G.J. Gardner Homes Franklin / Papakura Office

Terrible experience. Sales person blatantly lied to us about covenants in area and drawn on plan. Told there were no 2 storey houses in our area. 2 Storey house in front of us blocking out the light now. Advised our build would start in 3 months after signing the contract before the roads were even in the subdivision. Title was not issued until 8 months later and build started a year later. The Salesperson had moved on by the time we were made aware of this. Almost had our driveway poured before the septic tank was hooked up. Luckily the concrete was being done by our subcontractor who had to organise this after we were given the go ahead by GJ Gardner. Met with the franchisee who apologized but stated they could not confirm that there salesperson had lied. Issues with variation that they asked for because they couldn't do the work on the plans, and not being refunded the correct amount. It appears they have also hooked the water up to the wrong meter after asking them to check with council multiple times as we have twice been door knocked by Fulton Hogan. At the time they appeared to busy to care and we even stopped receiving correspondence from our assigned customer service manager. Do not build with this franchise.

If you like to spend your hard earned money in the most stressful way, sign these guys up and you will age a lot faster too.

Dont trust them. Salesperson will say anything to win a deal. Very unprofessional and not trustworthy. Try others pls you will get heaps of good deals. They dictate the terms and treat you like a doormat. Beware guys we have gone thru this and don't want anyone else to suffer. The sales manager is also good for nothing. Don't trust

GJ do not communicate, they promise everything at the start and don't deliver, loads of hiddens costs after you have signed, I got multiple variations during the process for earthworks, steel and items that had been missed by their team which I was told were not going to be any issue

Avoid them, your just a number.

We chose GJ Franklin/Papakura last year when searching for a site out in the Franklin area. We found one and they managed to come up with a functional design for what was probably the most awkward plot of land in that sub development area. While there were delays from titling and resource consent (Council and Covid) we have the Building Consent and the build is underway due for completion next year.

GJ has been pretty good with the process and handled the variations well. We had the lawyers check over the Building Contract and they were fine with it.

Just a note and this is more on the purchaser: do research on upgrades. Standard heat pumps dont cut it in modern builds so insist on central ducted HVAC systems. Otherwise pretty happy so far and they handled the issue with the bricks and facade change from the developer professionally and promptly

Absolute shocking experience with this crowd, staff turnover extremely high. Communication is absolutely shocking, they would not listen or address any issues after sales is very poor. I have built through them and moved in 2019, and still having issues with cracked skirting which has been fixed twice but problem keeps coming back. Heat-pump installed is undersized and costing me average of 600-750 in power every month. It’s not coming out of there pocket so they’re not worried. One staff member advised me that his mate has the same and it’s normal to get same amount of power bill. I have tried to phone and email when the problem was first diagnosed but yet no action taken. I had to take this upon myself and request subcontractors to come and check this out. After making myself available 6 times still no result. Electrical subcontractor just as bad and won’t acknowledge that there is an issue. Under sized heat pump over working on max and costing me lots on power. I have also changed 4 power companies too. Heat-pump manufacturer advised me from looking at my plans and model that is installed happens to be too small for the house. I guess it’s best to go disputes tribunal and sort them out. I have paid these guys a full price for an efficient system.

They’re screaming big on Television but the franchise is letting them down big time.

You would want to enjoy your home once you’ve built and live stress free life, my experience with this crowd has brought me stress since I’ve built with them.

Would never build again with them. Keep away.

I will load some images of correspondence for public to view. They will try anything to get out of correcting or accepting there is a fault.

GJ Gardner head office will request a private email from you but will put you back to MJB CONSTRUCTION LTD.

Not sure how they deleted my previous review but be careful people DO NOT use them ever. Very unprofessional! The salespeople and managers will lie and go to any extent to get a sale. The people here who have actually given them 5 stars might be either fake and internal or might not have used them for a new built. They made us wait for 3 yrs and stole 13k from us as we wanted to get out of the contract as there was no visibility on when the built will start. They sold us a land which was never theirs in the 1st place and was not titled.we were building for the 1st time so had no idea and blindly trusted them. They are very good at deceiving and delaying the projects and won’t make you feel that you are getting cheated but my humble advise pls do not use them and waste your hard earned money and time.

Learned our lesson from first time buying a land+ home packages from them. We paid $3450 to secure a space in Hamilton Drive, Waiuku back in April-May 21 and then proceed to another $10,000 after that. They then bring us to another level for the house design plan. Boom after that the sales rep, Julie told us the price has increased about another 50k the house will be ready in July 2022 and they cant release any fixed contract for us to give to the bank and asked us to hold on for 1 month due to Covid lockdown. Then after 1 month, we were told to deal with Julie's manager, Del that left us no choice to pay the new price or to cancel the deal, she was not very helpful btw. The whole situation is unethical, why bring us to another level of designing the house if they knew the price is going to increase, they dont even asked us if we agreed to go forward for the new price and they refused to refund the 3450k back to us as the contract we had with them is conditional. We managed to get the 10,000k back and pay for $350 lawyer fees. I also get to know that the house will not be ready till July 2023, hope anyone dont fall into this - SHAME ON YOU GJ.

Terrible service. We agreed to let them draw plans for a house and provide an estimate of costs. As part of this we paid a deposit. The plans they presented didn’t meet our design brief, were months delayed and full or errors. After three attempts and countless meetings we pulled the pin and decided to go with another builder who provided all the above free of charge and with no obligations to progress. We asked for a partial refund of our deposit paid, but despite the sales assistant agreeing the design brief was not meet, we had to fight tooth and nail to get a few hundred dollars of the $3450 we paid back.

This was all a classic case of over promise and underdeliver. They provide you with a very basic quote before you pay the deposit. A one page document with a few pretty pictures. As soon as you sign up you will find their specs don’t come close to your expectations e.g. The number of down lights you would actually want in your house vs what they put in their ‘standard house’. From there the quote will just start snowballing by tens of thousands.

Overall they didn’t deliver on the values the GJs head office claimed. It was a horrible experience. Don’t waste your time or your money. We ended up going with a smaller local builder in the Paerata Rise subdivision and would never look back.

FYI - Read the views carefully. Most of the positive ones are from people commenting about things unrelated to their building services such as, ‘Easy to use their website’ and ‘Nice place’. Some of their own staff have also left comments which is highly unprofessional. You will also notice they don’t have a franchise specific Facebook or Instagram page like most other franchised companies e.g. Signature Homes or Platinum Homes. Everything is controlled by one page from their head office. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions about why that is…

Well they will be perfect if you want your dreams to be shattered. We waited for 3 years & got cheated from day 1. They will promise you everything but when it comes to results well you will be highly disappointed. Very arrogant team; just contacts you to tell you that project has been further delayed. If you have 5-6 years of patience then only sign up with them. Also their homes are pretty Basic not luxurious at all. WELL THANKS FOR NOT COMPLETING OUR PROJECT AS WE HAVE GOT OUR DREAM HOUSE BUILT. GJ couldn’t have even built such a home anyways! We are blessed GJ never built our home!

Bad experience from the start. Please DO NOT TRUST A WORD they say. All false promises to sell. Pricing is not fixed - wait till you get the ugly surprises. DO NOT TRUST! The people who have given them 5 starts have not actually had any building experiences with them and is rigged!

Not a good experience and would not recommend anyone. Lost 3 Yrs and 13k trying to build with them. Not a happy ex customer. The only person actually helpful is Mike the owner but his team whom you actually deal with is a big letdown. Very disappointed an yes don't dream to built your house with them. It will indeed be a dream like mine.