A failed construction company owed a reported $14 million is a victim of tough market conditions, a building boss has claimed, but owners aren’t happy with that excuse.
On Wednesday, major Queensland residential builder Oracle Platinum Homes went into liquidation, affecting 300 homes, 200 suppliers and subcontractors it owed money and 70 staff who are now out of work.
William Cotter and William Robson of Robson Cotter Insolvency Group were appointed as joint liquidators.
Speaking to the ABC on Thursday morning, Master Builders Queensland managing director Paul Bidwell said the war in Ukraine was largely to blame for Oracle’s plight.
“No one really predicted that we would just have these ongoing problems. I mean, who could have predicted the war in Ukraine, which by itself had a significant impact on cost increases with the main supply of engineered wood coming from this part of the world,” Bidwell said.
“What we’ve seen in the last 18 months post-Covid is a whole lot of issues that haven’t really been looked at in trying to figure out what it’s going to cost and how long it’s going to take.”
However, one affected homeowner hit back, writing on social media: “This is not another case where the builder is the victim.
“I think we’re all tired of seeing this builder portrayed as the victim.”
He also claimed that Oracle took on more builds than they could handle and that insolvent trading had likely been going on for some time.
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Bidwell also noted that rising materials costs had contributed to Oracle’s decline.
“The massive increase in costs due to worldwide shipping costs, availability of wood, availability of trades,” he continued.
“On the East Coast, there were several hail storms that significantly affected the roofs, so there are a lot of things that have happened, kind of, completely uncovered, completely; the builders weren’t able or able to have them into account. to determine how these jobs would be built.”
Mr Bidwell assured people he was not downplaying the construction crisis, but it was not as dire as it appeared in Queensland.
“In Queensland, we know there are 70,000 licensed contractors. I’m not trying to minimize the impact but, relatively speaking, there haven’t been that many insolvencies,” he said.
“To be honest, we thought there would be more. A lot of builders have been talking about how tough it is, and we thought it might have been more than what we’ve seen.”
Also speaking Thursday morning with Sunrise was owner Dale Liston, who found out his builder had gone bankrupt while he was in the hospital.
His house is almost complete, with only landscaping, tiles and floors.
Just last week, the staff assured him that the house was only a month away from completion and so far he has invested only $350,000 for his dream home.
He lays the blame entirely at the feet of Oracle Homes and does not except that market conditions are the cause of the builder’s demise.
“Being stuck in the hospital, my resources are limited to what I can do here until I get out and get in front of a real computer,” Liston said.
“But what it means is that I moved into my house … on September 5th, which is not going to happen now, so it leaves me in a place where I don’t know where to go from here.”
Reports indicated that Oracle had taken on four times more work than it could normally handle.
“QBCC (Insurer Queensland) themselves had contacted me after they were doing an investigation into Oracle Platinum Homes about what was going on with them with the price increases and all that, and they were allowed to continue trading, although they had clearly bitten off a lot more than they could chew,” Liston added.
News.com.au spoke to an Oracle owner who has so far spent more than $200,000 on its construction and also a staff member owed $50,000 in unpaid wages.
Coincidentally, the two were mother and daughter, as the mother sold a house to her daughter.
Montana Wilkinson, 28, and her husband have shelled out $211,000 for a partially completed house, while her mother, Boz Thurtell, has lost her job and owes nearly $50,000 in company fees.
“They (Oracle) just dragged everyone’s life down,” Ms Wilkinson told news.com.au.
Ms. Wilkinson was looking to buy her first home and ended up using her mother as a sales agent, signing her contract with Oracle Platinum Homes in December 2020. However, almost two years later, the home is not complete and now the company has fallen short. .
Meanwhile, his mother, Boz Thurtell, was fired over the phone on Wednesday morning when she was told the company had gone into liquidation.
He has worked for the company for three years and is owed about $50,000 in commissions.
“It’s heartbreaking, it’s terribly worrying,” she told news.com.au.
“After I cry a little, I’ll call some recruiting agencies, try to compose myself, I guess I’ll just get on with life.”
alex.turner-cohen@news.com.au
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