my close family member brought a house from a large franchised builder

This house was built for the project manager of the company, so naturally the contractors would pull out all the stops and do their best work?

Well, if this is the builders producing their best work for their project manager, I'd hate to see what the average customer of this company is receiving in regards to build quality. I unfortunately believe this is a symptom and the problem is the size of this company, with a small local builder a client gets a craftsman who relies on their reputation to insure they have a pipeline of work. If one customer is upset at the result of their build, there is a ripple effect where the word of mouth advertising slows and the builder looses out on a future pipeline of work. For this reason, a small local building company is in most cases will be doing everything in their power to ensure each build meets a high level of finishing. The company who built my family member's house isn't so reliant on this word of mouth, they have a massive marketing budget with TV ads, plus their a franchise so you can drive around in any New Zealand city for 20 minutes and find a branch that you can walk into and request an appointment. The people who own a company care deeply about the quality of work their business produces, and with a small building business like Coldicutt Blackman the directors of the company are on the tools everyday on site so no rough workmanship falls through the cracks. With a large building company, the people who are working in the business are so far removed from the people who cares deeply about the quality of work.

I couldn't take too many photos as I didn't want to alert my family member to there being a problem but these highlight a little bit of what I'm referring to in this article.