Facebook: Affordable Modular Buildings review update and replies

For anyone considering Affordable Modular Buildings

Yesterday, I posted a one star Google review about our experience with Tim Austin, the owner of Affordable Modular Buildings. They were brought in by Expandify, the company Mum bought her home from, and I dealt directly with Tim.

In our case, he was asking Mum to pay almost $70,000 before the payment milestone in her signed contract had been reached and no project plan had been provided.

I told him the invoice wasn't due yet, and to deal with me, not Mum, because the stress of this project had already led to cardiac investigations.

He called her anyway. Mum says he spent more than ten minutes pressuring her to pay while she cried.

That put her health at risk and I still cannot get past the fact he chose to do it after being told exactly why he should not contact her.

At around 2am this morning, Affordable Modular Buildings replied to my review saying they'd investigate the matter and improve "staff training and oversight". Which is a bit odd, given my complaint is about the conduct of the person who owns the company.

It did make me go and read their other reviews properly. There are plenty of five-star ones, but I think the one-star reviews, especially read together, are worth sharing.

The same themes keep coming up. Major delays, poor communication, disputes over extra costs and things going downhill when customers start asking questions or wanting proper answers.

People describe being pressured, spoken to aggressively, threatened with cancellation, having projects cancelled and in one case, being afraid to leave a review at all.

Then there are Affordable Modular Buildings responses underneath them. Defensive. Combative. Very quick to make the customer the problem.

We are talking about people's life savings and housing security. I'm still furious about what Tim Austin did to my Mum and I'm not interested in watching it get brushed off as a customer service issue.

Please, whoever you build with, get a solicitor to review your contract before you sign. And read the negative reviews. Are they one-off disgruntled customers or a pattern worth taking seriously?

I've redacted the reviewers names because I haven't asked permission to republish them here. The reviews are publicly available on Affordable Modular Buildings Google profile if anyone wants to verify them.

https://share.google/5IzYMaJKRzkxODxxy

And for those who haven't seen my previous post, our family nightmare is documented here: https://thegrannyflatfiles.com.au/

Since all my public replies get cancelled because the post is deleted then posted again. Here it is again! Very good read.

Alex,

You have now received cease and desist letter , as we consider the statements being made about myself and our company AMB to be false and defamatory.

For clarity, anyone reading this.

The facts from our position are straightforward.

We were engaged by Expandify to carry out installation works because they were having difficulty securing contractors to complete installations in this market and we are well established and have delivered over 1200+ jobs in 6 years.

Your dispute and previous experience were with Expandify was not great. This is why AMB agreed to help Expandiy Customers.

Before we had the opportunity to install your building, you engaged solicitors in relation to the matter against Expandify. Not AMB

At that stage, a progress payment was also due under advice from Expandify. This progress payment was to pay for a portion of installation.

As a result, Expandify was not in a position to pay us for the installation works.

We therefore withdrew our services from your project. I gave you fair warning that this would happen in advance and on the day of cancellation.

We sub contracted to the main contractor Expandify

We cannot reasonably be expected to carry out installation works where payment for those works cannot be made by main contractor.

We have also not been paid monies owed to us by Expandify for other install support we offered and are separately seeking advice regarding that matter.

We strongly reject any suggestion that we are responsible for the circumstances surrounding your dealings with Expandify.

Publicly shaming my personal name and my company is unprofessional. Your a business owner and a marketer. You know better then this.

Given the public statements now being made concerning me and my company, on multiple platforms this is called malicious and wilful harm.

Another Important fact. I think should be mentioned.

We actually have a 4.5 star rating.

Every project in 6 years delivered 800+ building approvals 75 full time staff 4-5 turnkey installations a week

Every construction company has delays. It’s a hard industry and business to operate. Especially in this market. While other builders close we are still open and there is good reason for that, Innovating, working hard.

So I encourage everyone reading through this to read between the lines.

My team works extremely hard and so do I.

This is an overexagerated situation that started off as good intentions to help finalise your project that Expandify couldn’t install.

You didn’t pay there claim, they couldn’t pay us. You engaged solicitors after AMB successfully helped you get a building approval and proved our worth.

You also left out the part where when your mum got upset and started crying I apologised for upsetting her.

I was merely trying to explain the severity of us not being able to do the install now that solicitors where engaged and payment wasn’t being made because you emailed AMB stating that!

Tim Austin Affordable Modular Buildings

Hi Tim Austin, in response to your latest comment:

First, I have not deleted and reposted anything. I shared the post across several Facebook groups. Some require admin approval, which is why it appeared at different times, and one group removed the original post, which is likely why replies on it disappeared.

Confirming I received your cease and desist letter. My solicitor will provide yours with a formal response in due course.

A cease and desist does not make the underlying facts disappear. I stand by the substance of what has been published, and as it stands today, I will not be retracting anything.

I have been consistent from the outset. My dispute with you is not about your building work or capability. It is about ethical professional conduct and accountability.

As I tried to explain on our final call, when you told me you “didn’t need” my feedback, you are dealing with people who may have their life savings tied up in housing they depend on. That requires boundaries, emotional restraint and handling disputes without pressuring vulnerable customers.

And that is the point I want to clarify for the record. You’ve now publicly accused me of being unprofessional, so I would genuinely like to understand how you reconcile that with your own actions:

1. Calling my mother despite being told in writing to direct communications to me because of her health concerns. - Those health concerns were, and remain, serious. I should not have had to provide you with private medical detail for that request to be respected. - Whether you apologised for upsetting her, which she maintains you did not, does not answer the question of why you chose to call her instead of me in the first place. - I had already been dealing with you directly, had responded to you the night before, had offered to speak, and was actively waiting for you to come back to me that afternoon.

2. Pressuring us to pull back from our solicitor and QBCC process, while tying that to whether my mother’s project would move forward and be completed. - For the record, our solicitor was first engaged after Expandify asked my mother to sign a new contract when her home was already more than two months overdue. - Expandify then failed to substantively engage with either us or our solicitor about the issues we raised. - Had Expandify simply engaged with us, addressed the contractual issues and provided some basic project certainty, there would have been no reason for the matter to escalate in the first place. - Until you called my mother, neither our solicitor’s involvement nor the QBCC complaint was directed at you or AMB. You nevertheless chose to involve yourself and pressure us to pull back from both.

3. Pressuring my mother, and then me as her authorised representative, to make an almost $70,000 payment before the contractual “Arrival in Australia” milestone had occurred. - Even if you did not realise the invoice was not contractually due when you first sent it, I made the contractual position explicit in writing that night. - I also made it clear that my mother was not refusing to meet her payment obligations. - I repeated the same point throughout our call the following day.

Your latest public explanation now raises a further question about why AMB withdrew from my mother’s project.

At the time, you said you had “had a gutful”, that you did not have time for the “nonsense” or repeated back and forth, and that customers questioning you was an “instant slap in the face”. You then said AMB had “completely pulled the pin”.

My understanding at the time was that your primary reason for pulling out was the difficulty you said you were having with certain Expandify customers.

In fact, you expressly linked the withdrawal to my failure to pull back the QBCC process and our solicitor, telling me: “That’s not my fault. That’s your fault.”

You are now publicly giving a much more specific explanation:

You said Expandify “was not in a position to pay us for the installation works” and that, as a result, “we therefore withdrew our services from your project”. You also said you gave me “fair warning” this would happen.

You then made the link to our payment even more explicit:

“You didn’t pay there claim, they couldn’t pay us.”

And later said you were trying to explain why AMB could no longer install because solicitors were involved and payment was not being made “because you emailed AMB stating that”.

But that is not what I told you.

My email said:

“The signed agreement states that the next 30% payment falls due upon arrival at the intended Australian port. INV-0278 is due on 14 August, despite stating an expected arrival date of 21 August. The carrier’s current estimated arrival date is 26 August. The contractual milestone has therefore not occurred, and we do not accept that the invoice is presently due.”

Then:

“To be clear, Kay is not refusing to meet her payment obligations. We dispute the 14 August due date because the agreed arrival milestone has not occurred.”

And when you contacted me about the QBCC matter, my written response was:

“The QBCC EDR request concerns unresolved issues relating to our contract with Expander Dwellings Pty Ltd and the delivery of the project. It’s not a personal complaint about you or your efforts. The contract is with Expander Dwellings Pty Ltd. I didn’t nominate you or Affordable Modular Buildings as the respondent, so I can’t explain how you were included in QBCC’s correspondence.”

We were not refusing to pay and expecting you to work for nothing. We were saying we would pay when the contract said the payment was due.

So I want to make sure I understand your position correctly:

Are you saying that, had we agreed to pay almost $70,000 before the contractual milestone had occurred, AMB would have remained on my mother’s project and completed the installation?

We could have had a reasonable conversation about the payment and the project. But that was impossible when you refused to acknowledge the payment schedule. The payment was expected to fall due only around 9 to 14 days later.

And that had real consequences. Your withdrawal removed that installation pathway at a critical point, leaving my mother still without a home.

All comments-

Daniel Unwin

We are building currently with Tim at AMB. Sorry to hear about what happened to

your mum.I dont have any major red flags to report. We did have multiple project

managers come and go early on and i feel that cost us in terms of delivering the

project on time.. 7months is the estimated project completion time... its actually

7mths this weeksince we paid our deposit and are looking at 2mths longer until hand

over. Communication so far is good, they always respond. As soon as this modular is

done im buying another one straight away. They did advertise they have done over

1,000 buildings... maybe they dropped the ball on a couple of the builds but have

many happy customers

1w Like Reply Edited

Kate Studento

Daniel Unwin what do you have for your deposit? Photos of progress updates?

1w

LIke

Reply

Daniel Unwin

Kate Studento council approvals are completed. Construction stage only

started like a week ago. Also not sure this post even relates to AMB

anymore, it looks like expandify is the builder?

1w Like Reply

Reply to Kate Studento

Tim Austin

Daniel Unwin appreciate you Daniel for responding.

1w Like

Reply

Reply to Daniel Unwin

MysticalRabbit9147

I've just been through AMB after literally losing everything to a builder who traded

insolvent for years. I had 12k and needed a 75k deposit because of how cba works

their modular building loans.

Tim literally upfronted all the costs of it, took a chance for me so that my family could

have a home.

I'm sorry about what's happened to you guys but honestly every interaction I've had

with them has been amazing. They restored my faith in builders.

To add btw: we get progress emails and updates and everything weekly.

1w Like Reply

Edited

Tim Austin

Alex,

We have now referred this matter to our solicitor, as we consider the statements

being made about myself and our company to be false and potentially defamatory.

For clarity, anyone reading this.

The facts from ourposition are straightforward.

We were engaged by Expandify to carry out installation works because they were

having difficulty securing contractors to complete installations

in this market and we are well established and have delivered over 1200+ jobs in 6

years.

Yourdispute and previous experience were with Expandify was not great. This is why

AMB agreed to help Expandiy Customers.

Before we had the opportunity to install your building, you engaged solicitors in

relation to the matter against Expandify. Not AMB

At that stage, a progress payment was also due under advice from Expandify. This

progress payment was to pay for a portion of installation.

As a result, Expandify was not in a position to pay us for the installation works.

Wetherefore withdrew our services from your project.Igave you fair warning that

this would happen in advance and on the day of cancellation.

We sub contracted tothemain contractor Expandify

We cannot reasonablybe expected tocarry out installation works where payment for

those works cannot be made by main contractor.

We have alsonotbeen paidmonies owed to us by Expandify for other install support

and are separately seeking advice regarding that matter.

We strongly reject any suggestion that we are responsible for the circumstances

surrounding your dealings with Expandify.

Giventhepublic statements now being made concerning me and my company, we

have sought legal advice.

Our solicitor will be in contact regarding the matter.

Another Important fact. Ithink should be mentioned.

We actually have a 4.5 star rating.

Every project in 6 years delivered

800+ building approvals

75 full timestaff

4-5 turnkey installations a week

Every construction company has delays. It's a hard industry and business to operate.

Especially in this market. While other builders close we are open. Innovating working

hard.

So Is encourage everyone reading through this to read between the lines.

My team works extremely hard and so do I.

This is an overexagerated situation that started off as good intentions to help finalise

your project that Expandify couldn't.

You left out the part where when yourmum got upset and started crying I apologised

for upsetting her. I was merely trying to explain the severity of us not being able to do

the install now that solicitors where engaged and payment wasn't being made

because you emailed AMB stating that!

Tim Austin

Affordable Modular Buildings

Tw Like Reply Edited

Tim Austin

Another Important fact. I think should be mentioned.

We actually have a 4.5 star rating.

Every project in 6 years delivered

800+ building approvals

75 full time staff

4-5 turnkey installations a week

Every construction company has delays. It's a hard industry and business to

operate. Especially in this market. While other builders close we are open.

Innovating working hard.

So l encourage everyone reading through this to read between the lines.

My team works extremely hard and so do I.

This is an overexagerated situation that started off

1w Like Reply Edited

Reply to Tim Austin

Alex

Daniel Unwin @mysticalrabbit9147

I'm genuinely glad you've had good experiences. As I said in my review, AMB may

build perfectly good homes.

This post isn't about capability. It's about conduct, ethics and accountability.

1w Like Reply

Luanne Dempster

I'm really sorry your Mum is going through such a stressful time with her build. I can

understand how upsetting it must be, especially with so much money and emotion

involved

We are currently building with AMB and have had our own challenges with delays and

staff changes, so I do understand the frustration.

Just to clarify, AMB was brought in as a third-party contractor for the build, rather

than the company that sold your Mum the home.I completely understand wanting to

share your experience and stand up for your Mum, but I think it's also important to be

mindful of how public comments may affect a business.

I genuinely hope things get sorted for your Mum soon and wish you both all the best

with the rest of the build.

1w Like Reply

Alex

Thanks Luanne Dempster I hope you get your home completed soon!

To clarify, this complaint isn't about who sold Mum the home or who caused the

delays.

It's about Tim's conduct while AMB was involved. Being a subcontractor doesn't

make that conduct any less relevant.

I think how a business treats its customers matters when people are deciding

whether to use them. I'm sharing our experience so people can read it and make

up their own minds.

1w Like Reply

Reply to Luanne Dempster

GE