Reviews

Review Details

• Review fromJim O

  Date: 06/03/2025

  1 star

  Jim O

  Date: 06/03/2025

  We fired MacKenzie Builders at a month over the contractual completion date. The house was nowhere near finished and more than 40% over budget. Workmanship was shoddy costing money to rectify. Labour was inexperienced, not supervised properly and wasted a lot of time and money doing sub-standard work. People need to report bad contractors like this to prevent him doing this to people over and over again. I now know he's done this before, but it's too late, the damage is done.
  

  MacKenzie Builder Services Ltd.

  Date: 21/03/2025

  In response to the complaint from Mr. Jim Oconnell about firing MacKenzie Builder Services Ltd. (MBSL) we are happy to provide some crucial insight as to what really happened on this project.
  Mr. Oconnell wanted to be his own General Manager (GM) for most parts of the job. This restricted our ability to properly execute the job. Mr. Oconnell had no experience with renovations or new construction. He had no ability in making decisions or organizing subcontractors. He was not a GM, period.
  Mr. Oconnell was not able to provide material or answers when needed as a result we waited months for material and direction to complete jobs.
  Mr. Oconnell ordered subcontractors and material without our knowledge or approval, but Mr. Oconnell managed to blame everyone else for his own incompetence. He never accepted accountability for his errors as a GM of the project but continually blamed MBSL.
  MBSL never had an estimate with Mr. Oconnell as he and his wife never confirmed size of job or materials to be used, but MBSL started the project because the Oconnells were in a rush to commence and we held them in good faith. We billed them on a time and material basis and have a signed contract with them.
  Throughout the project, Mr. Oconnell and his wife continually added to the size and complexity of the project from when it was first discussed, and picked more expensive material than they were advised they could/should afford to keep the costs reasonable.
  Mr. Oconnell started off the project with a down-payment and proceeded to pay his monthly bills on time up until September 2024. He blamed his banking system, saying it was difficult to get the funds transferred from overseas. We had no way of knowing if this was an excuse to stall for time due to lack of financing or if it was a legitimate reason but we tried repeatedly to discuss everything with Mr. Oconnell to hopefully come to an agreement and finish the build. Mr. Oconnell became very hostile, then distant, not answering our texts messages or emails and we felt since a large amount of money was owing, that we could no longer continue the job and at the end of October we pulled our equipment and crew off the job.
  
  Working Conditions on site:
  Mr. Oconnell would remain on site all day. He camped in his trailer, glaring at our crew from the window and would impede our crew from doing their jobs. He watched our workers even when they took bathroom breaks, saying they were wasting time for stopping for bathroom breaks.
  We have an ethnically diverse crew, with half our employees from overseas, brought in through the Atlantic Immigration Program, all of them extremely pleasant, hardworking and reliable. Mr. Oconnell did not hold back from making racist comments and one of our crew in particular, who wears a headdress, was constantly harassed by Mr. Oconnell. It was blatant racism and honestly was disgusting. Seems like Mr. Oconnell has disdain for anyone who is of colour other than white. Mr. Oconnell made the environment toxic, it was not healthy to work in but our crew stayed professional and kept going, hoping to finish the project and then be done.
  In conclusion, Mr. Oconnell wanted to be a General Manager with no experience and expected to come in under budget and on time even though he could not manage his position.
  In our experience, clients looking for a general contractor with 35+ years of experience in the trade with a great reputation and very few complaints stick to hiring the right person and then let them do their job the way it should be done. They don’t pretend to be the General Manager.
  Mr. Oconnel had no experience being a construction general manager and then refused to pay his over budget project that he created himself.