Onuokwu:
No updates for this project?

Nah the same thing I wan ask o. Where is @Abdulwastecx and @Podosci?

Hajji M.

There is more to building a house than just the physical structure. The relationships built during the construction process, the Priceless effort put into the construction process and most importantly the love put into the construction process. All this combine to make the structure a "Home"
The structure has been raised in accordance to the British standard codes, The physical structure on ground represents 99% of what's on paper with corrections done to the structural drawing with all parties agreeing to the correction. The Project was broken up into five stages( Foundation, Ground floor, Slab, First floor, Roof),the concrete facial was left out by the client supervisor in Lagos due to his indecisiveness as to the type to be constructed , so it was omitted from the bill of quantity and supervision agreement.

From the pictures below, It can be deduced that 4/5 stages has been competed in our agreed 5 stages. Its standard building practice that any entity who constructs the concrete facial/head beam should do the roof and the client supervisor in Lagos has decided to bring in new entities to construct the head beam/roof.


The Gross incompetence of the client supervisor in lagos (Project manager), His dubious character , Lack of communication and his intention to cheat the harneyproject team by withholding 50% of our agreed supervision fee even thou we have done 4 out of the agreed 5 construction stages has lead us to this junction where we regret to announce, the pictures above would be our last update for the project.

Thank you

mufutau55:


Nah the same thing I wan ask o. Where is @Abdulwastecx and @Podosci?

Hajji M.

we have to terminate the contract at the completion of the first floor stage when the middle man make it too difficult for us to continue the job.
I heard that some other people have been mobilized to site to continue the job. Best of luck to them. Detail breakdown of reasons why we have to stop is coming soon

abdulwastecx:

we have to terminate the contract at the completion of the first floor stage when the middle man make it too difficult for us to continue the job.
I had that some other people have been mobilized to site to continue the job. Best of luck to them. Detail breakdown of reasons why we have to stop is coming soon

Just like I knew this will happen. When there are too many Supervisors (Ogas) nothing good can come out of it.
The Client will realized later he has lost a Builder like you and Podosci. Use it as lesson learnt and move on to better thing.

Hajji M.

mufutau55:


Just like I knew this will happen. When there are too many Supervisors (Ogas) nothing good can come out of it.
The Client will realized later he has lost a Builder like you and Podosci. Use it as lesson learnt and move on to better thing.

Hajji M.

The job was made too complicated by mr Tony (the project manage and owners main padi)
These are the major reasons why we terminated the contract for professional and financial reasons.
1. Very poor remuneration
2. very poor communication
3. The Supervisor not following contractual agreement
4. Gross disrespect to contractor
5. Too many external factors beyond our control.

1. Very poor remuneration: The project manager refused to pay the agreed supervision fee as contained in the bill of quantities. To date he has only paid N200,000 for a 7 weeks job that either me or podosci have to be on site at all time, in a very remote village without electricity or pipe born water. We spend over N120,000 on fuel for the duration of time and countless amount of money on water and other basic amenities. Out of these money, we spend over N100,000 to mobilized workers from Abuja. We run into serious financial losses working in a very remote village. A very big lesson learn.

2. Mr Tony (supervisor) hardly pick my calls, as a matter of fact he refuses to pick my calls two weeks into the project when I threaten to pull out after he cut some certain amount out of the first floor decking workmanship. (a great mistake we didn't pull out at this stage of work). He latter stop picking podosci call. Podosci was around throughout the job. How can you work with people that wouldn't talk to you? The main owner of the job never call me or my partner ( except when we threaten to pull out the first time, when he called podosci to beg him) throughout the job, he was of the opinion that is friend and supervisor was always right and helping him to avoid been cheated.

3. The supervisor was too dis-respective in is conduct with us and never give us any room to dialogue on any issues of construction despite having very limited knowledge about structures or building construction

mufutau55:


Just like I knew this will happen. When there are too many Supervisors (Ogas) nothing good can come out of it.
The Client will realized later he has lost a Builder like you and Podosci. Use it as lesson learnt and move on to better thing.

Hajji M.

Iam even surprised that the many cooks on this project allowed the soup to be cooked to this stage.

NL1960:

Iam even surprised that the many cooks on this project allowed the soup to be cooked to this stage.

You are right. I am glad to hear that Abdul and Podosci has learnt their lesson on this type of deal.
They are young and they are still learning.

Hajji M.

podosci:
There is more to building a house than just the physical structure. The relationships built during the construction process, the Priceless effort put into the construction process and most importantly the love put into the construction process. All this combine to make the structure a "Home"

From the pictures below, It can be deduced that 4/5 stages has been competed in our agreed 5 stages. Its standard building practice that any entity who constructs the concrete facial/head beam should do the roof and the client supervisor in Lagos has decided to bring in new entities to construct the head beam/roof.


The Gross incompetence of the client supervisor in lagos (Project manager), His dubious character , Lack of communication and his intention to cheat the harneyproject team by withholding 50% of our agreed supervision fee even thou we have done 4 out of the agreed 5 construction stages has lead us to this junction where we regret to announce, the pictures above would be our last update for the project.

Thank you

abdulwastecx:

The job was made too complicated by mr Tony (the project manage and owners main padi)
These are the major reasons why we terminated the contract for professional and financial reasons.
1. Very poor remuneration
2. very poor communication
3. The Supervisor not following contractual agreement
4. Gross disrespect to contractor
5. Too many external factors beyond our control.
1. Very poor remuneration: The project manager refused to pay the agreed supervision fee as contained in the bill of quantities. To date he has only paid N200,000 for a 7 weeks job that either me or podosci have to be on site at all time, in a very remote village without electricity or pipe born water. We spend over N120,000 on fuel for the duration of time and countless amount of money on water and other basic amenities. Out of these money, we spend over N100,000 to mobilized workers from Abuja. We run into serious financial losses working in a very remote village. A very big lesson learn.
2. Mr Tony (supervisor) hardly pick my calls, as a matter of fact he refuses to pick my calls two weeks into the project when I threaten to pull out after he cut some certain amount out of the first floor decking workmanship. (a great mistake we didn't pull out at this stage of work). He latter stop picking podosci call. Podosci was around throughout the job. How can you work with people that wouldn't talk to you? The main owner of the job never call me or my partner ( except when we threaten to pull out the first time, when he called podosci to beg him) throughout the job, he was of the opinion that is friend and supervisor was always right and helping him to avoid been cheated.
3. The supervisor was too dis-respective in is conduct with us and never give us any room to dialogue on any issues of construction despite having very limited knowledge about structures or building construction

Okay I understand. This problem has been brewing for a while but you guys have acted in a very professional way by walking away from the job after delivering the milestones up to the stage you could without inhibiting interference.

Endeavour to collect the balance of your money for the work done though. An agreement is an agreement and you should not use your professional fees to subsidize the so called "Supervisor".

But I am just curious, if he refused to take both of your calls (Podosci and Abdulwastecx), you could have spoke to him face to face whenever he comes to site.

Onuokwu:




Okay I understand. This problem has been brewing for a while but you guys have acted in a very professional way by walking away from the job after delivering the milestones up to the stage you could without inhibiting interference.

Endeavour to collect the balance of your money for the work done though. An agreement is an agreement and you should not use your professional fees to subsidize the so called "Supervisor".

But I am just curious, if he refused to take both of your calls (Podosci and Abdulwastecx), you could have spoke to him face to face whenever he comes to site.

The project manager/Procurement officer/Client supervisor has never been to the site, He does is management from lagos, Thats one of the reasons that lead to so many site issues and delays.

podosci:

The project manager/Procurement officer/Client supervisor has never been to the site, He does is management from lagos, Thats one of the reasons that lead to so many site issues and delays.

SMH....

Kudos to the team Count it as a bLESSING in disguise.

Wish you guys best of luck
You guys acted in a very professional manner
This surely is a learning curve
I enjoyed every bit of the journey

abdulwastecx:


The job was made too complicated by mr Tony (the project manage and owners main padi)
These are the major reasons why we terminated the contract for professional and financial reasons.
1. Very poor remuneration
2. very poor communication
3. The Supervisor not following contractual agreement
4. Gross disrespect to contractor
5. Too many external factors beyond our control.

1. Very poor remuneration: The project manager refused to pay the agreed supervision fee as contained in the bill of quantities. To date he has only paid N200,000 for a 7 weeks job that either me or podosci have to be on site at all time, in a very remote village without electricity or pipe born water. We spend over N120,000 on fuel for the duration of time and countless amount of money on water and other basic amenities. Out of these money, we spend over N100,000 to mobilized workers from Abuja. We run into serious financial losses working in a very remote village. A very big lesson learn.

2. Mr Tony (supervisor) hardly pick my calls, as a matter of fact he refuses to pick my calls two weeks into the project when I threaten to pull out after he cut some certain amount out of the first floor decking workmanship. (a great mistake we didn't pull out at this stage of work). He latter stop picking podosci call. Podosci was around throughout the job. How can you work with people that wouldn't talk to you? The main owner of the job never call me or my partner ( except when we threaten to pull out the first time, when he called podosci to beg him) throughout the job, he was of the opinion that is friend and supervisor was always right and helping him to avoid been cheated.

3. The supervisor was too dis-respective in is conduct with us and never give us any room to dialogue on any issues of construction despite having very limited knowledge about structures or building construction

At least you guys have learnt something, the day u stop learning is the day someone die. It was part of my learning process too.

Let there be proper contract agreement and mobilization fee before embarking on any project.
You guys will surely bounce back.
One love.

Onuokwu:




Okay I understand. This problem has been brewing for a while but you guys have acted in a very professional way by walking away from the job after delivering the milestones up to the stage you could without inhibiting interference.

Endeavour to collect the balance of your money for the work done though. An agreement is an agreement and you should not use your professional fees to subsidize the so called "Supervisor".

But I am just curious, if he refused to take both of your calls (Podosci and Abdulwastecx), you could have spoke to him face to face whenever he comes to site.

He has never been to the site since we started the job. I don't even know him, I have never set my eyes on him. I doubt if he knows the direction to the village

segzy14:


At least you guys have learnt something, the day u stop learning is the day someone die. It was part of my learning process too.

Let there be proper contract agreement and mobilization fee before embarking on any project.
You guys will surely bounce back.
One love.

Another big lesson learned... though we send him an agreement letter but he insisted that he doesn't do that, that he prefer word of mouth, we never expected things to work out this way. Part of the learning curve my oga. We will keep learning to be better

abdulwastecx:


Another big lesson learned... though we send him an agreement letter but he insisted that he doesn't do that, that he prefer word of mouth, we never expected things to work out this way. Part of the learning curve my oga. We will keep learning to be better

Word of mouth?
Never take word of mouth as a contract agreement.

segzy14:

Word of mouth?
Never take word of mouth as a contract agreement.

Not enforceable in the court of Law. Thx.

Hajji M.

segzy14:


Word of mouth?
Never take word of mouth as a contract agreement.

Noted boss...

abdulwastecx:


Noted boss...

Can I refer you to "law of contract and tort" .

segzy14:


Word of mouth?
Never take word of mouth as a contract agreement.

Check out the memorandum of understanding
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING FOR CONSTRUCTION OF A SIX (6) BEDR00M ONE(1) STOREY AT OBEAGU VILLAGE, EZIOKWE AMURRINKANU WEST LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, ENUGU STATE. FOR MR. **********,

A. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
This memorandum of understanding (MOU) shall cover the full construction of a six bedroom one story building, although at the date of this memorandum, only the cost of workmanship and supervision of the carcass (foundation, ground floor, first floor slab, first floor and roofing) have been fully worked out.
Where both parties reach an agreement to start the project, a suitable date shall be arranged by the client and the contractor to mobilize to site.
Mr. ********** (sponsor) shall make available monies required for the execution of the project and his duties are spelt out in the section of responsibilities.
Harney projects (contractor) shall oversee the execution of the projects as long as money is made available for this purpose.
B. RESPONSIBILITIES
Sponsor:
Ensure that the contractor has access at all times to the construction site.
Ensure payments for supervision and labour are made promptly to the contractor.
Provide an abode for the contractor and his workers through the duration of the construction/renovation.
Provide source of electricity, temporary site office and a small store for equipment and machinery.
Ensure that materials are supplied to the site for prompt use of the contractor. In some instances as expressly decided by the sponsor, he may delegate purchase of materials directly to the contractor, in which case monies for this shall be made available to the contractor.
Contractor:
Ensure the deployment of reasonably experienced labour, and material for the construction of the property(ies) as agreed with the sponsor
Ensure his experience and technical depth as an engineer is brought to bear directly on the project or through a proxy as may be required from time.
Ensure that the site is kept clean at all times and any waste material not in use are promptly disposed at the cost of the sponsor.
C. PAYMENTS
The sponsor shall ensure payments to the contractor as follows
a. All labour charges shall be paid upfront before the commencement of any stage of work
b. 50% of agreed supervision fee shall be paid upfront before commencement of the project.
c. 50% of agreed supervision fee shall be paid at the conclusion of the project.
Signed:
__________________________ _________________________
Mr. ********* Harney projects
(sponsor) (for: contractor/engineer)

Witnessed by:
Name: _______________________ Name:_____________________
Address: Address:
_____________________________ ___________________________
_____________________________ ___________________________

_____________________________ ___________________________
Signature Signature

This was an extract of the 'memorandum of understanding' we send to him but according to him 'logistics would not allowed him to visit the site' he refuse to sign them and send them back to us

segzy14:

Can I refer you to "law of contract and tort".

Business Law included...

Hajji M.

abdulwastecx:


Another big lesson learned... though we send him an agreement letter but he insisted that he doesn't do that, that he prefer word of mouth, we never expected things to work out this way. Part of the learning curve my oga. We will keep learning to be better

Where is Darchiplan the architect of this project, he Seems to have contact with the executive supervisor in Lagos

mufutau55:


You are right. I am glad to hear that Abdul and Podosci has learnt their lesson on this type of deal.
They are young and they are still learning.

Hajji M.

With the intelligence, knowledge and professionalism they have displayed here, the sky is their starting point. They have made me to fall in love with Civil Engineering to the extent that iam now being tempted to consider switching the Mechanical Engineering i was considering for my son to Civil Engineering. Iam a big great fan of Mechanical Engineering.

You guys will look back at this project in the next few years and Thank God for the valuable lessons learnt from it.

Abdul,l
Very sorry to hear about this shabby treatment! Though I followed this project from day one, I only came here to ask you to update our contact info, after trying to call you or reach you via WApp. Please update our WApp contact info so that I can message or call you.

Truly sorry for the mess you suffered on this project! You are still my person!!!!!!!!!!!!

enugu6br:

Every material you requested for I buy, your labour fee I am paying at each stage show your competence and get the job done but no disrespect to quys working hard to make you a success.

@HAJI M
on the bolded not true

@TLAX
Every house has a story , probably to be told on house opening day maybe in 2 mouths time. Take this as an invitation.

@ABDULWASTECX/PODPSCI
You guys have a job to do, sincere comment will beget respect for you and make your job easier.

What surprises me is that "enugu6br" who claimed this house is for him never resurfaced to come and defend his Supervisors/Brothers when they duped this young guys. Enugu6br you claimed there will be a story to be told when this building is finished; I think it's time to start telling that story now. If you are truly the owner of this house come and defend yourself before you and your guys are labelled another scammers.

Hajji M.

Well done. Abdulwastecx and Podosci, so many lessons to learn from this.

I've been there and I can tell you. It doesn't work 99% of time due to ethnic rivalry, language barrier and logistics issue (it's so difficult to manage issues from area that you're completely new to).

As per contracts, here's my advice to you. Forget the paperwork, if possible forget the builders quote (it doesn't work most times except you get lucky).

Let the owner get a QS estimate for his build. Prepare the scope of work and payment schedule with dates. Have a lawyer sign the contract on your behalf. Also ensure you include the deliverables and responsibilities of both parties into the contract document.

I've found out that most issues can be prevented if business are done this way.


________
Don't be surprised that the man who took over has been with you for months observing and harping on why you should be replaced?

#SpeakingFromExperience

I hate cheating and deceit. Just imagine if these engineers were the ones who didn't fulfill their part of the contractual agreement. The thread would have been 40 pages by now with so much venom pouring on them.

Now that the owners/supervisors are no where to be found and obviously are the ones defrauding these young guys, the character assassination machines/chestbeaters/girly men/cranky men/property section warriors aren't doing what they know how to do best.

Imagine owners of properties defrauding the people who work for them. SMH!

Since you love my stories, here's one from my PH project to teach you some lessons.



You'll recollect the 6" block saga in the "Let's build this house" project.

Here's the other part of the story.

There's no need to recapture how the client came on Nairaland with his builders estimate to build the house and everyone including myself told him that the quote is fair to some extent even though all of us are not really familiar with the terrain.

Just like yourself, I was contacted to build the structure and I gave all the terms of engagement prior to moving to the site. This includes accommodation, settlement of all licenses and fees as may be required during Constrcution, timely provision of funds and some other basic support tools to enable us work effectively.

You'll think I've done what I should have done. No! I went ahead to request that they should get me a local engineer who is familiar with the terrain to work with till we have a good understanding of the work environment. This will help us a lot especially in an environment where the major prob is language barrier.
I never knew I was setting up myself for failure with this singular act.

The project started, the client mobilized, my guys were moved to site and I left a supervisor with them. I remain in Lagos while choosing to monitor things remotely since someone who understood the terrain has been engaged as an engineer.

So many things were introduced to us newly there. Excavation was charged differently from the way we do it here and the next thing you here is that our guys must do it! Blinding done differently! Casting is done per bags and not the usual engage-a-caster-and-labourer approach that we are familiar with. Then you end up paying one person as much as 15k for concrete pour. Again, the resident Engr said Our guys must do it to avoid their trouble. I cannot forget Obi-akpor boys.

You'll remember I told you here that the cost of keeping guys on site while awaiting materials or approval of the PM can be an overkill even to the most profitable project.

The iron bender receives his pay per length. Totally different from daily pay approach we are used to. And things went on and on like that.

I decide within myself to allow them get us off ground unknowing to me things were done to get us off the project site. The only friend we had on the project was the iron bender who asked one day when I got to the site angrily to ask why a simple foundation is taking so long "Where did you meet this Engr?" He's talking bad about you right in front of you but you don't know. His words (the engrs) then to my boys is "You never start!"

When everything was ongoing, we had to leave them to do their job with the hope of taking over when they're true with the foundation only for problem to start on Nairaland about 6" block.

Now, who ordered 6" block? Me or the resident Engr on whose instruction we were working. Before the blocks were ordered, starter bars were raised (at least we will agree no one will do a 6in column for 9in block), who supervised them you may want to ask? Me or the resident Engr? I didn't even go with an iron bender to PH, I only took 2 carpenters. The iron benders and other key guys who worked on the foundation were local workers.

After the whole brouhaha, the same person who supervised the constructions asked that we dig up the foundation with isolation footing of over 300mm concrete and start breaking the pads to check if they were ok creating unnecessary fear in the mind of the owner.
I was like Hey Mr King, you did all this job by yourself with your guys, why are you putting us through all this stress. He will reply the client in unknown language "The guys don't want to open up the ground. I cannot confirm the integrity of this job."

To cut the long story short, we left the project and the same man you see in blue jean in the picture below finished up the house.

Halleluyah!



Brabus
________
Moral of the lesson | Beware of the praise singers.

FastShipping:
I hate cheating and deceit. Just imagine if these engineers were the ones who didn't fulfill their part of the contractual agreement. The thread would have been 40 pages by now with so much venom pouring on them.

Now that the owners/supervisors are no where to be found and obviously are the ones defrauding these young guys, the character assassination machines/chestbeaters/girly men/cranky men/property section warriors aren't doing what they know how to do best.

Imagine owners of properties defrauding the people who work for them. SMH!

Your comments are despicable, The owner has been called out here by a famous and upright nlanders to come and explain his own side and even before this when the Builders gave an insight on what was going on fellow nlanders responded. You that was defrauded and you were not bold enuf to call a spade a spade! You come here calling people girly, naa you girly pass because at your advanced age you are not straight forward and cannot speak boldly or maybe naa you even defraud the builder!!! And to think you are based in the diaspora where things like this are not hidden shows you yourself get K-LEG in characters. Iranu abasha

Juokorow:
Abdul,l
Very sorry to hear about this shabby treatment! Though I followed this project from day one, I only came here to ask you to update our contact info, after trying to call you or reach you via WApp. Please update our WApp contact info so that I can message or call you.

Truly sorry for the mess you suffered on this project! You are still my person!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you sir. Here is my whatapps contact number :08169492682

back2sender:

Your comments are despicable, The owner has been called out here by a famous and upright nlanders to come and explain his own side and even before this when the Builders gave an insight on what was going on fellow nlanders responded. You that was defrauded and you were not bold enuf to call a spade a spade! You come here calling people girly, naa you girly pass because at your advanced age you are not straight forward and cannot speak boldly or maybe naa you even defraud the builder!!! And to think you are based in the diaspora where things like this are not hidden shows you yourself get K-LEG in characters. Iranu abasha

Please sir don't take it personal, I see nothing wrong from what my fastshipping wrote, it is his personal decision not to reveal the identity of the man that messed up his job and we should be okay with that decision.

It is quite unfortunate that things pan out this way between us and the owner representative but we try all we could to get in touch with the owner to clarify issue but the writing on wal shows that he knows everything about what really happened.

We made this mistake because we have been fortunate to work with people that are very good, open minded and always ready to listen to us when we have problem on site. Our anambra job is a good example of what can be done with listening and understanding owner, we started the job last year August and we about to complete the building, I pay that the almighty provide him with fun to complete the job in face of rising cost.

The owner of the anambra project came here and he commented on this issues, he is a good reference point on how a client should behave and organize project, we have learned a lot from his organization skills and we are still learning.

It was painful to be treated the way Mr Tony treated us, the day we left the site one of his representative on site (a good guy that is my friend now), he called the guy to instruct him not to let us leave the site that we have to balance him money because of what he term our disagreement not to complete the job. Unknowingly for him, Mr prince put the phone on loudspeaker and we heard all the things he said and he wasn't even ashamed of himself at that age (I heard that he is an elderly man in his sixties). After he dropped the call, in front of every one podosci called him 5 times and he refused to pick the call. Everyone was there and I have indulge Mr prince (one of the two supervisor appointed by Mr Tony) to open up a nairaland account so that he can also contribute on this topic because up till now he alleged that they haven't settled his outstanding payment up to about N300,000.

The whole issue was really a big surprise to is, we have never worked for people without the integrity of the structure in mind. At every milestone we have to talk, act as if we are the owner, demand for good materials and insisting they do the right things.