I had approached TAQWA in March 2018 as I wanted to develop my block of land in Perth and build a single storey house in a battle-axe block while retaining my existing house at the front. I wanted to do so to try to partially recoup a loss that I was making with my old house on the whole block due to market plummeting after I had bought it. The whole of TAQWA was Mr. Mahmoud, the head of the business and Rami, a young engineer, more involved with budgeting and site operations. At first we sat down and evaluated some high level technical and economical considerations and I must say I thought they were useful, competent and approachable. They developed a high level budget and together we reached the conclusion that the project was viable and by building, my total balance on the investment would have looked a bit better, so I decided to proceed. At that point they developed a more specific budget to include the construction of the house through a builder they had suggested to me and a series of ancillary expenses outside the house like earthworks clearing and preparation for slab, gas, water and electrical connections, stormwater pits, paving for driveway, obtaining new titles for the new blocks etc. I would have signed a contract for the house directly with the builder and an agreement with TAQWA for the management of the ancillary cost and the agreement included a 10% management fee to TAQWA as a compensation for the management of ancillary cost. They requested I signed a copy of the agreement and sent back to them for acceptance, which I did. The job would involve fetching quotes from several contractors for each of the items in the budget and provide these to me so that together we would select the preferred contractor. They would coordinate all the contractors and supervise the job on site. Each of the items in the budget was only a provisional sum as the final amount would be as invoiced from each contractor. It was their best estimate at the time and I thought TAQWA had managed several homes in the area so they had a clear idea of how much these items would cost and include the necessary contingency in the budget.
The actual construction started In January 2019. Shortly after construction I had noticed that the builder himself was managing all the ancillary costs which was never the plan as he should have only built the house. No sign of either Rami or Mahmoud on site. I immediately contacted them as I wanted them to manage the project as the terms of the agreement said, not the builder. The builder himself told me that Mr. Rami had left TAQWA and relocated to Melbourne. I then contacted Mr. Mahmoud and explained that my project had started without TAQWA’s involvement. Mr. Mahmoud was often abroad or in the country but probably busy fetching new jobs as I hardly could get in touch with him and he often replied to my emails with brief answers like “I will get back to you when I’m back in Perth”. Several weeks passed on this way and lots of time was wasted. In the meantime the builder was managing all ancillary works around the house. At that point it was clear that my project was too small for Mr. Mahmoud to see any benefit in getting some significant profit and they dropped the ball completely. I was only able to get TAQWA partially involved to get the builder to refund me some money due to some cost that was supposedly agreed between TAQWA and the builder before construction and that the builder charged 100% on me. Other than that TAQWA never showed up on site and barely replied to emails. I was insisting with very detailed emails (it was the only way to communicate with Mr. Mahmoud) explaining my concerns and he must have realized at some point they had done nothing for the project. In fact he said “it’s ok if you don’t pay us anything”. A few emails later he changed his mind and asked for $2,400 plus GST. I was amazed because let me reinstate they had done zero for the project, nothing of what I explained before should have been their responsibilities. I replied with a long email stating my case and that I was not going to pay. I never heard back from Mr. Mahmoud. 
Besides, as it turns out, all the provisional sums Mr. Rami budgeted for were too small by a big margin with some completely forgotten (so zero accounted in the budget). I ended up paying more than twice what they had budgeted for and in double the time.
In their website they declare themselves experts and “Quality is assured”. I have seen no quality, no assistance, only request for money for a job they haven’t done. Please stay away from TAQWA, they are way too busy fetching new jobs than keeping up with the ones they have signed for.

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Architectural and Engineering Model Maker

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