Combined Intelligent Automation - Unfinished construction project

We were in the process of purchasing a home for our family. It was our intention to renovate the house, renewing the bathrooms, kitchen and main bedroom. We also wanted to convert the garages into a self-contained granny flat. We posted our project on Snupit and received responses from a few companies offering their services, among them Combined Intelligent Automation ( CIA). After doing some due diligence and reading their sparkling online reviews and looking through the completed projects posted on their website, we decided to meet with Kobus Scriven of CIA.

We met with Kobus at the house and talked and walked through the project. We were very impressed with his can-do attitude and his promises of personally overseeing projects to maintain quality and targets. We were assured that if needs be he personally get involved to see projects completed to clients satisfaction. On the basis of this really positive meeting we requested a formal quotation from him, encompassing our requirements for the renovation of the inside of our new house. We accepted the quote from CIA after a discussion regarding costs and our budget. This was on the 21st of January 2019. Kobus insisted that he needed to get his guys into the house as fast as possible to begin work, so as to meet our deadline. We paid the 60% deposit and his guys started work on the house on the 1st of February 2019. As it transpired, the inside renovation became phase one and a phase two was added a few weeks later for the renovation of the outside of the house and repainting. Before deciding to add phase two, we met again with Kobus at the house and were assured that since the outside was not a big job, both phases would be completed at the same time at the end of March 2019.

Towards the end of March we visited the house and became quite concerned as it seemed very far from being ready, as was agreed. We spoke to Kobus and he asked us for a couple more weeks to get the house finished, all the while assuring us that most of the difficult parts of the job had been done and that the finishes, painting, tiling etc went very quickly. We agreed to take on another months rent at our current house and begin paying the bond in the same month, on the understanding that the house would be ready by the middle of April. At the end of the first week of April Kobus contacted us to say that the house was almost ready and we needed to pay an additional 20% “top up “. Although this top up payment is mentioned in their terms, it is not specified when this is due and if in fact it is due, because a top up is only required for “ larger jobs “. Whether our renovation was classified as a larger job, was never explained to us. We duly paid the additional top up as requested.

We moved into our new home on the 1st of May 2019. Of the four bathrooms, we had one ready to use, but no hot water. Of the five bedrooms, we all had to share one, with no electricity and two Primary school going children. Everyday for two months we had workmen arriving to work on the house as I was walking my children to School. Everyday that my children came home from school they were greeted by strangers tramping in and out of their bedrooms and our house rushing to finish. Every time it rained over these two months, the new roof over the granny flat leaked badly and the newly laid laminate flooring was flooded. The newly laid paving outside become flooded and was relaid seven time to no avail. The laminate flooring in each and every room of the house had to be lifted, the floor skimmed correctly, as was not done the first time around, and relaid. On the 28th of June 2019 Combined Intelligent Automation removed their workers from our home. Both the Phase one and phase two portions of the renovation remain unfinished and the matter is now with our attorneys to try find a resolution.

Below is a list, as sent to CIA, of the items that remain unfinished and below that is a list of items that are already faulty.

1. Paving on the side of the granny flat is not finished. 2. Roof of granny flat and dining room requires another coat of waterproofing and then to be painted. 4. The Grey water system does not function as specified; it does not recycle the Grey water to the dishwasher and washing machine. No filtration system is fitted. 5. The toilets in the new en-suite bathrooms in both the granny flat and main bedroom are getting blocked, apparently due to the new pipe running under the back paving not being bedded correctly with the required drop and depth ,or it has been affected by the constant reworking of the paving above it. 6. The bath in the new en-suite floods the shower when the water is released from the bath, it also stops draining out of the bath as a result. It would appear that both the bath and the shower share a common outlet pipe, and this may not be laid correctly under the floor. 7. The paint on the perimeter wall is peeling off in a number of places. It appears that this wall may not have been prepared correctly before the paint was app****. 8. Paint is also peeling off the back of the house and granny flat where the two new bathrooms where created and the one garage door bricked up. 9. The laminate floor in the granny flat has to be replaced due to water damage from the repeatedly leaking roof, installed by CIA. 10. The ceiling in the granny flat bathroom has to be repaired due to damage caused by the aforesaid leaking. 11. Although the laminate floor was re-laid by in most of the house, it is still uneven in places, most noticeably in one of the children bedrooms, the passage and the main bedroom. The gaps around the door frames and skirting have not all been filled with color matched sealant. 12. The new ceiling in the lounge has developed noticeable undulations already. 13. The new aluminum cascade door in the main bedroom still does not fit correctly despite it having been worked on more than once after installation. 14. The driveway paving was badly damaged by the refuse skips that were rolled up and down the driveway, using inadequate or no protection to the driveway paving, resulting in broken paving and visible scored lines. 15.The general quality of finishes is unacceptably poor.