Building a new house with Swisshaus AG is turning to be a nightmare

Complaints Corner
1
Dear Community,

Please read through my story which I need to share with you all.

As I could not find any specific posts on experience of building a house with Swisshaus AG, I thought of creating a new one to specifically present you all with specific examples and the hell I am going through.

1) I bought a piece of land which was offered on Immoscout but cannot buy it directly. I needed to go through a building contract with Swisshaus to be able to buy that land. This seems to be totally unfair on common people like me.

2) Signing a pre-contract followed by an offer to build a house (Puris Special) in and around 800,000 CHF

3) Few changes which looked very normal costed me 150,000 CHF more.

4) Bank approved a loan of 900,000 CHF which means I need to find a way to arrange for 50,000 CHF myself.

4) Swisshaus then looks for an actual builder to build the house.

5) The actual bills are sent by that builder coordinated through Swisshaus.

6) The bills received was always higher than the estimate. For a pipeline work to be done, the estimate given by Swisshaus was 20,000 CHF. The bill which I received from the builder was 88,000 CHF which means a difference of 68,000 CHF.

7) The bills are still coming and I already see the money radar moving more than 1.5 million CHF (remember the initial offer of 800,000 CHF by Swisshaus?)

8) Swisshaus then make some changes in the plan and starts constructing the changes on my land without any information provided to me even if I am asking the information for 3 to 4 weeks.

9) When I raised concern and asked them to stop the uninformed construction (which can be termed as Illegal), they threatened me with sending a heavy penalty bill because the time lost to stop the work.

Story continues...................

2
I wish it were unique to Swisshaus, but I have to say all of this sounds very familiar to me on almost any construction project. I've never seen one where everything runs smoothly or where the project comes in on budget.

3
Get a lawyer who specialises in these things.

4
This is one of the cases where it would have paid (in the very literal sense) to ask around in the forum.

I would have recommend to get an expert enlisted who - depending on how much money you want to spend - was going to follow every step of the build of your house - from the wording in the contract to the final hand-over inspection.

I once spoke to a builder who said "A house is made of over 1000 parts. If you have cost-increases on some of them, it quickly adds up".

In your case, I'd assume you've been thoroughly fleeced, though. Sadly.

The other sad part is that business practices had reportedly been improving somewhat over the last years.

There's https://www.haus-forum.ch

which has other home-owners on it.

5
Hi innermeasure, I agree with your comments. Since I am very hurt with the way Swisshaus has treated me and continue to treat me, probably I got very emotional and wanted to warn the community with a sense of urgency as I did not see any specific posts.

I am trying to edit my post to calm down the tone but I am not able to edit it. I read through other posts and apparently only after 10 posts, I am allowed to edit it.

Hi rainer_d, Frankly speaking since it is Swisshaus AG ( a swiss company where quality and commitment are known to taken seriously, though I have serious doubts now), I did not even think that I will land up in such a situation. That is why I never thought of checking the posts and fully trusted the system. To inform you and other members as well, I have found one independent architect cum construction firm (Bauleiter) who should be helping me for the next phases of the project, of course I will need to pay him extra cost for his service. This further drowns me in my cost sink hole.

Hi Village Idiot, The intention was not only to share the estimate vs cost issue. It was also to share how Swisshaus decided to make changes in the plan themselves and even executed the construction without informing me. Does that sound also familiar to you?

6
PM me your edits and we can do it for you.

7
Well sort of... but honestly, if you know nothing about the building industry hire a professional to look after your interestsl, it will be money well spent in the end.

Back in the day, I started out doing insolvency work in Ireland and I was involved in restructuring a few construction companies and it was an education! I've dealt with builders here on three occasions and the tricks are the same, right down to the bail of bricks going home in the car in the evening.

8

Even Swiss people regularly fall for these companies.

One of the first and biggest problems are the contracts. Few people really understand what the legalese means and sign it anyway. Often with slight pressure from the sales-guy. Because who wants to lose out on a house just because he inspected the contract "These are just standard clauses, nothing to worry about - please sign the dotted line here." closely while somebody else signed up in that time?

We have one user here, who shared his tales in the past (but had to delete them due to legal "complications").

On the haus-forum, there's this user who is also an independent "Baumanager":

https://www.haus-forum.ch/profile/1280-pfälzer/

I once had a seminar with him and it was quite interesting.

(Never got to actually build a house...).

9
I know people who built with Swisshaus and were very happy.

We also had a quote from them for a building project on land we owned but in the end we sold the land privately and the buyer opted for another builder.

Whatever has gone wrong, you aren't going to solve it by complaining here.

10
I was very surprised to hear that the groundworks company had broken ground and had begun digging the foundations -- mainly because I was still reviewing estimates and hadn't awarded the work to any company! It turns out my architect decided to "use his initiative" to stay on schedule, without any consideration of my opinion or budget!

11
The power of 'Swiss' branding.

12
OP - very sorry to hear your story. I've lived in CH for 20 years and never heard a good tale about a 'custom build'. Everything from massive cost overruns to shoddy work. It can't all be bad but this is one more persuasive argument to keep away.

13
We have built two houses over the last 23 years here (Canton Zurich). Both with only very minor niggles but otherwise great satisfaction. Any faults were promptly rectified. All cost were made completely clear and we visited the building 2 - 3 times a week to check on progress.

We knew from the outset that we would be spending approx 15-20% above on the standard specifications.

https://www.uster-ag.ch/ and https://www.pewihaus.ch/

14
I can share a mostly positive experiences with full renovation and extension.

1) Cost overran about 20%, as expected Took a loan for a project with some options which weren't executed in the end due to the overrun

2) Mostly good quality, some defects were repaired by contractors after handover.

3) general contractor, also served as Bauleiter was advised by neighbors. I got their contacts from a couple of construction sites nearby. Simply asked owners about quality and their experience.

4) My bank adviser confirmed the choice. They typically deal with a lot construction cost overruns and can give you advice (but not propose the construction company)

All the luck for prospective house owners!!! As for myself - never again, I am going to rent in the future

15
My intention is not to complain or get a solution here. It is just an attempt to share my experience with the forum colleagues to help them make an informed decision in case somebody wants to start a house building project.

16
During our initial discussions with the Swisshaus AG sales person, we clearly raised our doubt on the general contract terms (we were getting help from our Bank Manager responsible for approving the loan to understand the contract terms). The sales person called us back after 3 days to inform that incase we have doubts or want to change the general terms and conditions, Swisshaus AG will not be interested to execute the deal with us which means we cannot even buy the Land.

17

Yet you still went ahead.........despite "raising doubts on general contract terms"

18
Yeah, pressure being put on about the contract is a huge red flag. Many people only build one house (at most!), so it's best to wait until you know that the project is being managed by a reputable, honest, approachable company which is willing to adapt to address your concerns.

19
i have been working as a bricklayer ere for 13 years, working for various companies, it seems to me that private individuals that require work, (on a major scale, ie new builds, major re furb) get a huge shock, i seem to be aware that the reason appears to be that jobs are priced by the book, that ,unlike the uk, bulding managers very rarely have hands on experience, i have been on jobs where the architect is the building manager(architects here just seem to do pretty drawings, they have no engineering qualifications, or construction ones), i have been on jobs where the design is downright dangerous, overhanging walls with no counterweight, upon telling them i would not build it and why, the architect tells me the engineer has never done this before, they go away ,come back with a solution which is a carbon copy of what i have told them, then insist this was their idea all along and it had been mistakenly left out of the remit(they are never wrong) and the increased cost just given to the client, clients are legally not allowed to communicate with the workers on anything to do with the build, it seems all jobs are just accompanied with a basic price, then they just add things on as they go along, i would never emply a building firm here,

20
or buy it after someone else has already gone through the pain.