ᐅ General contractor, customer service, and communication extremely frustrating

In December 2020, we signed a turnkey contract for a single-family house with a regional general contractor. Due to site development and other delays, construction only started in November 2021. Even before that, we noticed that communication was very slow. Questions went unanswered for ages; scheduled phone appointments were simply missed, and so on. When we finally managed to have a phone call, we expressed our frustration clearly but always politely and professionally. Our general contractor explained everything with too much work, constantly changing schedules because of company XY, and of course, COVID-19. From his perspective, our questions were not important. That might be true to some extent, but for us, it is impossible to know, since the schedule and who is supposed to do what when remain completely unclear. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect answers to questions about a high six-figure project within a reasonable time. Our impression is that he simply doesn’t care and basically says: “That’s how it is, deal with it.”

As a side note: So far, there is nothing to complain about the work itself; even our independent construction supervisor has no objections. However, there are still frequent questions and occasional requests for changes (recessed spotlights, sliding doors, things like that). When it takes 3 to 4 weeks to get a response — mind you, just any kind of response, not even an answer — the frustration grows enormously. We asked for a list of subcontractors; this was promised again two months ago after several reminders, but we still haven’t received it. We have questions about the further schedule, when the house will be ready to move in — we’ve long stopped believing in the contractually guaranteed construction period; the standard excuse is COVID-19. We just want to know what the realistic timeline is. No sign of life for three weeks now. Two phone appointments were scheduled since then but simply passed without cancellation, rescheduling, or any comment. We have no idea when it might be finished, because the entire interior finishing still needs to be done. The fact that we also need to plan ourselves — vacations (for our own work such as painting), terminating the rental contract, and so on — are again things that, from the general contractor’s point of view, are not important. But they are important to us. Without wanting to sound arrogant, we are the CLIENTS and have paid everything fully and on time so far, so I expect my questions to be answered.

We understand that everyone’s order books are overfull and many companies probably don’t even know how to manage everything anymore. But is this kind of behavior really the standard in the construction industry now? How do you deal with people or companies like this?