New Build - IFSNZ (Help)

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restecp

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#3144678 9-Oct-2023 18:43

nztim:

restecp:

Luckily the one they ran to the top floor they didn't charge for. More concerned about the 2nd story sadly which is where my and the wife's offices are.
Once we settle on Wednesday, this will be the first thing I chase these developers up on. I hope they come to the table and install it for me.

If the walls have been lined already it is going to be a mess to get it right.

They sure have unfortunately. The way I see it, they agreed in writing to do this and haven't done it. So regardless of the work/time/cost it takes, I'm going to attempt to hold them responsible and get them to run it.

Wheelbarrow01

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Chorus

#3144783 9-Oct-2023 22:54

quickymart:

Sounds quite similar to Pegasus in North Canterbury - the community mostly covered with TCL/Vodafone cable, with no DSL or fibre available (or barely) at all.

Yes my understanding is that TCL/Vodafone had an exclusive deal with the Pegasus developers for a 10 year period. That has now lapsed and the resident association is in discussions with Enable on how fibre might be installed and who might pay for it.

Network Tasman is another operator as mentioned by someone else, as is VelocityNet, and Unison (which interestingly has a network overlap with Chorus so some customers can have an ONT from both if they want) and there are probably others I can't think of right now...

The Sovereign Palms subdivision in Kaiapoi is also an interesting one. The developer paid Enable to reticulate the earlier stages, but then they switched to Chorus for the later section releases.

The views expressed by me are not necessarily those of my employer Chorus NZ Ltd

Zeon

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#3144951 10-Oct-2023 14:13

Are these other fibre network providers regulated the same as Chrosu and other LFCs that were part of UFB?

Speedtest 2019-10-14

nztim

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#3144985 10-Oct-2023 16:10

Zeon:

Are these other fibre network providers regulated the same as Chrosu and other LFCs that were part of UFB?

That is a very good question

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Goosey

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#3147042 13-Oct-2023 06:50

Regarding your Ethernet.

who signed off the variation to the electrical plan?
Normally the sparky will confirm the plan before they carry out the work. (Plan includes locations of switches, outlets, lights, etc etc).
understand you purchased what was maybe a turnkey dwelling (off plan). However was the Ethernet the only thing you changed?

did you have to choose or select anything else or make amendments?

you need to sort this before settlement. Settlement means just that…you are settling on what you are buying.

restecp

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#3147098 13-Oct-2023 09:23

Great questions.

The only change we requested was the ethernet.

I petitioned and nagged for literally 2 years.

From the beginning, they were insanely cagey about sending me the electrical plan. Ignoring emails from both myself, my lawyer, and the real estate agent. I managed to at one point get what I think was the final copy of the electrical plan, but only after I took some initiative and found which company was doing the electrics and contacted them directly. This resulted in the electrician's telling the developer who through the Real Estate agent let me know they were extremely unahappy with this approach. This is where I proposed some changes, just ethernet truthfully.

I actually proposed a few options for them:

I would pay for an electrician to come and run the ethernet at my cost, ensuring they would stay out of the way. including not terminating the cable just having it in the wall so that they could still get their compliance stuff done.
They use their electricians and I pay them separately for the change
I would sign an indemnity clause stating that if there were a fire or anything that affected the building due to these ethernet cables I wouldn't hold the developers liable.
They run the cables and be GC's.

After going back and forth for literally a year, going weeks without responses etc I managed to get the below:

"Apologies to your buyer as I thought we discussed him being in the I Block.
We have today upgraded CAT6 to upper floors for your buyer. If they
want to upgrade further the cabling is already in wall for him.
Cheers"

I sent this email through to my lawyer who agreed this is essentially an agreement to run the ethernet. Using the plural "floors" is what relieved a bit of pressure and made me feel that they had understood my expectations and approach. In the initial request, I had asked for an ethernet port (minimum) per room, but ultimately I would have settled with a single port on each floor. To me this was me meeting them in the middle and being happy with a bit of give.
I believe I actually only got this out of them as I caught them in a lie, they had told us that they'd love to do this for us but that the gib was already on the walls, the reason I know this to be a lie is because they were posting weekly updates on the development and this clearly showed there was no roof on our place let alone the GIB!

As we had 0 communication from the developers. Their lawyers not replying to ours on this subject, or them not replying to the real estate agent on clarification was quite a bad sign but I had that email, our lawyer put us at ease saying that should suffice and we can hold them to do it if they didn't do it.

As we came closer to the inspection and settlement I put a bit of pressure on both our lawyer and real estate agents to get us an answer. Neither of them managed to achieve this and it was only at our inspection that I found there was the singular ethernet port in the Main bedroom. Bittersweet truthfully as the second story of our house had been designated by us to be our offices as both the wife and I work from home.

Unfortunately, we have settled. Yesterday in fact. I pushed it out by one day and had our lawyer and the real estate agent support us with this. All the developer did was fine us interest for delaying settlement. We simply could not afford to keep that game up.

I'm unsure what my next steps are truthfully. We're essentially cash-poor now. I'm hoping that email from the developers is enough to hold them accountable and to find some form of resolution.

Oddly enough last night I was at the house and met a neighbour. I asked if I could see his colour scheme (slightly lighter than ours) and he invited us in. I noticed that his house also had the ethernet run to the top floor!

It's genuinely insane how weighted the stakes are towards the developer. They just simply can ignore you, delay, delay, delay etc. But I am monetarily punished if I step one foot out of line.

It genuinely blows my mind that they are even allowed to build a house these days without this being standard.

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Goosey

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#3147189 13-Oct-2023 13:12

This now blows my mind.

sounds like a the developer is a member of a zoo.

Plenty on here who can possibly help with sorting you out…

good luck.

restecp

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#3147192 13-Oct-2023 13:24

Goosey:
This now blows my mind.

sounds like a the developer is a member of a zoo.

Plenty on here who can possibly help with sorting you out…

good luck.

Haha I appreciate it!

Yeah they've certainly been interesting... Just goes to show you're only ever a Dollar value and a number. There's very little humanity in it.

At the same time I understand from their perspective that if every person on the development (200+ houses) requested changes it would be a nightmare to manage.

The Real Estate Agent has actually cut ties supposedly with these guys due to a range of different issues he didn't/wouldn't/couldn't go in to.

restecp

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#3159073 13-Nov-2023 13:35

I thought it important to close this off with some outcomes and updates over the past few weeks.

When I moved in, I sent the Developer an email letting them know my stance and requesting some fixes/updates.

Specifically:

The interest charges for late payment
An update on the Ethernet to level 2
Lights in our cupboards

They agreed to:

Refund us for the Late payment interest - I haven't seen the payment yet, but I am confident it is coming.
They INSISTED there was ethernet already in the wall and that we merely need to cut a whole in the GIB and terminate it. I queried where it was, and she clarified that she didn't know. The developer was so confident of this that they put that in writing, CCing me into an email to the owner of the electrical company. The electrical company sent an electrical to my house who made it clear, there was no ethernet to the second story. We went back and forth on this for a bit with the developer trying to absolve themselves of any responsibility. A few emails later, I now have ethernet run into my comms cabinet and into a room on the second story. Success.
This was something that had been removed from the plans, and the developer tried to sell it to me that they would do this but only as a favour and only if I promised to tell no one else about this. This was not agreed to, I made it clear that if this were to go to court I had evidence that it was supposed to be there. She (begrudgingly) agreed to have the lights installed.

All in all, a success truthfully.

A Huge lesson to all would be to stick to your guns, these people want the most money and want to deliver the least they possibly can. Once the house is built their job is over but its your home and you have to live there. Fight if you know you are right.

A Big thanks to all who contributed here, it was MUCH appreciated from my side.

ANglEAUT

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#3159111 13-Nov-2023 15:21

Thx for closing the loop. Glad to hear about your successful outcomes.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

nztim

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#3159135 13-Nov-2023 16:50

What happened in terms of provider with the fibre company they chose.

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

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restecp

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#3159149 13-Nov-2023 17:23

nztim:

What happened in terms of provider with the fibre company they chose.

Great question,

Basically, I got told that the council/govt no longer cover the costs for infrastructure in developments and it's the developer's responsibility to set this infrastructure up.
This has resulted in smaller resellers who invest in infrastructure popping up.

The developers go through who is going to be the cheapest for them. Which I expected truthfully.

Effectively I had 0 power to change any of this, but have raised this with the development manager as a concern.
He actually queried if I would be interested in running to be the chairman of the council for the development and said it would be within my power to change these decisions.

Unsure if I need a second job at this stage (lol).

Once more people move in to the development I may start querying their thoughts on this and see if power in numbers actually works.

In all fairness Voyager have been great, I've definitely noticed slower speeds from a Usenet perspective which is a little sad but truthfully I'm a little out of fighting steam.

nztim

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#3159319 13-Nov-2023 22:48

Voyager are an excellent ISP, but still sad you have limited options

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restecp

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#3159484 14-Nov-2023 15:32

nztim: Voyager are an excellent ISP, but still sad you have limited options

Tell me about it. The larger carriers are actually not wanting to work with these smaller infrastructure providers it seems.
I believe this will become more ubiquitous of a situation sadly.

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