Building inspectors views. Key Building Consultants.

"t's not Black & White...... there are shades of grey"
Wrong again!

DBCA 1995 defines any breach of statutory warranties a defect regardless of cause

"Deception & Mistakes Doesn't necessarily mean "Defect"
Wrong again!
Deception is dishonesty and there are no shades of grey in that, its all black
Mistake = lack of care or skill= breach of warranty= defect

Jacpat
I suggest you talk to the QBCC about Defective Work & Disputes
they will advise you on Mediation and what reports you need
Your builder will provide amended drawings, I suggest you hire your own independent engineer
to back up your claim
Goodluck

what's funny?

Building inspector, congrats on starting the thread.

I have a house under construction - or in theory under construction - as the builder has stopped work because I won’t pay him a couple of hundred thousand (yes a couple of hundred thousand) more than the fixed price contract we signed.

I don’t think he under quoted, as I looked at other builders with comparable designs and they were all within a reasonable margin of each other - and this bloke was certainly not a couple of hundred grand cheaper than the others. I personally think his issues are cost control not quoting.

This guy has stopped working on our place but continues to work on another big job he has, so he can’t be too broke and as a sole trader he doesn’t have any protections that there might be with a company structure.

I won’t go too much into the specifics but surely it can’t be that hard to find an honest builder?

buildinspector joined the forum on 23 November 2018 and posted once in one thread and started this thread on the same day.

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Picnewhome, I hope that by bumping this thread, you receive a reply by one of the industry professionals as your issue is very serious. What has happened since and have you sought legal advice?

Good luck.

My goodness,200,000 in dispute,how could this possibly be,I do know some.builders that dangerously when having to qoute just quote prices of similar size homes and even situations of accidentally leaving off a zero,yes instead of ,30000,put in 3000,but 200,000 is mind blowing ,just can't see how.

Yes that was our response.

If I didn’t have the emails I wouldn’t believe it myself!

He has managed the problem by not doing any work on the job since the end of Jan, so I guess as far as he is concerned it is all cool!

If I was guessing I would say that the builder has got most of your money (because of "S" cash flow curve) the money is spent and now what is left is less than is required to finish the job. That is why the builder is no show. If there was money to be had he would be breaking his legs to get to work on your house.

Yes. I reckon his issue is cost management not poor quoting.

There is still over 150k in the loan to go but he isn’t interested.

The interesting thing is the figures he put into a spreadsheet to “prove” to me where the monies already paid went.

He has just under 23k for the use of his vehicle and trailer. Over 12 k to fill some skips under the category of waste management.

He has taken the money we have paid him (over 600k) and worked backwards to fill in the spreadsheet.

Where it gets messy is where I checked the progress to ensure the progress payment was ok to pay, I didn’t know he had kicked the invoices for that work down the road and is now claiming that they need to be paid as part of the completion figure - so his figures to finish the house include invoices for work I have already paid him.

And yet the qbcc won’t do a MFR audit on him to confirm he meets the obligations of his builders license.

It is really bugging me as we have very few rights.

We can’t terminate as he has invoked the dispute clauses in the contract so we need to resolve that first. He disagrees with our assertions about what he needs to do next to get the next progress payment.

You need someone with contract management skills to do a full contract and payment reconciliation so you know your big picture
however no amount of accounting will change what I have suspected. The horse has bolted.
You have paid the builder 600k
$ 150k left on the contract is peanuts and will not finish the job (flat part of the "S" cash flow curve on top). That's why he wants extra 200K
I don't like your situation
You should invest in expert opinion

I have a good solicitor who is dealing with it now, but gee it is frustrating.

It is about 6 weeks away from being finished..

I suspect this guy has done it before because he got a flogging in the Bunnings carpark at the very beginning of our contract (not us I hasten to add!) -he said it was because he got involved in a car park rage incident but I have my doubts now, as this stunt he is pulling with us is too polished to be a one off.

Thanks for responding building expert.

Once we can access the home warranty insurance things will become clearer but until then we are stuck making sure we play with a straight bat - he can be as non compliant as he wants to be, but we refuse to do anything but comply with the contract so we have clean hands at the time it ends up in the tribunal.

This Australian concept that a third-party agency will gallop over the horizon to solve problems. Fascinating.

Alright kks I will bite..what do you mean?

There is some form of external agency that arbitrates contract disputes in most jurisdictions.

Your case is yet another example in a very long line of disadvantaged consumers that justifies a Royal Commission into the building industry.

Queensland is waging a campaign to ensure that subbies are paid and unscrupulous builders don’t just run up a series of unpaid bills with their tradesmen and then vapourise, which is great and well worthwhile.

The otherside of the coin, as you say Save H2O, is the consumer that gets stuck because a builder either has a pattern of not managing projects properly and not taking personal responsibility- hitting up the owner because they think they already have so much invested that they will cave and stump up the cash, or just walk away and not do the work.

Either way they are unethical and don’t deserve to be in the business .

I would like Mick De Brinni (the qld state minister responsible), the QBCC and the other regulators to take this stuff seriously and chase and prosecute builders who do the wrong thing.

I am not sure what you are suggesting KKS but there comes a point where the relationship with the builder gets to the point where you can’t deal with it by yourself and needs an external party to adjudicate.

If one party complies with the contract and the other deliberately doesn’t then there clearly isn’t a huge amount of wriggle room for negotiations.

I think kks is saying,that Australias dispute system such as VBA and vcat isn't working,new home builders first port of call with disputes is very poor and I would outlaw contracts from HIA,MBA, just too much in favour of builders.

I agree with you there re the contracts.

It is interesting, you have a cooling off period unless you get legal advice then you don’t.

Given all the palava the ACCC goes through with the AUSTRALIAN consumer guarantee etc, there is sod all protection against unscrupulous builders in a market where people are making the biggest purchase of their lives.