I am extremely disappointed from Simonds QLD. As a loyal customer, our family had purchased few houses from them, and also had introduced many friends to them without any benefit. However, we had lost our faith to them with their poor services. . We have two houses building with them currently at Southside of Brisbane. They had made few mistakes in this project and had not shown any sincerely attitude to solve their problems. Me and my sister bought a house in 2015-16 to demolish and subdivde the lands for two houses. Initially, we intended to live in them (one each) to build our dream home. We dedicated on our time and spent lots of time to design our home with multiple colour selection visits. As time goes by, they had exceed 220 days building periods (Building approval obtained on 30/5/17). Until now, we realised they had tricked customers by putting penalty rate as 11 dollars per day. After consulting with my friend who worked in construction industry, according to HIA contract, the late build payment minimum of 50 dollars per day. This act has shown their unprofessionalism to not letting customers know their right and simply they feedback is that because we have signed contract, there is nothing they can do about (so please make sure you read your contract properly).
Not only they delay our building time, they had also completed the driveway that we did not request for (we initially only want one house's driveway to be done so that we can design the other one). They subsequently had requested us to share their cost. Given there is a great delay, we did not want to waste any more time, therefore, we reluctantly paid the cost and leave the driveway. Again, after consulting with other builders, legally, we are not obligated to pay any of fee for additional driveway simply this was their mistake.
Due to the delay, my sister has commitment at oversea and no longer wish to wait. We are preparing to sell one of the house. We then realised they had incorrectly made Balustrades for both Homes when agents brought customers to the house. We have lost a few potential buyers due to their mistake(my agent has expressed their concern that customers had questioned their professionalism because they simply put advertisement with wrong design).
After email conservations with build managers at QLD Simonds, they would like to extend 15 days for correction of mistake, given they are already 50 days exceed from the building period. We had patiently waiting for our dream home to be built. Instead of waiting for their rectification of their multiple mistakes, we had requested them to simply to provide cash back for the cost of changing our balcony/colour/balustrades. However, they refused to do so and insist they can only provide rectification of houses and willing to pay $11/day delayed fee as per contract.

They cannot simply understand how much patient we have given to them and how frustrated we are to them. I think this is the time for everyone to know what Simonds as a builder can do when we do not know the law/customer right. I would appreciate if everyone can share this to people who intended to build with them.

This would have to be the worst building experience I have ever had. Not only is the workmanship poor, but they will not own up to major contract mistakes let alone correct them. My advice would be - stay away from this company!

Approximate cost: $250000