We hear a lot about rogue roofers and unruly British tourists giving tradies a bad name. The advice is usually to steer clear and use someone from a trustworthy big-name building brand.
Smith and Sons is pretty big - offices nationwide - so with no qualms Wynsome Brosnan and her late husband Keith Hunter, paid Smith and Sons Dunedin West franchise nearly $15,000 in the middle of last year, as a deposit on a $74,000 reroof, repair and renovation job. And then, crickets. For seven months. No work. No calls or emails.
“One more job to do in July. He signed this in June and probably by August they'd be free. That didn’t eventuate.” Wynsome told Fair Go.
This was urgent watertightness work in the middle of winter. The gut-punch is that Keith died of a heart attack midway through this mess, leaving Wynsome widowed and wondering what had happened to the builder, and the work they had promised.
“It hasn't given me time to grieve, it really hasn't, that's the saddest thing,” Wynsome told Fair Go.
This is worth remembering when you deal with a franchise. Big brand, lots of promises in the ads. Access to a high standard of design and support. But, behind each local franchise is usually a much smaller company. That smaller company takes your money and does the work. That’s who you wind up chasing for both if the job isn’t done right. Or at all.
Wynsome’s daughter got a little guidance from the master franchise, Smith and Sons South Island. They referred her to the franchisee, the smaller company - Heath Larnach Construction Ltd - and suggested she look to a guarantee mentioned in the building contract.
The trouble was, that guarantee was capped at 5% of the total value of the job in the case of a builder walking away with the deposit. Keith had paid a 20% deposit. More than $11000 would be unprotected.
It’s a good warning to anyone. When you sign a building contract, check what is guaranteed and what the guarantee actually covers you for. Do the maths yourself or ask some you trust to advise you. Actually, that’s good advice in general.
Heath Larnach Construction Ltd’s director, John Sear, eventually called her back.
“He said yes that's fine I'll repay it. I said is there a reason you haven't done the work? He just said I've been really busy,” Wynsome’s daughter told Fair Go.
“It was a total oversight on my part”, John Sear told Fair Go, adding he had apologised and passed condolences to the family and explained the failure to do the work this way:
“We had other work come through and look I'll be quite honest it possibly did slide more towards the back burner.”
This story still had one more twist. Smith and Son’s South Island told Fair Go it terminated the local Dunedin West franchisee l about a month after Keith died. It claims it wrote to all customers to let them know this within a week. Wynsome recalls nothing of the sort.
“In this situation we were unaware the issue was still outstanding and once we were made aware it was addressed to the satisfaction of the franchisee's client with 72 hours,” Smith and Sons South Island told Fair Go in a statement.
Wynsome has her money back in full. She’s planning to spend it getting the building fixed. She hasn’t lost all faith in human nature, but she’s picking her next builder carefully.
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