Tim Dickinson said ongoing issues with his Stonewood Homes build got to the point where it became a recurring joke at his workplace.
‘‘From tradies flooding our bathroom because they decided to use the toilet to take a dump and then washed it with a spout from the bath and didn’t turn it off, all the way to the roof not being the right colour - there’s a hundred things in between that.’’
His experience is one of multiple complaints received by the Otago Daily Times about former Stonewood Homes Dunedin franchisee Graeme Sneddon.
Braemar Building Ltd, formerly Stonewood Homes Dunedin Ltd, was placed into liquidation in November.
The total estimated shortfall to all creditors was listed this week as $6,087,500 - 95% of which the liquidator believed was unlikely to be repaid.
Mr Sneddon, the company’s co-director, ran the Stonewood Homes Dunedin franchise between 2008 and May 2024.
Mr Dickinson said his wife had vowed she would never build a house again because of their experience working with Mr Sneddon.
‘‘It nearly broke my wife and I. We were lucky to survive that point in our life.’’
The couple moved into their home in October 2023.
Until then, they had been renting in Fairfield and needed to give the landlords at least a couple of weeks’ notice before they moved into their new Stonewood home.
They planned to move all of their belongings into the new home so renovations could be done back at the rental.
Mr Sneddon had given the couple an end date, but Mr Dickinson was sceptical the house would be done in time.
As the deadline approached, he began checking the progress every couple of days.
‘‘When not really a lot of progress was happening, I started getting a bit worried.
‘‘It still didn’t seem like enough was getting done.
Two weeks out, Mr Sneddon was still reassuring him the house would be done on time.
But days before the deadline, Mr Dickinson said they were told their home would not be ready after all.
It was months later they actually did move in.
‘‘He was a little bit out on his predictions.’’
The couple managed to stay at a friend’s place for at least two of those months, paying them rent during that time, but had to put their dogs in a kennel.
They stored their belongings inside the garage of their yet-to-be-finished home.
While he knew going into the project there could be delays, Mr Dickinson said there were still ‘‘endless excuses’’.
Mr Sneddon came aboard the project part way through after another project manager left.
The communication and progress updates were reasonably consistent until that point - then it turned ‘‘horrendous’’.
‘‘The wrong colour roof got put on.’’
Mr Sneddon would also ask him to help out too.
Mr Dickinson said he agreed to this at the time because he was naive, but this ended up costing them more in the long-run.
With the help of family, they had set aside $15,000-$20,000 worth of savings to build a deck - there was nothing left by the time they moved in.
Parts of the house were still unfinished, which they had given up on.
One of their sliding doors let rainwater in.
Other things like a solar tube in their laundry, which was on the plan and included in the contract, was not done, he said.
‘‘When we started questioning it, he started threatening us with these other costs.
‘‘Any little mistakes that we needed to fix up were just a massive battle.’’
Mr Sneddon did not respond to a request for comment.
Last week, he hit out at Master Builders and Stonewood Homes for filing claims with the liquidator he said were ‘‘arbitrary and unproven’’.
A Master Builders spokesperson said the figure listed in the liquidator’s report reflected Master Builders’ ‘‘potential exposure across relevant guarantees’’.
‘‘We have incurred significant costs to date which will not be recovered.
‘‘Our claim was not revised to reflect the actual costs, as we understood unsecured creditors would not receive any distribution.’’
Stonewood Homes New Zealand general manager Gregg Somerville said its national office entered into an agreement with a customer of Braemar Building Ltd, while the company was still trading as Stonewood Homes Dunedin, to allow the completion of their home.
‘‘The agreement with the customer is subject to confidentiality obligations and, accordingly, we are unable to provide any further details or comment on matters relating to this arrangement.’’
