Stannard Family Homes

Took two years to build from time of laying the slab.

Rubbish finishes.

No defects fixed after 5-6 months, no plan to do any.

Awful builder. Worst communication.

Absolutely terrible experience. I went to Stannards looking to design a custom home. They outlined their "process" around an initial meeting to discuss ideas followed by concept plans and then a couple of meetings to iron out the details. Plus they offered to take us few a couple of "similar" homes to help us visualise room sizes. It sounded like exactly what we wanted. So, we handed over $3,000 and then it all went quiet. Not a single meeting, no kick off meeting to discuss what we wanted,... nothing. In the meantime I put together my own plan to try and describe some of what we wanted. We got a few emails back with minor (usually silly) changes to my plans. On two of the three occasions these plans had rooms that had no way of getting in to them! These revisions came with no explanation other than about 5 words in a email and were hand drawn in highlighter. After 5 months they send me back my initial plans with a contract and basically said "sign it or leave". I had not put too much thought into my plans as they were meant to be something to talk around and they had gross errors - including a window in the WIR plus a whole bunch of other superfluous windows I had included to remind me to ask about what would make sense when I had a meeting with Stannards (which obviously never happened). After a bit of an argument where I pointed out about 25 errors in the plans they sent me new plans - with lots of windows removed but interestingly this do not change the price they quoted. At the very beginning we had spoken about the staircase we wanted and we were assured that was no issue as "every house has a non-standard staircase now". On our quote the staircase was not included and we were told this would happen at the next stage and "shouldn't cost more than $40k!" (noting this it was a semi-cantiliever staircase that Metricon offers as a standard upgrade at $14k). So, if you don't want to hand over $3000 for a design process that never happens then avoid Stannards. Perhaps they used to be good because they have some good reviews but basically the whole thing was one giant misrepresentation and we feel like we were conned out of our money. I have made many attempt to try to talk to the owner but our sales guy refuses to allow this to happen so perhaps he is lying to the owner as well, who knows? Also, be aware that their "fixed price contract" is not actually fixed price - it has an estimate for timber and steel so it is using a definition of "fixed" that is not consistent with what most people might expect.

Stannard Family Homes have a good product but not a great product. The rush to complete the job results in a poor finish and attention to detail, and at handover the home should be fully completed and sparkle. Hopefully they will use constructive comments from people who have built with them to take their product to the next level.