After a lot of research, reading what reviews we could find and meeting with several builders, we chose Authentic. Originally, we planned to build a new house, but a house came on the market we felt we could purchase and make our own by gutting and renovating it – a significant and quite expensive project! We were given a firm construction schedule, to start July 13 and be completed by September 4. Within the first week, they had already pushed the completion date back to September 15. And so, the delays began, with lots of excuses that continued through the entire project.
We often didn’t agree with the purchase options Authentic offered and Jackie was visibly annoyed when we shopped elsewhere. She was only ever onsite once, at the very beginning of the project. Jason became difficult to get in touch with and was seldom onsite, at one point for over a month. Generally, the trades were fine, but there were numerous errors made – floor tile running the wrong direction, tile in the shower installed incorrectly, wrong size sinks installed, mismeasured countertops, incorrect back splashes. Closet shelving and flooring were incorrectly installed by Authentic personnel. Authentic’s answer to errors “Oh well, that should be good enough” or “Oops, sorry!” The general rule became if it could go wrong, it would. We were finally able to move into the partially finished house September 25. This is now May and the project is still not completed. Ten months to finish a two month project – seriously! Authentic has stopped answering our texts and emails, literally abandoning us and have never completed the job.
The billing was a nightmare. Their main focus seemed to be making sure we were paying up, despite numerous errors in the billing – charge for 13 pot lights and only install 6; charge for installing an induction cook top when we had a gas range; charge $500 for installing non-existent cable hookups; charge $550 for “installing” appliances, and on and on. Building allowances were underestimated and inaccurate, often barely covering the cost of the labour and leaving nothing for materials.
Authentic considers themselves to be a high end builder - we found them to be mediocre at best. There was generally no pride in workmanship, nor was there any concern with finishing the project in a timely manner. There was far too much assuming and far too little consultation. There was no final walk-through, minimal oversight of the work in progress, and less and less concern with issues the longer the project dragged on, yet always, the pressure to pay the bills.
Authentic transformed the project from exciting and fun to disappointing, stressful and the cause of many sleepless nights. In retrospect, we should have pulled Authentic off the project as soon as things started to go wrong, and completed it ourselves. Jason kept promising it would turn around and improve, but, obviously, it never did. We cannot recommend Authentic Developments.
