Absolute dodgy fraudsters. Please avoid building through Burbank at all costs. They are nothing but dodgy liars. During construction window frames and doors were damaged. I thought all was replaced and fixed. Turns out 12 months later my window frames have turned green and faded. This was because instead of replacing like they said it was painted over. They now deny any responsibility and have said to take them to VCAT. This is one of the lowest builders to go through. If you would like to contact me direct I’m happy to tell you more about my experience with Burbank before you sign any contracts with them.

DONT GIVE THEM A PENNY.
I deleted my Facebook account years ago, for personal reasons. I have been compelled to sign in, years later, just so I ensure I can reach as many people as I can about my experience of building with Burbank . It has been an extraordinarily terrible experience, one I shall forever regret.

Burbank might delete this, but I am so motivated to this cause, I will keep reposting until they are tired of pressing that delete button. I will also ensure that this message is circulated in as many private Burbank build facebook groups I can join, and trust me, there are plenty! If I can deter even just one person from building with Burbank, my work here is done.

I won’t bore the reader with blow by blow details, because everything has been horrendous after the sales process (which by the way was back in Jan 2017.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it has taken almost 2 years, and we still don’t know when we shall be living in our house, which they seem to have taken hostage,because they aren’t communicating or providing any updates, and any request for communication is met with stone cold silence. The most you’ll get is “I’ve passed this on urgently to your supervisor”.

The worst thing about this experience is how we have been treated, and made to feel as customers, on several occasions.
From being pressured at the colour appointment, to accepting things you were not informed of at sales, to being told that what you want, (and were led to believe you could have), is not possible. To ignored emails, phone calls, no updates, and basically the longest case of living in limbo ever experienced.

Did I mention their stalling tactics in preventing you from accessing your property should you wish to bring in a private building inspector?

Despite lawfully being allowed access as an owner by giving 48 hours’ notice-you will not get a response until you hound them, or escalate, and then when you do eventually get an inspector in, (that’s if they don’t get cancelled), some of the issues raised from the last inspection, have been “covered up” and can no longer be seen because…you guessed it... the inspector couldn’t get in!!! Burbank tells you “we’ve fixed it”. Where’s the evidence?

Some of the quality and workmanship leaves a lot to be desired. So many big and little errors, so many mistakes .One site supervisor actually had the audacity to tell us “some of these things we are complaining about aren’t important”. ARE YOU JOKING ME??? Are you the one paying my mortgage to make that assessment?

The lack of confidence in the quality of the build is so overpowering, so much so that selling and getting rid of the house as soon as is practically possible, becomes more appealing to avoid further problems down the track. I also am aware that dealing with the warranty team, is a complete nightmare, so it seems the Burbank nightmare is never-ending.

Even after a PCI date and a letter confirming that the build is practically complete”, and all issues will be resolved within a two week timeframe post inspection, we foolishly thought that this was the end of part of the nightmare, and we are soon to move in.
How foolishly optimistic.

A month and a half later, no updates, or communication, as to current stage of house. I went to our house the other day, bumped into a “new supervisor, (3rd one by the way), who informed me “he’ll have us in soon”. No one at Burbank bothered to tell us we had a new supervisor (this STILL hasn’t been officially confirmed to date).

For many, a house is the biggest purchase of their lives. Imagine paying a company hundreds and thousands of dollars just for them to treat you like shit? You, and your enquiries become a mere inconvenience to their otherwise very busy portfolio of all these other homes they have to build?

This experience is the definition of getting what you pay for. Burbank is cheaper than some volume builders for a reason. Don’t sign your soul over to the devil, because the nightmare will never end, presumably even after your house has been built.

Nothing can be done to reverse my regret, and as Burbank has demonstrated time and time again, they will do what they want to do, whenever they decide do it.

So to you Burbank I say hold on to your lack of communication, and our house for as long as you will, you’ll have to hand it over at some point. To unsuspecting consumers, hold on to your wallets and your dignity as a consumer, and run as far away as you can from. Until then, as they say.. It’s “balls to the wall”.

Burbank have very nice designs which we fell inlove with thought this was the perfect home for us after we spoke to consultant even got a rough price which we were happy with
! It all then went Down hill we had talked about everything organised some plans then got a call to say they did not build in our area which was only (15km) out of the main area they build. We then talked Burbank around to building there for us considering the distance was not much. Then we got the quote went through everything paid our deposit to get the fixed price it then jumped up by $20,000 and most of this amount was in the cost to build in our area which was only 15km out. We then spoke and emailed multiple times to get our deposit back as no one advised this was the amount we were going to pay.

Cutting it short! Burbank was horrible in explaining and quoting us up and communicating with us! Very disappointing...

We were happy with Burbank for a number of reasons whilst building, communication was maintained throughout and we were updated regularly by the site supervisor. Burbank were willing to make changes to layout of rooms etc whilst deciding on a floor plan, and we were happy overall with our experience of building. The day we moved in we found the deadlock bolt wasn't working but this was fixed literally the same day after a phone call to the site supervisor.
However at our PCI the stair rail hadn't yet been installed, we were told it had been stolen, so were advised it would be in place when we got our keys. This is true but there was also a huge gouge in the wall where it had been misplaced as well and poorly plastered and painted over. We did bring this up because it is so obvious, along with some other small defects etc that were identified at our 3 month follow up. Most other defects that we identified were rectified within a few months. This gouge in the wall still remains, we got our keys in October 2017, it is now August 2018 and despite several phone calls and emails every few weeks to Burbank to chase up when this will be fixed we still have no answer other than, "we are trying to contact the builders." This has really put Burbank down in our estimation and we were happy with the whole process up until this issue. I doubt very much we will be using them when we build again as it has been like pulling teeth and still no result, just a gouge in my hallway instead..

I am unsure where to start. I have had 4 customer service staff 3 building supervisors and 2 building managers, non of them have had a clue what they are doing.

It has taken them 15 months so far to build my double story house that is still as yet not complete. They have been unable to secure a single trade that has been able to complete a job either satisfactorily or without destroying another trades work.

The slab went down, it was uneven and has had to be ground back in areas and was not to the spec required. The frame was unable to be completed without full scaffolding as Burbank refused to only do around the roof due to cost which cost us 2 months delay. The brick layer started after a two month delay as the first building supervisor was sacked.

The brick layer then took 4 months to complete the brick work, almost. They had to get a second layer in to finish the job as the first walked off never to be seen again. He build 2 corners twisted with mortar that was below standard and is still being repaired.

The plaster work has had to be fixed several times due to defects and other trades putting holes in it. and the list goes on.

No supervisor has been able to organised more than one trade at a time on site so everything takes so long to complete.

I finally got fed up and took them to arbitration with the domestic builders association to try and get matters resolved. They could not provide a completion date or a schedule of works and as the build has gone over the contracted date I am incurring so many additional costs in rent and mortgage payments. The state manager was there and still refuses to apologies for the delay offer a explanation or anything above the liquidation damages over $200 a week which doesn't cover our costs.

We have been treated with complete and utter discontent and the customer service team now refuse to discuss any issue with me and screen all of my calls.

I am not the only one that this has happened to and can only say stay away from Burbank.

At the beginning it seemed good and they were willing to do anything and all of a sudden without any further notice you have to deposit $1500, without the deposit they were not interested even to talk further but Burbank told us(My Wife & Me), that you if we are not happy to go with them, the deposit of $1500 will be refunded. Dishonest!

After we made deposit the amount they were hesitant to assist us without a heated conversation regarding the house plans and rushing to submit the plan saying, we have past the due date for submitting the plan, When the land is not even titled. They made it abundantly clear after making the deposit where we had one week left. Yes, i was frustrated and even more when we had 7 days to rectify the issue. When they pressurized that i have only one week to finalize, I started to sending them emails about the changes before the meeting (3nd and final appointment) so we could finalize the plan before the due date, When i went to see them for my last appointment 23 March 2017, they haven't even read the email and replayed saying “YES” for every request on the email. They didn't even knew what we were talking about (wasted 1 week of precious time) and were not happy to do any changes. We wanted to improvise according to what we were allowed to do but you were not interested to give us any more time, So we had to make a decision at that point. Unfair & Careless!

They told us, that we will be having a color appointment in one month time (April 2017), so be ready but there were none, when there was still 10 Months(Jan 2018) for the Land titling but in reality i still haven't receive any sketches of the house plan. Misleading!

I spoke to them in June (after 3 months) requesting for the final sketches and they responded saying, that they are still waiting. On 10th August 2017, they sent me an email with an invoice that includes additional cost to be signed and returned but still we have not received any sketch.
Now the land titling have extended for another 5 Months(May 2018). In this case, I won't be eligible for the added bonus which is worth of $30,000 as the contract is only valid for 12 Months, plus that there would be an extra $2000 to keep the contract valid after 12 Months. Apart from these, there are other issues, like supplying the material they promised and the list goes on which i don't want to mention further.
As we both are aware, there haven't been anything done and it will be like this until the Land titling. I didn't pay for consultation fee, i made a deposit and they promised to refund, Under these circumstances deposit should be refunded. Rightfulness!

Your team members are unnecessarily aggressive!

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.

18 months after build start and they still have not finished our home.

Obviously I do not recommend this organisation.

Major Burbank failings…

• The construction was so poor we have had to engage an independent inspector (at significant cost to us)

• Defect report is 86 pages long.

• The floors are not level (far exceeding Australian standard tolerances) –still not fixed

• Walls were not straight. Have been fixed.

• The lintel above garage was incorrect so the door is packed out with timber

• The plastering in wet areas (top floor of double storey) was done by the tiller, no water proofing, non-water rated plaster board. 1 inch cracks between plaster boards (I have photos). Supervisor tried to tell me this was ok. Wasn’t until I said I was going to send photos to surveyor that he said he would get them done properly.

• Burbank have failed to provide subsequent water proofing certification. I have requested more than 6 times. I still have no idea if it has been done.

• The cupboards don’t match what was requested, paid for or shown in plans

• They do not answer emails

• I have requested a settlement date numerous times. No answer.

• When I call they say it’s not my responsibility, I will get someone to call you back. No one calls back

• I always said I would not give a negative review, I just want my home, please just finish it and we will move on. If Burbank ignore my requests for finishing the house and ignore my requests for a settlement date what are my options? Still rent and forget about my home? Keep paying rent and mortgage?

• We are depressed and desperate.

• The stress this has put on us is not fair

• Is it unreasonable to expect a home built to Australian standards?

• Is it unreasonable for my family to expect to move into our home that we have saved a decade for so we can stop renting?

• What are we meant to do?

Does Burbank treat all first home builders/buyer like this?

" BEWARE! DO NOT TRUST!! LOST $10,000

I was presented a TV & $10,000 offer to sign up with Burbank before end of February 2016. But when I tried to redeem the offer, they wouldn't honour it, couldn't give me a straight answer why and gave me 4 different excuses. The sales rep (Officer) won't even return my calls or emails. I guess he's already got his bonus! I took the matter to Head office (VIC) and they are no better. They say they offered $4k instead. Why would I give up $10k to only get $4k!

My home order writes in I have the TV offer and the flier clearly shows the TV offer also includes $10,000 if I deposit before end of February 2016. When I queried with the sales rep why the $10k wasn’t explicitly written in, he said he’s included the TV offer and the $10k applies when I complete my colour selection. I took this on face value because he had written in the offer in the home order.

Now Burbank won't honour it because the $10,000 isn't explicitly written in although it's part of the TV offer. They say if I didn’t understand the paperwork, I shouldn’t have signed with them. I signed based on what the sales rep told me! It's against consumer law to mislead and lie to a customer when they are relying on the expertise of the sales person for that information. Head office say they never misled me!! It baffles me.

That aside, another rep (Dandenong) keeps providing wrong information and no-one wants to take ownership for their mistakes. Beside the blunder with the offer, an amount of $1,800 was included in my contract price even though the rep said I wouldn't be charged and when I ask for it to be removed, they claim they can't until later on and will write a variation. I asked this rep to include a couple of changes to my colour selection since they already need to write up a variation for the $1,800 and they have the audacity to say it's going to cost me ANOTHER $1,000. I know it’s in the contract that additional changes after signing the contract will cost this but considering all their errors, I would expect some kind of goodwill.

I’m currently waiting on the Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria (DBDRV) to help conciliate my dispute with the $10k but they've got such a huge backlog. I’ve tried so many times to sort it out directly with Burbank but they are so uncooperative.
I have no choice but to continue with Burbank but I will not recommend them to anyone and will never deal with them again."

I want to highlight my experience with Burbank - not sure if i was the only one who got this experience or there are many around with the same opinion.

Oct 2016 - I visited Melbourne - Werribee Riverwalk from Sydney , spoke to sales consultant in Burbank display home who was very impressive and we decided that this is the place where we can build our home while we stay away in NSW. Hence we booked a 'lot' in Riverwalk estate, due for titling on July 2017 and did some initial payment to Burbank to build the house on the very same day.

Feb 2017 - We submitted all the paper work to the sales consultant with some hand drawn modifications and we were told that we will get all the fair plans once a CRO is assigned. Till this time the sales consultant was in continuous touch with all the updates.

Nobody contacts us till May 2017

30th May 2017 - First time our CRO contacts us through an email with New home proposal with some price variances from what we discussed with the Sales consultant and asked us to sign the documents. There was no fair plan yet so we were not interested in signing any documents and asked for the drawings which we dint receive.

Mid June 2017 - We receive a call from Burbank asking us to arrange a color appointment else the construction will be delayed. We booked it for 10th of july. Kept following up for the House plans/drawings. We booked our flight tickets for 8th of July to Melbourne for our color appointment.

3rd July 2017 - After following up, we are told that the drawings are complete and are sent by someone else stating our CRO is on leave. we looked at the drawings and were not happy with couple of things, emailed back with couple of requests

8h July 2017 - We arrive Melbourne to go through the Edge studio and get some idea around pricing over the weekend so that we are ready for our color appointment on Monday 10th of July - 9 am - till 5 pm. Unfortunately the prices were not clear and whosoever we asked they mentioned that pricing will be done on the day of our appointment which is 10th of July.

10th of July - We arrived at edge studio at 9:05 am and the consultant took us around the interiors till 11:30 am and moved us to the Electrical appointment. Our electrical appointment finished at 12:30 pm which was all good. We were asked to come back at 2:30 pm again to go through the exteriors, doors and still a lot of things. We requested the team to start early since we had a flight to catch back to Sydney at 6:30. The consultant was busy with some other customer till 2:30 pm and then she started recording all the pricing in the system for the interiors. We couldnt start our exterior and other details till 3:30 pm and by 4:30 pm we were asked to sign the documents for all the selections we had done. This was the first time we got to know that we had to sign the document the same day. They gave another option to pay $250 for another appointment and fly back to Melbourne to go through again. This is the lack in process and communication.
This is a much bigger decision and Burbank was not ready to share the details so that we can review it at home of what we have selected prior to signing the 55k worth of upgrades. Burbank didn't provide us enough time to go through the details to update any changes required and expected us to sign the documents straight away, If they have given an appointment for the whole day - how come there was no dedicated consultant sitting with us for the entire time.
I completely understand if there are any rules in place that we need to sign it very same day but atleast a heads would have been better.
We emailed our CRO again the same day(10th of July) asking for the updates on our request.

Havent heard back from anyone yet. Today is 17th of July 2017.

I am not happy with the way Burbank is handling our case and hence would like to withdraw my construction application.
I don't think i can trust for my house construction with Burbank especially when i am located in a different city.