A warning message for villa purchasers in Lovina

Thinking of buying or leasing a villa in Lovina, Bali? Great idea! It's a beautiful place. But a word of warning - two words actually: Shaun Taylor. This guy has set himself up as a builder of villas around Lovina under the name Brendethan Villas. He also uses the name North Bali Villa Management & Maintenance.


The express purpose of this blog is to urge potential customers of Shaun Taylor or Brendethan Villas to be very, very careful. Over the past 18 months he has left a trail of destruction behind him - promises not kept, villas uncompleted, poor quality workmanship on those he has completed, a failure to face up to his responsibilities (financial, moral and legal) ... in short not the kind of person you would want to have business dealings with.


My wife and I signed a mutual agreement with him in January 2008 and paid a deposit for a villa to be built and leased to us. Work started as promised in about June - by September we had this:

There had been a few delays - illness, an urgent need to complete the villa next door (which was supposed to have been finished by now) ...but all was okay, just send the next installment and it will be definitely finished by the end of the year.








More fool us, this was a guy we thought could be trusted. Off went more money, so by December 4 it had progressed to this:

Wow, not bad for nearly 3 months work!

We cancelled our planned trip to Bali to move into the house in January, for obvious reasons. We were now promised "the end of January at the latest".

Then at the beginning of February we received an email from Shaun Taylor to say that he was now divorced from his Balinese wife, in whose name all the business dealings had been done, and that she (Ketut Santini) was now solely responsible for completion of the villas. However as he had removed all the money that had been deposited by us into her bank account, she was scarcely in a position to do anything.

Two trips to Bali later, we have an agreement with Santini which we hope will resolve the situation we now find ourselves in - at considerable financial loss to both us and her.

However, meanwhile a number of other dissatisfied customers are reporting difficulties with the villas and leases they had signed. Roofs are leaking, swimming pools are leaking, plumbing and electrical wiring are sub-standard ... and Shaun Taylor refuses to take any responsibility for these faults, hiding behind his ex-wife's name on the documents.

So by July 2009 we have progressed to this:

I will invite our next-door neighbours to comment on their own experiences - stay tuned for another horror story courtesy of Shaun Taylor and Brendethan Villas!