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Buyer Beware

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BMS
  8/17/2018 12:57 EST

Buyer Beware
August 17, 2018

Anyone out there ripped off by a company in Medellin that installs PVC decking? My wife and I paid $4500.00 for a deck that began warping, cracking, and popping up only a few months after installation. Our neighbor contracted for a $7000.00 patio by the same company and is having similar problems.

I refrain from mentioning the company’s name because we are still in negotiations to get a full refund, but the process has dragged on for over a year, and I am out of patience. We discovered the fasteners used to anchor the individual boards to the supports were not ‘closed’ (clamped down) resulting in loose boards. These were not tongue and groove planking, but groove and groove planking, requiring a careful, secure installation

After months, we removed the decking and we also discovered a ‘Rube Goldberg’ support framework with pieces of masonry and sticks used to shim up the cross pieces. These, of course, shifted allowing the deck to bounce up and down with use. The installer damaged the waterproofing during installation resulting in extensive water damage in the basement and a shorted out 65 inch Samsung Smart TV.

The building contractor denied responsibility; the company blamed the installer, and the subcontractor who did the work came out once, saw the mess and we never heard from him again. After numerous phone calls and trips to the office in Medellin, we are now waiting for the ‘big boss’ to give authorization for the refund (which he was supposed to okay over two months previously).

We may not get our money back, but I intend to tell anyone who will listen or read my words to avoid this company like the plague. They employ shoddy workers and do not stand by their customers or their product. Buyer beware indeed!

SkyMan
  8/17/2018 14:47 EST

BMS...I am sorry to hear your story, concerning less than quality construction, here in Colombia. The sad thing is that the annals of time are riddled with situations just like yours...and the chances of your receiving any money back are quite slim. Many unscrupulous workers use sub-par materials in construction products here....so a caveat emptor(buyer beware) definitely should be heeded by any gringo, who wants to improve their casa, or finca. Buena Suerte ! Tranquilo.

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Felipe58
  8/20/2018 08:53 EST

The answer has to be, if you have the capability and good health, do it yourself, you will get a far better result. I do all my own work, and hope to be able to do so for a few more years yet, although every year it takes a little longer to do. That work you can't do yourself, make sure you are present to observe, and speak out if you are not happy.

Womblingfree
  8/20/2018 09:35 EST

I knew a guy who bought a plot of land and ordered a custom home built on it in Ecuador.

The problem was he was still living in the USA while it was being constructed and only made two or three trips over the course of 18 months to inspect progress.

In addition, he had no construction expertise so he didn't really understand what he was looking at.

You can imagine the end of the story. The house is now an unsaleable money pit. I can't tell you how much his widow is spending trying to get things fixed that were never done properly in the first place.

Buyer Be There!

Womblingfree
  8/20/2018 09:35 EST

I knew a guy who bought a plot of land and ordered a custom home built on it in Ecuador.

The problem was he was still living in the USA while it was being constructed and only made two or three trips over the course of 18 months to inspect progress.

In addition, he had no construction expertise so he didn't really understand what he was looking at.

You can imagine the end of the story. The house is now an unsaleable money pit. I can't tell you how much his widow is spending trying to get things fixed that were never done properly in the first place.

Buyer Be There!

GAT79
  8/20/2018 10:27 EST

Any work done on a home must be supervised. Building a home requires a visit at least once a day.

Mecanics must be supervised non-stop.

You must have a general understanding of the scope of the project.

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Womblingfree
  8/20/2018 10:33 EST

GAT79 - that's why forums like this are so valuable. A little well-aimed advice has probably saved readers a world of wasted energy, time, and expense.

I've learned you can't trust construction companies in the USA either. Everything has to be supervised and reinforced throughout the project.

Kee
  8/20/2018 13:34 EST

The best bet, when possible, is find a good maestro de obra, and leave out the contractor.

WhoaNellie
  8/20/2018 14:23 EST

My sister-in-law who is an artisan/artist in various materials, but who knew little to nothing about the building trades but who is nevertheless a very sharp and accomplished woman, honcho'ed building a new house on the same site as their demolished old house in an estrato 4-5 neighborhood in Cali.

She did an unbelievably good job with the help of one of her brothers who is a civil engineer who designs earthquake-proof large buildings in Buenaventura. But it required her acting as the general contractor, being on-site literally every day, supervising and overseeing the purchase of all materials and subcontracting the work of the various crews for everything from the demolition and clearing of debris to installation of plumbing, electric, sewer, masonry structure of walls and floors and support beams, roof, tile floors, all the acabados and carpentry work, las rejas for windows doors fence and garage, and on and on.

It resulted after over a years' work in this beautiful house you can see here on Google street view:
https://www.google.com/maps/@3.3898529,-76.5398597,3a,75y,352.47h,96.21t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ss8zHsOKA0ygbdQKIvgoY4Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

She did such a good job I asked her if she considered going into business as a general contractor after her success with this house - she emphatically replied "No f**@#$%g way!"

The take-away is, if you are prepared to be on-site literally all the time, and be a hard-ass and are willing to dig deep into the details, you can get a good finished product - but otherwise you can forget it - stick to something already built.

dbarnwell
  8/20/2018 15:14 EST

It's by no means a guarantee that things will work out OK (see Space building fiasco in Medellin for example) but I do think if you buy an apartment you at least have the fact that other fellow-buyers are likely to be trying to ensure decent quality control. They may get better results than you would on your own, and that includes better quality for your unit..
At least I hope that's right--I own an apartment.

lpdiver
  8/20/2018 21:36 EST

Your take away message applies to almost any endeavor. I acted as my wife's immigration attorney when I was extremely displeased with the attitudes of the attorneys I spoke to.
Bottom line is I successfully make her application when most attorneys wouldn't even take the case. I DID spend a lot of time researching and studying (1500 hours)

Was it worth it? Yes and no, of course it is wonderful to get my wife here in the USA. 1,500 hours is a lot of time...

In immigration once you determine your path forward, the attorney can only present as good of a case as the paperwork that you provide.

In the USA building codes and banking requirements will mostly keep you out of trouble in the housing area. Colombia...not so much so.

Regards,

LPd

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cccmedia
  8/21/2018 01:12 EST

The best advice on this thread is Whoa Nellie's -- buy something already built.

The condo I bought pre-construction in 2004 wasn't ready for move-in until mid 2013!

Half the delay was due to a slow-moving 'abogada' (now my ex-abogada) .. but attorney sloth can be part of the picture in any pre-construction.

The condo turned out well, although I felt I had to replace an ugly kitchen floor and I redid the countertops with Corian.

The original water heater was so cheap, it burst while I was away for the afternoon and flooded the whole apartment. Somehow, although parts of the apartment were under two inches of water, it only cost 1,500 US to repair the mess, including recarpeting the bedroom and repainting most of the walls and bedroom ceiling (due to a mold issue that ensued).

cccmedia

cc532
  8/21/2018 21:04 EST

cccmedia,
I appreciate you sharing, as I frequently come across pre-construction opportunities in Colombia, Panama and elsewhere advertised in various newsletters.

The take-away in these promotions is that the investment in the beginning of project is not as high and the ROI can be significant in double digits on some projects. I think just plain luck (or lack thereof) has alot to do with it...

cccmedia
  8/21/2018 21:41 EST

To cc from ccc...

If you're buying for personal residency, rent in the target area for a year before buying or property anywhere in South America.

cccmedia

cc532
  8/22/2018 06:50 EST

cccmedia,

As I'm not yet ready to retire and relocate, my interest would not be for personal residence, but for investment purposes. Either way, a tremendous amount of due diligence and consideration is required.

Thanks.

cccmedia
  8/22/2018 08:41 EST

I could easily do a top-ten list about things that can go wrong with absentee-landlord rental properties.

One flooding incident can seriously mess up a landlord's sanity.

You're not going to read about this stuff in international ads for pre-construction in South America .. or Live & Invest Overseas .. or e-published Expat guides to foreign property.

----

Once when still living in the USA, I hired an Ecuadorian to manage my rental property in Fairfield County, Connecticut, during my three-month winter trip. He was also a tenant in that property.

A once-in-100-years snowstorm hit the county while I was cruising in Mexico.

The manager told me by phone that the tenants, who were mostly Ecuadorian as well, were loudly blaming him for the fact that their vehicles were snowed-in for days.

When iI got back home, the manager calmly told me he wouldn't work for me again in that capacity.

----

Now, you may say that a literal snowstorm will never hit your rental property in warmer South America.

But something else will happen, your local manager may quit .. and do you really want to fly down here to hire another manager? Do you really want to face angry tenants who have been living in your property without proper manager supervision for weeks or months and not getting their repairs and living-conditions problems addressed during that time?

---

I don't want to sell covered calls again, but at least with that kind of investing you don't have the headaches that come with property management, especially in absentee-landlord situations.

There are all kinds of investments to choose from. Most investors are not mentally and emotionally prepared for overseas property ownership. Unless you're among the tiny percentage of folks who have owned rental properties before -- and loved the challenge for years -- I'd recommend you find a different class of investment.

---

When bedbugs hit and infested 75 percent of my Connecticut apartments .. I knew it was time to get out of the property-ownership deal. We were lucky to find a buyer for that troubled property. Not everybody gets lucky.

cccmedia

BMS
  8/22/2018 15:26 EST

Thanks Skyman! Moving from Florida and suffering through a home remodeling project there (4 out of 5 contractors were scam artists) I had a healthy suspicion for fraudulent work.
Having a contractor definitely does not guarantee good work, even with the history that he has built two homes for local family members. Ours dropped the ball and we fired him. On a positive note, the decking was the only major problem we have encountered and everything else turned out fairly good. Like any new construction project, we are still in the 'shakedown cruise' and are finding and fixing small issues.
All the best.

19naia
  8/22/2018 19:19 EST

I am always reminded that more often than not, i am simply being sold a bill that charges me money. Nothing more and nothing less.

I am always reminded that more often than not, the work being done for me is driven by the skill to charge me money.
Nothing more and nothing less.

I am always reminded that more often than not, that the prevalant idea of what business is about, is first and foremost the idea of getting money. Even if nothing real to offer.
Nothing more and nothing less.

I am always reminded that more often than not, the only thing really cared to learn, is the art of charging money and making people pay it.

Paying more has never gotten me better in these parts and it has sometimes gotten me worse.

I have been charged more than the highest priced room in the hotel, and still put in the lowest priced room, so that the highest priced room would still be available to sell for a premium above what the lowest piced room would sell for ,if they had not stuck me with it.

I have been sold a slice of Pizza out of the glass show case, and had the slice taken to the floor below the showcase and swapped out with old pizza stashed under there with -who knows how many mice and roaches.
Pizza slice then put on my plate cold and ill looking. Still she rung me up with the look of a human who had respect for me.

All i could do is hold my barf and never buy there again.
Whole town had no other options, so i simply stopped eating Pizza and nothing from any stores with elaborate loooking showcases and equally elaborate nastiness practiced behind the dressed up scene.

Let me not even get into what it can be like in the hospitals with life on the line.

I keep simple like the average locals, because every time i have whipped out a major payment or made a pay up front order, it has always come up with all kinds of delays and changes that replaced everything that was promised and signed for when i agreed to pay.

Some times i forget this and whip out the payment method to give in to pressing need.
And start learning the same hard lesson all over again.
Every single time.
Never turns out right without major delays or major compromises after payment.

Easier to live like locals and have nothing, expect nothing and leave the money grubers wondering why the economy is not stimulated with people spending as they have the power to.
I don’t have the power to endure the dealings, so i just blend in and expect nothing other than to keep what little i cling to and tend to it myself.

Ok. I will go there. One last scenario.
More often than not, as i watched the house keeping lady work the hotel room over, i see her come in with a rag and start with it from the floor, around the base of the toilet and sink and then work her way up the toilet, around the rim and up to the flush handle and then to the sink and upwards -beyond every shower and sink knob -and the door knob.
I crawl in bed under the covers and pray to god she leaves quick and pray that the covers i hide under don’t have a similar back story of septic madness.

Same rag she was using in every other room of the hotel.
Used in the same mode of operation.
So i bought my own cleaning supplies and did my own cleaning after house keeping came to do grave damage in the guise of cleaning.
The worst hotel of all looked nice and pristine but smelled like urine through the halls and ensuite.
Literally like Urine was hosed out through the whole place.
Turns out the lady used scent masking cleaners to douse her rag and go from every room and toilet within -with the same rag unwashed, just masked scent via cleaners.
Soon after, the cleaners degrade and the background Urine substances remain and come through to stink up the whole place.
It was like the twilight zone -to see the receptionists and other hotel workers all there with casual looks like all was normal and that they were selling a way to make an honorable living for themselves,
She was literally smearing the place down with a rag used to pick up toilet filth from every single room.
Yes in every other room, she also started from the floor and worked up to the toilet and then sinks and beyond.
I spied her actions in the next room and she never washed the rag out from the previous room.
About 20 rooms to work in the building,
I asked her to not do cleaning in my room.
I went out and bought a bucket , some cleaning tools and bleach.

Day of checkout, she was down in the lobby and laughing like a hyena, seeing me travelling with a bucket of cleaning supplies, laughing like she had no idea that i bought it especially to clean her off of the urine smeared place.

I took the bucket of supplies with me to the next destination just in case more like her were out there.
No i do not complain to them. I do it myself. Things so absurd that cmplaining isn’t going to get through to them if the overwhelming stench of smeared around urine does not get through to them.

More often than not, more like her is all there is out there.

So i do my own cleaning and save the complaints that would likely end up seeing things no better and maybe purposefully made worse.

Paying for laundry service and more often getting it back dirtier looking than it was going in.
Complaining will not get through if seeing my clothes looking worse than when they came in, does not get throgh to them.
All they do is then charge me money while i end up hand washing my clothes at home in a bucket.

So -more often than not, hand washing clothes in a bucket in the room and hanging it from the curtain rods and anywhere else in the room or house.

On a positive note, I end up saving a lot of money every month because there is nothing i have the courage to buy nor hardly a service i have the guts to pay for.
I end up living simple so that i can manage most of my work done by myself.
The $ savings are great but still it sucks knowing that all that money is only as good as what it can buy, and i seem to have more often than not, reasons to just let it sit there and live like a rich uncle petty rags.

A lot of the people selling me such whack, often dress better than me and assume me poorer rather than assume me being rendered as i am by their way of doing business.
Laughing at me for wandering around with a bucket of cleaning supplies like a house maid, without realizing they rendered me into that by their way of doing business.

And so it is wel all end up living a sub standard life and keeping our money where it doesn’t get smeared by piss.

Making of a third world economy -101. We can all still sing and dance and thank god for her immeasurable greatness and making such wonders as us hooman beans.

LaPiranha
  8/22/2018 22:50 EST

My God, 19Naia. Where on earth do you live? I have never ever had that kind of experience here, neither in my own city (Bogota), not in any place I have gone on vacation, throughout Colombia.

Prospector
  8/22/2018 23:17 EST

That would be "humor beans" amigo.......tell me porfa, is this in Colombia or Ecuador? And where specifically in either of those countries.....I will definately be paying more attention to cleaners........IF I can EVEN find one...........

joenancy
  8/23/2018 08:07 EST

19, I have lived here for over 12 years now. I have not sen exactly what you describe, but probably have had done to me. Un fortunately, your post is reality here. I have been stolen from so much, that I expect it now as normal business. Joe

BMS
  8/23/2018 10:53 EST

I weep for your collective tragedies, although, I am compelled to post my own significantly different experiences in this beautiful land I now call my own.
It has been five years since my wife and I decided to build a retirement home in a beautiful pueblito southeast of Medellin. Except for a few regrets (I miss New York pizza) our experience has been stellar.
Paisa's are friendly, warm, welcoming, hardworking, beautiful, and helpful. The climate is heavenly; even the cloudbursts beating on our roof during the rainy season are enjoyable and magic. Barbecuing a succulent, Angus rib eye from our balcony overlooking a lush river valley or dining in one of the many clean, efficient and delicious restaurants has restored my faith in good food and service.
Once we found a good gardener and 'empleada', life in Colombia became a dream come true. So many superlatives and so few negatives. I love my adopted country and do not plan to return to the United States until the madness in my former home runs its inevitable course.

BMS
  8/23/2018 10:53 EST

I weep for your collective tragedies, although, I am compelled to post my own significantly different experiences in this beautiful land I now call my own.
It has been five years since my wife and I decided to build a retirement home in a beautiful pueblito southeast of Medellin. Except for a few regrets (I miss New York pizza) our experience has been stellar.
Paisa's are friendly, warm, welcoming, hardworking, beautiful, and helpful. The climate is heavenly; even the cloudbursts beating on our roof during the rainy season are enjoyable and magic. Barbecuing a succulent, Angus rib eye from our balcony overlooking a lush river valley or dining in one of the many clean, efficient and delicious restaurants has restored my faith in good food and service.
Once we found a good gardener and 'empleada', life in Colombia became a dream come true. So many superlatives and so few negatives. I love my adopted country and do not plan to return to the United States until the madness in my former home runs its inevitable course.

Elexpatriado
  8/23/2018 16:40 EST

19nia

Have you ever been tested for obsessive compulsive disorder?

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