Our moving experience started in Jan of 2007 when we decided that we were tired of commuting from Southey and started looking for some property closer to Regina. We looked at lots of places, some with houses some without but we did not find anything that really suited out needs.
Eventually we heard about a piece of property that was close to Zehner, an area that I spent roughly 12 years in before moving to Southey. We met with the owner of the property and a price was agreed to. Tara and I went off and did some number crunching and decided that we could afford this half section of land. Kevin calls the owner back and says yes we can afford that. The owner tells us that the price was just for the land, if we want to buy it we will have to purchase the Quonset and all the equipment in it as well. More number crunching, Tara and I still agree that this is a reasonable price and we shake hands with Rudy, the land owner.
Tara and Kevin draft a purchase agreement which basically states the purchase price and the 2 land locations for the 2 quarters. Rudy takes this to his lawyer and his lawyer states that the agreement is unacceptable. Rudy is also distressed that the purchase agreement does not specifically list all the equipment in the Quonset, it simply states items in Quonset as outlined in appendix… Rudy has concerns over GST ramifications of not listing every piece of equipment. After lots of consultation with the lawyer we have a sale agreement drawn up and all is well except for one thing. During the course of ironing out the purchase agreement it is discovered that should we not find water on the property that we would be selling the land and not building on it. The lawyer is not very happy about this as part of Rudy’s desire is to have a family living on the property. The lawyer convinces Rudy that we need a supplemental agreement to cover a test water hole before the deal is official. This is done, a test hole is drilled within a week of signing this supplemental agreement and everyone is happy. Rudy has his money, Kevin and Tara have their property and the lawyer has a nice fat invoice. The land finally became ours on May 2, 4 months after we started the acquisition process.
In the meantime we had contacted several building companies, Most companies wanted us to build a 2 story home or were unwilling to alter plans to suit our needs. The primary need was 4 bedrooms on one floor. Town and Country Homes in Balgonie was 1 of 2 companies that was willing to build our house as we wanted at a price we could afford.
After performing numerous reference checks on the company and having a reference of “it took 6 months to build our house” as the only bad reference we decided to sign with T&C. Little did we know that this started the nightmare that was our building experience. In hindsight the dishonesty started the day we signed. Iain, the owner of Town and Country homes was storming through the office complaining of e-mail problems and stating “A cheap house for anyone who can fix this”, I as an IT professional who had just been through an new mail server install was able to help him. For this we were given a raised ceiling in our master bedroom free of charge. Later in the designing process Iain and Bob (the salesman) got in a dispute over what was better to install, a mid or high efficiency furnace. Iain knew of someone who had ordered a high efficiency for a house and it was too small, he could get us a high for the same price as a mid. It was writen in the contract and we were set to go. Later on in the process Iain was adamant that we pay extra for the high efficiency furnace that the plumbing people went to the furnace wholesaler to pick up. Were was the furnace that Iain bought for us in Feb? Anyway the contract is signed stating that the house will be built by Sept 15, 2007 with a raised ceiling, a daylight basement and a high efficiency heating system.
After surveying the property we decided that the only good place for a house was were the existing house was sitting. Upon trying to move the old house we discovered that all the support beams were rotten and there was no way it was moving in one piece. We were told by Iain that it would cost about $15,000 to have the excavation company remove the house so if we want to save some money we should get rid of it ourselves.
They would be able to start digging/demolishing right away so we had a little time to get the house removed. After we were told there was little time we decided that the next calm day we would remove the house by burning it down the old house now gone we contacted Town and Country and informed them that we were ready to start digging.
We were told that the hole would be dug on Monday, then the next Monday as well as a few more Mondays after that. Eventually the hole was dug minus the excitment as we had waited for so long and actually missed the groundbreaking. Shortly after the hole was dug I noticed that the foundation forms were not very straight. Later on I thought that someone had straightened them out. I commented to Iain that obviously someone noticed they were not straight and fixed them. Iain said that he is all about quality and the job had better be done right. I later discovered that they did nothing with the forms, it was just different lighting the second time I saw them. When I looked closely at the completed foundation they were most definitely not straight. Upon talking to the engineer and the building inspector they were fine with it not being completely straight. This is lie #2. that we know of my guess is that there were more in there but we are not aware of them.
I was called by Iain shortly after this to determine where the windows would be in the basement. I thought this odd as we had discussed windows before and was wondering why we did not actually plan the basement before they started framing it. Anyway Iain picked me up at work and we went out. I told Iain where we wanted windows and to make them as big as possible.
Construction of the basement progressed quite quickly at this point, finally our house is under way.
Shortly after the basement walls went up I was at the house looking at the progress when I noticed light coming from one of the basement walls. I climbed down the ladder into the basement to discover that it was sunlight shining through a 1 inch diameter hole on the lower part of the basement, If the black poly that was not up to code that Iain wanted to install had been installed I never would have seen these holes. I am no engineer but I am pretty sure holes in your foundation are not a good thing. Upon investigation there were about 10 of these holes in a variety of locations on the basement walls. When I pointed out to Iain that I had discovered these and marked them with silver duct tape so he could find them, Iain had a stroke. The building inspector was coming out to look at the basement walls and if he saw that he would call a halt to construction. At this point I should have stopped and questioned Iain about this because if the building inspector has issues with something then you should take heed, it likely means that your builder is cutting corners. What should have happened is that the damaged boards should have been replaced, what did happen was that the holes were sealed with sealant of some sort and covered with plywood. The inspector approved this fix so it must be good enough but the fact of the matter is we paid for new wood without holes and got predrilled.
The next strange thing that happened was the phone call about what trusses we wanted. The span of our house required us to either put in an extra beam or use engineered trusses. I told Bob that we would go with whatever the original specs called for. Bob told me the the original specs did not take into account the size of our house. I suppose the contract did not specify that we had a floor in our new home! The cost difference between engineered and extra beam would be $800 and I was convinced that the $800 would be well worth it as we would get no-squeak floors and the electrical/plumbing/heating would be hidden in the floor joists. I agreed to the $800 increase as we had lots of other things that were under the allocated allowance so it would all work out in the end.
Tara and I met with Bob/Iain shortly after this to discuss completion and make sure everything was good with the plans. We decided to move one of the doors into the house so that it was at the top of the basement stairs instead of beside them, we also decided at my prompting to replace the corner tub in the main bathroom with an oversize tub. Iain stated "the biggest tub you have ever seen", the corner tub was not long enough and I thought it would look funny. Iain agreed and stated that the tub he had in mind was the largest, bigger than any corner tub you had ever seen. These changes were made on the official blueprints they were stamped as official and approved by Tara, Iain and myself. Unknown to us, these changes would haunt us to this very day. And Tara I am still sorry I suggested a different tub. We might have a complete main bathroom now if we had not made this change, but who was to know that the bathroom was actually built to be 5ft 9inches rather than the 6ft that we planned for.
After finding out about the stop work order, Tara and I confronted Iain about it and Iain held firm to the "it was a lack of workers" I wonder if the lack of workers arose because he had stopped paying them by this point?
Anyway, finally the stop work order is lifted at the end of Aug. The house has now been sitting in the rain for 2 months now. The roof trusses finally arive and up they go. What do my wondering eyes see? Can you guess waht is missing? Yep the raised ceiling in the master bedroom. We are told that to correct the master bedroom roof it will mean a delay of up to 6 weeks by Iain. I have since found out that if there is something wrong with the trusses that the truss manufacturer will stop work on other things until the correct trusses are built. I wonder if Iain paid for these trusses?
Bob, being the decent kind of guy he is, personally drove out to our place to talk to us about what they were doing to make it up to us. It was decided, we would get 8 free paint colours instead of the raised ceiling. Tara and I were both OK with that as neither of us have any plans for doing gymnastics in the bedroom anyway. The kids now get to pick their colours.
Soon the next problem surfaced. Iain said that the water needed trenching in before the electrical could be trenched. I was ready to do the wiring myself as it is fairly simple to rent a trencher, fdrop a wire in a hole and get a permit from Saskpower to hook it up. I am told by Iain that the electrician would have a stroke if I did that and refuse to work on the house, he could get enough of a discount on the wire that it would actually be cheaper if his guys did the work. I told Iain that the backhoe company was cancelled once because the house was not backfilled yet. The earliest that the backhoe people could come was late Sept. I said I could likely get the trenching done if I could find a backhoe to rent. Iain knew were to go and I rented a mini track-hoe for the weekend after the house was backfilled and spent 40 some hours on it getting water trenched into the various places that needed it. My dad and I laid the pipes, got things hooked up that we could backfill the next weekend. So I have now spent 4 days doing work that I have paid Iain for. How stupid am I? So the electrical trenching is done shortly after that right? Wrong. We would wait for another month or so before the trenching was done, we then waited another month or so before the wire is actually dropped in the trench. When I asked when the trenches would be backfilled I was told by Iain that we would be in trouble if the trenches were not inspected before they were filled. I found out later that have another lie to add to the pile. The inspector did not want to look at the trenches so we had to live with unfilled trenches for the winter. I am not sure if our insurance would have covered us had someone actually broken their leg in a trench so thankfully the 7 people (5 of whom were kids coming to a birthday party) that I know of, excluding the numerous times I fell in one of these damn leg breakers, did not break something. But I digress. I completely skipped over the numerous lies around move in date. We asked in late Aug, "Was our house going to be done by the middle of Sept?" we asked this because the progress on the house was really slow. Iain assured us that if it was not done by the middle of Sept that it would be complete by the end of the same month. Shortly after this we receive an offer on the old house. How do we turn down an offer after going 5 months with no bites at all? We sold to Paul and Mary-anne and made the possession date Oct 15 as that would give us 2 weeks of overlap to move directly into the new house. Things were looking up, the new house would be done soon, we had Iain's word on it and the old house was sold so one less stress off our shoulders. Little did we know that we likely should have held onto the old place until spring the next year. Tara and I kept badgering Iain about the move in date as it was coming up fast, we really did not have a heck of a lot of time to dedicate to hassling him as we were busy doing other things, like putting up 4 miles of fence, like packing an entire house... Anyway, we are told in late sept that the house will not be done until the middle of Oct. Still not a big deal as we had the old place until Oct 15th so we proceed with the sale of our old house.
Later on, the upstairs walls started going up. I noticed that the door that we moved was still in the wrong spot and there was a window missing in Rachael’s room. I pointed these out and was told not a problem they would fix things, obviously the altered blueprints had not gotten out to everyone.
Eventually all the upstairs walls were up, the window was added after about 4 phone calls and threatening to cut it out myself. Everything is going good at this point, a few minor issues that one would expect from building a house. We asked if we were needed for any decisions as we were contemplating going on a holiday trip as we had been working hard at fixing up our old house so we could sell it, and we had been working hard at getting the fences up that we needed to house our goats, horses... The old house was listed, the realtor was working to get it sold, the new house was progressing so we went on a vacation.
We came back from holidays to find that there had been no progress on the new house and the old house was not sold. Upon talking to Iain the house was stalled due to staff holidays, illness… but shortly we would see lots of progress. Meanwhile the house was not selling and we were approaching the move in date of the new house.
Late in Aug I was moving some of the dirt around in the yard that was excess from digging the basement when a van drove in and an angry man came storming up to the tractor. I soon discovered that this was the building inspector and he was angry because he saw me moving dirt around. I asked why this was an issue and was told that there was a stop work order on the house due to the fact that the engineering specs called for 20 inch foundation and Iain cut corners and poured a 16inch foundation. Iain has now lied to us 3 times, that we know of as he told me the house was not progressing due to staff vacation... not a stop work order.
After the house is sold there is a flurry of activity getting things packed/moved. Things were needing doing at the new place, things were needing packed.. we moved all the animals over the weekend before the 15th of Oct. Tara's horse was not so co-operative about getting in the horse trailer, after tranquilizers, come alongs and tractors were brought into play we finally got the stubborn grazer loaded. Now all the animals are comfortably settled in the new place. In case you missed it, the new house is not ready yet. Paul and Mary-anne (the new owners of the place in Southey) graciously offered to let us stay in Southey until the new house was done but Iain was promising 2 more weeks at that point, 2 weeks of living with my parents, how bad could that be?
When questioned about the storage location of our belongings during these two weeks we got answers that ranged from "put it in the middle of the floor in a house that does not have gyprock yet" to " put it down in the basement right after the concrete is poured". How much stuff do you think would have been wrecked doing either of the scenarios suggested? As my brother Mike has lots of good contacts in the trucking industry I asked him if he could find us a trailer we could rent for a month or so. This trailer was loaded with all of our belongings and parked in the quonset for safekeeping. Amid tears we said goodbye to the place we had grown to love over the last ten years.
Moving to your new house is supposed to be exiting and should make up for the loss of familiarity and memories, our only excitement came in the form of a two year old being so happy to move in with her grandparents for a 2 week sleepover. Our house is still not ready, there is still no basement floor and there was no housewrap yet, but it is proceeding, hopefully the new move in date of Nov 1 works out. The next few months are kind of a blur to me, nothing like having a sleepover that is supposed to last for 2 weeks drag out into 4 months to make a guy get tired of it. My parents are wonderful but living with the 7 of us in a small house during a tense time was not the best for already strained tempers. Tara and I could not even have a decent fight about whether Iain was an asshole or just incompetent without mom or dad showing up. Anyway we ended up in Iain's office in Dec with Iain promising to have our house done for Christmas. He trotted out his lovely Gannt chart which showed the remaining work on our house and the timelines. The chart showed that the house would be done the middle of Jan so why was this idiot using evidence that showed the house would be done in Jan to support his claim that it would be done in Dec? And stupid me, why was I still supporting him? I think I was clinging to the hope that he would actually live up to his word finally and I was desperate to have the house done and get on with our lives. I was also sort of afraid that Tara would get him to quit and then we would be stuck with the mess of cleaning up after this idiot. If only I would have known what the future held. Iain should have been fired shortly after the roof trusses went on. Most of the work done after that point was either done improperly or never paid for. I have always taken pride that I have never stolen something. Here I am with a house where I can't afford to pay for some of the work that was done because someone stole our money, if we win big enough on the lottery we will make sure everyone who did not get paid gets what’s coming to them. After lots of bad advice from a lawyer who shall remain nameless (lawyers can sue you know) we proceeded to talk to Christine Tell and the Ministry of Justice as well as the RCMP. According to all the laws we currently have in place he has committed no crime that will be investigated by anyone other than us. Christine and the Justice people were very apologetic that they could do nothing but the law is the law and the best they could do was recommend a good lawyer. This is when we met our new lawyer who seems much more competent than the last. The old lawyer's stand was be nice to Iain, let him fix things keep him happy. The new lawyer actually listened to what we were saying and advised that we fire Iain and start a lawsuit against him. Iain got sent a letter, unregistered of course as he was no longer picking up the registered stuff, stating that he was fired and if he showed his face the RCMP would be called, Tara and I attempted to deliver this letter by hand to him as well but when he saw us he ran and hid. Iain is now fired, the liens are now our problem along with all of the other things that are not done with the house. I can honestly say that I have never disliked any individual more than I have disliked Iain, I find myself lying awake at night thinking of some sort of retaliation I can perform that would either be legal or untraceable but when I think about it more, I realize that no good will come of this. The only result would be me harming my family even more than I have already. Since I started this site I have actually been sleeping at night without the nasty thoughts. As a friend told me shortly after the site went up. “God’s wheels of justice grind really slow and really fine”. Iain, if you are reading this I hope you repent before you need to find out how fine they grind. I know that God will forgive you if you ask. I also know that my power for forgiveness is not quite as good as God’s, I may never forgive you regardless of what you do or say. I know that I have done no wrong and I can hold my head up high. I am not sure of many people who would not say I was a decent human being. You on the other hand have done so much wrong in this world I am not sure who is in your corner. I have met no-one who says you are a decent person, the only defence I have heard for you stated that you were not a good leader or business owner and that you were always cutting corners, glowing praise if I ever did hear it. I realize that me hating you is a waste of my effort, you can have your lifestyle with your hiding from revenue canada, creditors and anyone who might just call you. It is not a life I would chose for any amount of money. I hope that I am done with you, I can chalk you up to a very expensive learning experience. I have learned lots in the months that I have been dealing with you. I had always thought that a contract was needed and that if you had a contract you were good. You have shown be that a contract is only as good as the person who has signed it. You have also given me more confidence, if I run into you somewhere I am not going to slink away and try to hide. This would have been my response in the past but I have way too much to say to your face to miss the opportunity should it present itself. Before I would have pretended that we were not stupid and not said a word to anyone, I likely would have made up stories about how much money we were saving... to save face. Now I tell everyone how stupid I was and at the same time warn them to avoid you and people like you. I have learned how to wrap a house, how to properly install windows and how to put up siding, along with all sorts of other good skills. I am guessing I am about to learn how to redo a bathroom. As it seems you are completely unable to get one right I will let you know if I get it right and try to give you some pointers.
The thing that I forgot and was taught again by both people that I had never met and people who were quite close to me is that there are good people out there willing to help out. Thanks to all the people who have helped get us past this mess and restore my faith in my fellow man.
Almost forgot. This sounds like a sign off but it is not. I will continue to add what information I find to this site, I will track down the others who have been wronged and post their stories. We paid for 5 years of warranty on the house and I plan to keep this site up for at least as long as we should have had warranty. The warranty starts as soon as the house is complete so if you want to talk to me about buying this site you can come see me in 6 years or so.