Building a House - Choosing a builder

Welcome to the Community @brianbrennan

I suspect that is somewhat out of scope for Choice’s focal activities but there are numerous posts on the Community about experiences, and your comments seem germane to ‘Choosing a builder’ so I merged it here.

Other than surveys and compilations of complaints that usually get to ‘he said she said’ discussions, calling in engineers and surveyors, and sometimes silks, doing more than a ‘how to guide’ would be a very significant endeavour, with this topic being no more than a primer on the possible things that could get overlooked or go pear shaped.

Having had some experience with a significant commercial build that was managed under questionable circumstances as well as having been a student of ‘media reports’ over time, there are known to have been (and probably remain) some commercial and probably residential builders who are masters of low balling a bid to get a job and then negotiating up for every meeting, letter, email, and variation that arises to achieve a top profit before it is over. About 20 years ago I seem to remember a builder got disqualified from government bidding for a few years for that practice.

There are also known dodgy practices whereby builders delayed completing a development to hit the sunset clauses so they could renegotiate or cancel a contract since ‘the price is up’ or the ‘size of the flat is down’ to make more of them; government finally took notice of that but I do not know if the outcome was as efficacious as it could have been.

When it happens it can be largely on those who write the specifications that are not ‘tight enough’, or sometimes the customer or contract manager as they feel random changes should just be done, whether or not required by the contract.

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Hi Dawn. Yes, the VBA is truly pathetic. I engaged a Registered Builder for an internal house renovation, only to discover, when the work turned from good, to appalling, that HE was in his 80s, long ago retired, and NO-ONE doing the actual work, was actually qualified in any way! As long as the old bloke renews his driver’s license, and includes it with his Builder’s license renewal (every four years) his Company can can fly well and truly under the radar…literally, for as long as he lives! I took them on in VCAT (and won)…so, they never got paid beyond the deposit I paid. Further, no Contract was issued, compliance Certificates were with-held “pending payment”, rectifications were never done, they charged an illegal 20% deposit, and someone who knew their lock-box code, stole 8 boxes of floor tiles from INSIDE the locked house. I left detailed feed-back about it on Product Review, and surprise, surprise, the wife of one of the dodgy’s, a clerical employee of the Company, and several BNI (Business Networking Group) buddies immediately left glowing reviews, to bump me negative review down the list. The VBA laws need to BE mandatory, with mandatory fines for breaches, and/or same to be issued by VCAT…not applied as some individual VBA Employee deems appropriate. Policing building “law” is literally non existent.

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It’s not ‘Policing’. Which ever way consumers look at it, there is no one running around in a uniform responding to consumer phone calls and issuing fines or notices of offences. Policing is reserved for criminals, and traffic offences. Some would suggest mostly the second. The system places the burden on the consumer to make the argument/case, confront the business, and follow up by convincing the most appropriate Govt office or tribunal they have a valid claim. A business can simply say no as often as necessary along the way, before deciding the best way out.

P.S. It should not be left unsaid that the actions of some businesses are criminal, morally or factually? It’s exceptional for the failings of a business to result in the owners and managers personally held to account. If so the penalties can appear insignificant restive to the pain and damage/losses inflicted.

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Back in the 1970’s, a Council building inspector was required to check the formwork and reo before a house slab was poured.

One of the 2 greatest jerry builders in Cairns was building 2 adjacent houses in the street where one of my employees lived.

He witnessed the inspector check the first site and the slab was poured.

When the inspector departed, the charlatans ripped the reo out of the wet concrete and laid it on the second site.

They tried a similar scam when they built a 2 storey building for a new Chinese restaurant and residence but the owner became suspicious and had the slab tested to confirm that there was no reo in it.

They had to demolish the slab and redo it properly.

A person who had worked for the other leading jerry builder told me of how they used the timber from an old house they had demolished to make way for thier jerry built apartments, in the construction of a couple of houses.

He said that he could hear the termites in the old timber they used for the framing.

Of course we now have the fearless QBCC.

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Without doubting the story, what happened next?

Curiosity asks how the recycled steel reo did not show signs of previous placement in wet concrete. The first poured slab from day one of the following construction would have demonstrated significant issues. Assuming this was a Cairns or tropical North Qld house site, it would have been very obvious.

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The person who witnessed the incident was a qualified carpenter who had worked in the building industry for years.

He did not mention what happened next but I expect that they would have simply washed the wet concrete off with a hose.

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One common definition of ‘policing’ is the enforcement of regulations or an agreement.

It would be nice if there was policing of building regulations.

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It would also be ‘desirable, valuable, critical, essential, ….’, which every way we choose to describe the delivery of enforcement.

Taken on face value @Fred123 anecdote suggests policing alone is not the solution. This assumes the role of the inspector is to that effect.

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I agree with you Jenie, about almost non-existent building oversight. Building regulations are actually law and the VBA should be policing them and ensuring the builders they license operate within the law. And that means they should be regularly conducting random audits, properly investigating consumer complaints, and punishing the rogue operators with fines or licence suspension/cancellation, or even criminal charges if warranted.

I also agree that this issue is out of the scope of Choice. My son is still fighting for consumer rights in the building industry, in VCAT and now in the Supreme Court. He is in correspondence with the Auditor-General, Ombudsman, Consumer Affairs and IBACC and the Minister. It seems to me that they all know the building industry is in dire need of change to protect consumers, but it’s a potato too hot to handle. So here we are…

My son’s builder is now on the VBA’s Disciplinary Register (available to all) for, among other things, the following which I’ve paraphrased:
*entered into a major domestic building contract that was not compliant because it omitted important consumer protections
*permitted building work to be constructed that did not comply with Australian Standards
*failed to provide a complete copy of the plans and specifications for the building work

  • failed to provide all required information on the plans and specifications for the building work and
  • failed to provide the proper notice in respect of a variation to the Contract

The penalty for these was a fine of $3,464.64 plus costs. Is that reasonable? The purpose of the inquiry was ‘protective not punitive’ so the transcript reads. See the issue here?

Apparently only one other complaint has been made against this builder. Considering the list of transgressions, does anyone believe these applied only to my son’s build, and not the other 99 houses which were on the go at the same time? Or the other 1199 houses built that year by this builder?

So why hasn’t there been more complaints? We’ve certainly heard endless stories from other very unhappy customers. Is it because the VBA see their role more as support for builders than support for consumers? I believe it is and that stacks the odds against the consumer. Is it because many don’t know they can put in a complaint to the VBA? Maybe. Taking on a builder can be a very time-consuming, difficult and very risky affair. It’s a David and Goliath battle, especially if the VBA is supporting the builder and not you, as in our case. (The builder had to demolish the partially-built house so what does that say about the VBA and its position on the matter?) The things that happened during our complaints process enrage me to this day and the way I feel about the VBA is better left unsaid.

I’m very proud that my son fights on, no longer for himself, but for all consumers. He’s trying to help people like you, Jenie, but it is a hard, slow slog.

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You might be interested in this ‘front window dressed’ document.

https://www.vba.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/97480/VBA-Regulatory-Approach.pdf

In my experience the more pretty diagrams with arrows and boxes the less substance there often is when one tries to relate it together. I’ll not try to summarise or lead to a conclusion, but a critical eye could easily come to certain conclusions.

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Thanks, Phil,
I note that this is dated 2016, but it is relevant to the time of my son’s complaint.

When my son challenged the VBA on why they hadn’t followed their own policy, he was told that the policy was out-dated. It disappeared from their website and there was no new policy put up to replace it.

The current ‘show cause’ system is doomed to fail because it seems to me that the VBA is too quick to take the practitioner’s word as gospel.

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Hi Dawn. Thank you, and good on your Son for his continuing effort. It should be a “simple” task for the VBA to apply the law/s as written, and instigate the fines, for breaches of those Laws, as also written. Word would spread quickly throughout the building industry, that profits will evaporate as fines are issued…Perhaps what we really need, is a Class Action against the VBA for negligence, or failure of THEIR fiduciary care. The VBA HAS the power to enforce the law, and punish by fines etc., so, failure to DO so, is legally a breach of their defined role…their fiduciary care. This might actually force the VBA (and other State equivalents) to DO what they are paid for, exist for etc.

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An old saw is ‘Welcome to Australia, owned and operated by property developers’, and a previous Victoria Premier was known as the ‘Minister for Property Developers’ as he and his party were deemed to prioritise minimal restrictions and quick approvals and most things ‘in the way’ seemed to be ‘pushed out of the way’.

As a public service agency created by and beholden to government, operating without fear or favour is nice to read about, but may not be found in practice so often.

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It’s possible to get it seriously wrong, even when contracting with one of the big names. Metricon in this instance.

Unfortunately there is a lesson in this story that exposes the weaknesses of the government bodies expected to support consumers. Is the only recourse for the consumer - a court of law?