We have had nothing but problems with Burbank. Firstly, we had to wait an extremely long time to get the plans, and when we finally did, they had not been flipped to suit our block of land as requested! [redacted name] had made the decision not to flip the plans because of the position of the storm water drain where our new drive way would be. This decision was made without consulting us and caused our build to be delayed by months. Secondly, the colour selection process was ridiculous. As we were not able to get through all the decisions in one day, we were told that the next appointment was roughly six weeks away and that it would cost us in excess of $300. So we had to make some rash decisions at 5pm. We made these decisions knowing that we would have to change them later once the house was complete. Thirdly, in the planning process, we asked for an upgrade to everything so that when we got to the colour selection, we would not get a nasty surprise. We were given three options for carpeting, and thinking that we wouldn’t need incredibly plush carpet we went for the middle option. When we got to the showroom, we found that there were more than 17 grades of carpet! Our upgrade only got us to grade 2 out of more than 17! We also found this for all the other ‘upgrades’ we had chosen. In the end, we decided to do all the flooring, blinds and electrics ourselves. This would ensure we had better quality products for less money than Burbank was offering. Fourthly, in January 2016, the week we thought the cut was going to be made for the slab, we were informed that we had to move the house over by 1.2 meters from the boundary. According to regulation 4.12 our house had to be moved because the neighbor’s property was not 300cm away. This was devastating news because we had paid for extra garage space and hidden eaves so that our property could be 150mm from the boundary. Regulation 4.12 said that our garage had to be 1.2 m away from the boundary fence, which would have meant that the roughly 4 metres that we had down the other side of the house for an entertaining area would now be too small for its purpose. We had paid extra for large bi-fold doors out to our new entertaining area which would then have become useless. We asked [redacted name] if there was anything at all that could be done so that we didn’t have to move our house over and lose our entertaining area and she replied that there was nothing at all that could be done. As we were sure we had seen other garages on the fence line, we went to check out the other houses in our new street and took photos of at least 5 houses and sent them to [redacted name] asking for an explanation of why they were allowed to have their garages on the fence and we weren’t. [redacted name] did answer my question. We then contacted the council and found out that there is a process that can be followed, where our neighbor can agree to the house being sighted, as close to the boundary as was originally stated. This document can be signed by our neighbours to allow buildings to be closer if contravening regulation 4.12. We asked[redacted name] why she hadn’t told us about this process and we got the reply, “We don’t usually do that”. So we went and asked our new neighbours to sign the form, which they were more than happy to do and sent the form in to the council. Two weeks later we received an email from the council asking for more information as to how regulation 4.12 was being breached. They said that as our neighbour’s house had an uninhabitable window (ensuite) which was inside the 300cm regulation, this did not breach the regulation as ensuite windows are not classed as habitable. The council employee informed us that the appointed surveyors would need to provide more information as for the reason, why the property could not be built in its original position. We then called the Burbank employed surveyor, who, when informed of the decision from the council, became curt. I informed him, that there should be no more delay in issuing the permits, and that his actions had added another 4 to 6 weeks to our already overrunning build. I billed Burbank for my time in dealing with this, to which I received the quickest response to date, informing me that Burbank did not pay bills of this nature. Fifthly – (By this time, we were dealing with [redacted name]). We were told that the bricks we ordered would not be available for 3 weeks and would we like to use another brick which were available immediately. We decided to go with the bricks that were available. As I was in the UK, I asked [redacted name] to send the forms to my partner to sign in my absence. She did not contact my partner once, nor did she contact me. Instead, a couple of weeks later, [redacted name] let me know that the bricks we had originally chosen would now be available at the same time as the ones she originally told us were available weeks ago. She asked us which bricks we would like, the ones we originally ordered or the ones we were going to settle for because the ones we wanted were unavailable. I was astonished that this question would even be asked, and I sent [redacted name] an email explaining how upset I was that I had had no reply, and that she had not spoken with my partner as requested. Sixthly, despite being told we would have weekly correspondence we received almost no correspondence at all. Neither [redacted name] nor [redacted name] answered emails promptly, often they took over a week to get back to us. Neither did they return phone calls and I often left them messages for weeks before they finally got back to me. When the occasional email was answered, it was clear that they had not read the email properly. For example: I emailed [redacted name] asking her to clarify the position of the shower heads as the plans were confusing; I asked which elevation they were situated on. The reply came back. “As per your instructions, I have moved the shower heads to elevation C and D as shown on the plans”. This is just one example of many where emails are not read properly. I can however commend [redacted name], who is was our forth supervisor dealing with our build who was allocated to us for 2 weeks, as she answered emails and responded to phone calls. Having five different consultants over the course of a build was very disconcerting. It has been extremely hard to gain any rapport or good relationship with people when they are not dealing with you for a long time frame, or indeed they just do not reply to your correspondence. It took [redacted name] 3 weeks to introduce herself after we were given her details as our next supervisor. I sent 3 emails and made 3 phone calls before I received an email apologizing, and explaining how busy she was. Seventhly, a number of mistakes were made, which meant another 10 weeks longer than we thought, despite Burbank not having to do the carpets, flooring and electrics! The sink was not ordered, the ordered handles were not suitable for all the doors, as they were not lockable by key and the ensuite shower head was fitted so low that I couldn’t fit underneath it! We decided that it would be easier to fix the problems ourselves than rely on Burbank to fix their the mistakes! Other issues include bricks over hanging the slab at the rear of the property so that only 20ml of the brick was actually left on the slab! When I mentioned this to the [redacted personal identifier] , it was ‘fixed’ up. And lastly, the rear sliding doors were fitted INCORRECTLY! They didn't not work at all! It took Burbank three months to fix the problem. Eighthly, a friend of ours, who was originally going to sign with Burbank but as they wouldn’t make the changes to the plan that he wanted, eventually went with another company, started building 3 months after us. Despite the fact that he is building a 40 square metre double-story house, he has a hand over date of before we had heard anything about our handover date! Since moving in, we have a continual stream of tradies coming in the fix problems with our house. I can't think of anything that has been completed the first time. It has caused us so much stress. I wish I could say that building our first home with Burbank has been a pleasure, unfortunately however, nothing could be further from the truth.