I’ll be chronicling all the devious and disappointing events in my upcoming “Case Study” of the consumer experience here at simplycharles.com but today I’m looking at what you can expect in the Closing days of the relationship you end up in when buying a home.
This guy has lied his way through six failed Closing attempts over almost a year and there really is nothing that can be done about it.
What kind of law would let a guy get away with this.
It’s called a toxic cocktail of the Condo Act the Tarion Warranty, the Building Code, and a system that can only be said to have been set up to “exploit the consumer“!
There hasn’t been a single occasion where this guy has had to give any warning at all that he is not capable of closing on the specified date.
Had another buyer not been so intimately directly involved (much more so than the builder has been to date!) they may have shown up with their furniture on a van and “hit the wall” having no house to move in to.
The Case Study is much worse that this because other buyers were forced to take Occupancy (many had sold their homes and thus had nowhere else to go) despite the existence of a Subdivision Agreement that specified that “No Occupancy/Closing may take place until the road, exterior fence, grading, landscaping was completed“!
These contractual items are not completed as of this date, yet at least five families have had Occupancy Permits somehow issued and served on them requiring them to Close on demand!
They’ve lived through a literal hell in the midst of a construction site that has gone on for a year now!
Against the integrity of the Subdivision Agreement.
Since I’ve stepped in, we’ve moved things ahead a bit.
I blogged and then met with the Mayor who called an immediate meeting with all the parties (developer, builders, etc.) and managed to get the temporary telephone polls removed, the road at least cleaned with curbs and sidewalks install, fences started, some grading completed) but there is still a very long way to go (and remember there is a contract that says all of this must be completed BEFORE people Close)!
Not once in any of the previous Failed Closings (this guy’s total fixation is “Closing” as he is never even seen on site) were we given and Formal Notice that he could not meet his imposed Closing Date!
His workmanship is almost comical as he is limited to one site supervisor who I’m convinced could not build a reputation let alone a house, who is one of those big talkers/little action people who promise you the moon but just give you the shine (if you know what I mean).
I’ve been fighting with him over his disgustingly poor and unprofessional workmanship and am requiring that he deliver at least the “to the minimum standard of the building code” requirement under law!
That’s the sum total of your protect in Ontario when buying real estate . . . . . the builder’s best efforts have to simply meet the “minimum standard set under the Building Code” (which is a bad joke in and of itself from a consumers perspective).
I’ve fought developers trying to hand off shoddy workmanship and won, only to have the developer remedy the fault or deficiency “to the minimum standard under the Building Code” (you would swear that buying real estate is somehow an intellectual declaration of war as developers/builders see you as the enemy).
So yesterday, I sent a Notice to this clown’s lawyer (who have been no help in this at all) offering to Close tomorrow (how is it that we don’t know if this is going forward at this stage of a very long game?) recommending that we Close with a simple $7,500 “Hold Back” to have any outstanding items fixed professionally with any remaining balance given to the clown or they can simply get the work completed in a professional manner (they’ve failed to achieve this now in over four months!).
Although I sent it first thing yesterday (Monday) as usual we have not heard back from them (not the first time).
Apparently it is expected that they are going to tell us tomorrow that they want to close yet we will be given no time to inspect the work (this is typical but highly unethical).
I would have booted them out a long time ago and simply paid to complete the work as it really is not big a deal but I wanted to have a real life opportunity to show consumers and hopefully our government, just how dysfunctional this all is and how else but to have a real life Case Study to work through.
Consumers are owed a great deal more than to be treated in this way.
I see it as my job to expose it where ever I see it and that’s just about everywhere!
I’m Charles
