Irks about my builder

2 weeks ago got a call from Mohamed who I had never spoken to saying that they had booked the fence to be put in the following week.
I was annoyed. Firstly, I was told this would be done closer to handover time. Secondly, because of that, I hadn't got another quote. Thirdly, my neighbour hadn't even signed the quote agreeing to split the cost.
I asked him why the rush. He called my site supervisor for the reason and then gave me a nothing answer. Emailed Dan, no reply (who I hadn't heard from in a month and still never replied to my email about the frame stage inspection). It was only after I emailed George that I got a reply via Monika - apparently the neighbour wanted the fence secured before Christmas.
During this time, was trying to get another quote. They were extremely slow, and they said they tried to visit the site 3 times to quote but couldn't get access, even though I had told them to call my site supervisor first. So even though they are cheaper, I'm hesitant to use them.
Anyway on the weekend, managed to finally speak to Andrew to see if he would sign the quote and found out that there wasn't any rush to get the fence completed by Christmas - after all that! This fence has caused me so much hassle! So fence will be sometime around Feb.

Another issue is that I wanted to make 3 amendments to my electrical plan - mainly to have 4 stair lights as opposed to 2. But my builder wants to charge an admin fee of $250 just to write the variation! Not happy about that, especially as I'm already paying about $300 extra for the fence. George said he would get back to me.

It's hard having decided everything early on, as this is where variation charges come in. However I guess it does help speed up the building process.

So my main complaint is the lack of communication. I hadn't heard anything for over a month, and then suddenly they tell me about this fence.

In the bigger scheme of things though, these are minor issues, hence the title of 'irks'. I've heard other horror stories, so in comparison, everything so far is going quite smoothly.

8th December
Portico brickwork of DW1 completed