On 2 February 2021 we paid our deposit to Arden Homes on the promise they would commence building our home in July 2021 and that we would be in by Christmas. We signed the contract 12 May 2021 and Arden Homes were to have obtained building permit and commence building within 21 days and have 280 days to complete our home. They did not meet these deadlines. They cut our site rendering it unsaleable in August and the suspended works for no less than 70 days. By the time the slab was laid on November 4 2021, the windows and steel for the frame had been left in the mud and weather for over a month. The windows were badly damaged and the steel rusted. There were numerous non-compliant and not to plan, issues with the slab. Arden Homes solution to one issue, to jackhammer the the edges exposing porous honeycomb. The rest of them they tried to build over. Parts of the frame overhung the slab by 50mm. Arden Homes ignored engineer's rectication detail and bolted untreated timber to the slab to support the frame. Incorrect trusses were installed and in place for a month while they tried to build over. Eventually they replaced the trusses on the main house roof but left the wrong pitched ones on the garage. The roof was installed and the box gutters sat above the parapet wall because the trusses  were too high. They tried to disguise this by tacking on a few bits of timber to raise the parapet wall in one section. The roof was later identified as having countless non-compliant items and instead of gutters, fascias and capping being the one colour as per contract there are bits and pieces in 3 different colours. Work again stopped for 8 weeks. No temporary downpipes were installed and water was let pool around the already compromised slab. Having been unable to get Adren Homes to rectify the outstanding items. I posted in a private FB group as to our experience. A senior representative from Arden Homes took it upon themselves to call my husbands boss threatening to withhold work if I did not take the post down. When I put a honest review on Product Review they had their lawyer send a "Cease and Desit" letter. In March 2022 we addressed some of the issues at DBDRV. We came to an agreement, Arden Breach the agreement but the VBA issued no penalty. In May 2022 they ground the surface of the slab against the engineer's notes on slab plans. It cracked. We addressed this with the RBS, David Murphy DJM and were told he would compel Arden to get an engineer to do report on it. That never happened and the stack slide door bowed over where it cracked was and would no longer slide. There were walls that were more than 35mm out over less than a metre. Tiles packed out so far that the mixer couldn't turn on. Windows had had weather strips removed. They tried to swap out the Caesarstone with a product that was 30% cheaper. Front door was out of plumb leaving a 30mm gap between hebel and door frame. 3 rainhead downpipes not installed with 60m2 of garage roof running into 9m of gutter with the only downpipe on the high end. June 2022 they issued Lock Up and Fix invoices even though the stages were not complete and no attempt was made to rectify the non-compliant issues from the previous stages. Arden Homes suspended works again because we refused to pay the invoices until stages and rectifications were complete as the cost of contracted items not supplied were approx. $70000, estimated cost to rectify and complete was $200000 and they would have 90% of our contracted price. 140 days past contracted completion date, we issued them with a formal 10 day notice to rectify or face termination. They made no attempt to rectify. The Director and Construction Manager just keep demanding we "Pay the Money"! Following termination they have been as vexatious as possible. They broke into and damaged the property, they stalked and harassed us. They colluded with David Murphy to not update our permit to delay the completion of the build and cost us as much money as possible. In a further act of spite, they made a claim in VCAT for balance of contract even though they did not complete the build, claiming "Unjust Enrichment". There are laws in place that prohibit this kind of rogue behaviour and consumer guarantees that are supposed to protect us from dodgy builders. Our story has become all to familiar with people building with Arden Homes, IT'S TIME THE VBA AND CONSUMER AFFAIRS VICTORIA STARTED ENFORCING THEM!