VCAT, owner wins damages for garage slab heave!

There are four types of mistakes:

1 Genuine mistake,
yes we are all human and capable of making a mistake

2 Inevitable mistake
When you have builder who does not have proper project control and QA system and employs supervisors that are not properly
trained (to save costs) mistakes become inevitable

3 Greed, masquerading as mistake, as a worst case of 2 above where developer having sold units of the plan then goes about substitutions, omissions (including paying for proper supervision) embarks on cost cutting of everything shortchanging the buyer.Or a volume builder cutting down on QA because it is too expensive and because it is too easy sc**ew owners knowing that one in ten disputes will end in VCAT, then 3 in ten will go to decision and the payout will be a pittance.And there is no punishment.
It is sad when it is possible to make business decision that doing a bad job is more profitable than doing a good one

4 Stupidity
Tradie that will just not invest in occupation that brings him living. Look at his tools, worth nothing but he does have the latest ute and a 60K boat. He has been to all the games but it's been decades since he updated anything about his occupation.

When as a young undergraduate I started working for a major builder I still remember my old Pommy foreman who interviewing trades for a job simply said "show me your tool box" and it was either you got the job or there is the door out.

If you don't have the right tools (including updated knowledge in your head) you can't do the job.

I have no sympathy for 2-4 above

There is the other side of that argument..Stricter regulations of trades and monopolies forces prices up.
Why dont you ask the painters guild why acrylic textured coatings costs (much) more than brickwork?
If the masons guild was around today I would hate to think how much your house would cost?

There are a lot of new home owners around who have had huge financial imposts as a result of poor workmanship and non adherence to Standards.

You cannot justify lower costs being a benefit of poor workmanship and a lack of knowledge about the required Standards and regulations.

@Structural, yes the price will go up possibly for sure, however those that employ quality tradesmen will have lower compliance costs and will be able to secure more business. The first step is to have meaningful fines and recourse against poor quality or sub standard work.

Sometimes I suspect that doing it right the first time is actually no more costly.

Greater confidence in getting what you pay for would be a welcome change.

I know everyone bags the banks but imagine (or remember) when banks could not pay when you wanted your money back. Look at the response from regulators. Now of course that would be the extreme for the building industry and the cost of compliance would skyrocket but there has to be a meaningful middle ground.

Doing things right the first time needn't cost any more and whatever the specs state, the home owner is paying for anyway.

Nice work BE. Good news for the home owner.

It was three years

You are right, if there is no credible defence they will try to create something from nothing and throw up lot of smoke.
Contractor was partly relying on newspaper articles to show how reactive soil was and the high incidence of problems in the area but did not mention that despite that he was making a living concreting in the area.

One of the issues was that contractor was claiming reliance on cement and concrete association that recommended 1degree fall for paving, but that is not consistent with BCA and BCA prevails.

Furthermore he was claiming that it would be visually unacceptable to have 50mm fall on paving around dwelling and admitted to doing hundreds of other jobs just the same as this one.

any chance of getting the VCAT reference number?

Yeah I did. Too recent to be published yet. Hence wanting a number to keep track