Disgruntled tradies left out of pocket from the recent collapse of a construction firm have ripped out the equipment from one customer’s house to try to recoup their money.
They also appear to have trashed the home and left it in an unsafe state, with the owner calling it a “death trap”.
On Tuesday, news.com.au reported that Western Australian-based building company the Slatter Group had appointed liquidators to wind up the company.
The liquidators told news.com.au that Slatter Group’s liquidation would see 10 staff members lose their jobs, and had left the fate of 15 building projects, both commercial and residential, in jeopardy.
John* is one of those unlucky customers, and claims that since the news broke of the firm’s demise, his home has been completely wrecked.
The WA resident, who preferred to remain anonymous from fear of making his home more of a target, claims tradesmen removed the airconditioning units and scaffolding in his house.
“Tradies have been taking out all the aircon equipment in lieu of payment from the builder,” John told news.com.au.
“The site’s been generally trashed,” John continued.
“The scaffolders weren’t getting paid so (they) came and took all that down, knocking over a custom brickwork wall and removing the safety barriers (which were) stopping anyone on site from potential falls from the top floor”.
They’ve “literally left it a death trap”, he added.
Pictures supplied to news.com.au show that the balcony and wall are ruined, despite the fact they were completed in the building stage some time ago.
It’s understood this damage was incurred when tradesmen removed the scaffolding in place for other parts of the house following the announcement Slatter Group had gone bust.
Piles of bricks appear to have been pushed over out of spite while rubbish has been dumped in his yard as well.
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John said he was not surprised to learn that Slatter Group had gone under, saying it had been an “open secret” for months that the company was on the verge of ruin.
“As a customer, the helplessness of the months going by just watching and waiting and willing for the builder to finally admit it’s over and go into liquidation is heartbreaking and incredibly stressful, exhausting and expensive,” he said.
He said it became particularly obvious in the last six months, with no work being done at all on his site in that period of time, and workers at the company taking longer and longer to respond to him.
All up, the builder’s liquidation is expected to cost the man tens of thousands of dollars.
He’s spent $60,000 in rent over the years while the build was underway and claims ruined cladding will cost an additional $20,000, as well as replacing the aircon unit.
“Another big kicker that I’m sure will be hurting many is that we took a loan with a fixed term interest rate,” John added.
“Every month we’re not in that new house is a month we’re paying rent, paying some mortgage and not able to put extra into the home loan to lower its balance while still on the low fixed rate.”
It’s been 611 days since he signed the building contract and the house is still not complete.
Samuel Freeman and Clare Baily of big four accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) are the joint liquidators of the Slatter Group.
Mr Freeman told news.com.au the company had “ceased trading” and that it was too early to tell how many creditors there were, or the company’s total assets and liabilities.
“The next 48 hours are about gathering information. Then we’ll have more information,” he said.
“It’s a difficult situation for everybody.”
The liquidator said the company’s director blamed the firm’s failure on issues the entire construction sector is facing, such as cost escalations and locked-in price contracts, which has seen dozens of building companies collapse in the past year.
The Slatter Group had been in business for 20 years and did a combination of residential builds as well as government contracts, particularly education-related construction works.
Last month, a major Victorian construction firm, Porter Davis Homes, ranked in the top 15 of Australia’s largest builders, also collapsed.
This left more than 2000 projects up in the air, and disgruntled tradies reportedly left one homeowner with $50,000 worth of damage to her house.
The new mum said the sink and bathroom taps were intentionally left running in her Melbourne build, flooding the property with 7cm of water.
All of the doors and walls were also scratched with a knife.
She believed the damage was caused by subcontractors working on the home.
The very next day, a Clyde North property being built by Porter Davis caught fire.
Police said they were investigating a suspicious fire at the under-construction Porter Davis home, after firefighters were called to the property.
Photos from the scene showed the two-storey home still partially ablaze with most of the roof and upper floor torched.
One Porter Davis customer news.com.au spoke to at the time, Ben Kucenko, said upon hearing the news of the company’s collapse he raced to secure his building site and removed signage to try to spare his property from acts of revenge.
alex.turner-cohen@news.com.au