It struck me on Friday when speaking to a neighbour that they might never have known that their retaining wall was actually classified as "Protection Works". Could it be that (some?) builders simply never inform their clients that the work they are doing is covered by the Victorian Building Commission?
So all this time, where I've been fighting with my neighbours' builder about the Protection Works and their (the builder's) failure to follow due process and actually do the work correctly, my neighbours have been misled by their builder into thinking I'm complaining about arbitrary things?
Here's a link to the Commissions documentation for any that are interested. Protection Works Process
My neighbours' builder served me with the OLD version for both Protection Works, and have failed to send me the final report within the due time; and still haven't. So last year, while this was all going on, I was gathering evidence against said builder and slowly putting the paperwork together against the construction manager who was blatantly being deceptive towards his client, and lying to us.
In the end, their site surveyor had to bypass that construction manager and go to the regional management of the building company to force them to send engineers out...who actually found I was right all along and had the work redone. You feel somewhat vindicated, but thanks to that construction manager, it's cost me the initially good relationship with my neighbours.
What annoys me most, is that in this entire process, I have played with an open hand. Trying to involve the one neighbour from the start ended up with an argument and no further comms. So with the other neighbour, I tried to not involve him and just let him know that there may be a problem, and now that the VBA is involved (investigating the Construction Manager), now he's upset...even though the case was started before he even moved into his house and he is not listed as the subject of the complaint.
Sigh... does honesty actually win anymore?
