A construction boss has claimed that a failed construction company that owes $14 million is a victim of tough market conditions, but the 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 owed money and 70 staff members who are now unemployed.
William Cotter and William Robson of the Robson Cotter Insolvency Group were appointed joint liquidators.
Speaking to ABC on Thursday morning, Paul Bidwell, CEO of Master Builders Queensland, said the Ukraine war 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 Ukraine war which itself had a significant impact on cost increases with the increased supply of engineered wood coming from that part of the world,” Bidwell said.
“What we’ve seen in the last 18 months post-Covid is a lot of issues that you couldn’t really look at when trying to figure out how much it’s going to cost and how long it’s going to take.”
However, one affected homeowner responded, writing on social media: “This is not another case where the builder is the victim.
“I think we are all tired of seeing this builder portrayed as the victim.”
He also claimed that Oracle took on more builds than it could handle and that the insolvent trade had probably been going on for some time.
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Bidwell also noted that rising material costs had contributed to Oracle’s downfall.
“The massive increase in costs due to shipping costs around the world, the availability of wood, the availability of trades,” he continued.
“Along the East Coast, there were a number of hail storms that significantly impacted roofs, so a lot of things have happened, more or less, completely unexpected, completely — the builders couldn’t take that into account. in determining how these jobs would be created.”
Bidwell assured people that he was not downplaying the construction crisis, but that he was not in as dire a situation as it seemed in Queensland.
“In Queensland, we know there are 70,000 licensed contractors. I’m not trying to downplay 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 constructors have been talking about how tough it is, and we think there could be more to it than we’ve seen.”
Also speaking to Sunrise on Thursday morning was homeowner Dale Liston, who discovered his builder had gone bankrupt while he was in the hospital.
His house is almost complete, only the landscaping, mosaics and flooring are missing.
Just last week he was assured by staff that the home was only a month away from completion and so far he has shelled out a mere $350,000 for his dream home.
He lays all the blame at the feet of Oracle Homes and 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 there and get in front of a real computer,” Liston said.
“But what it means is that I would be moving into my house…on September 5, 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 indicate that Oracle had taken on four times the amount of work it could normally do.
“The QBCC (the Queensland insurer) contacted me after they were looking 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, even though They had clearly bitten off a lot more than they could chew,” Liston added.
News.com.au spoke to an Oracle owner who has spent over $200,000 building it so far and also a staff member who 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 shelled out $211,000 for a partially completed house, while her mother, Boz Thurtell, is out of a job and owes nearly $50,000 in company commissions.
“They (Oracle) just ruined everybody’s life,” Ms Wilkinson told news.com.au.
Ms. Wilkinson was looking to purchase her first home and ended up using her mother as a listing agent, signing her contract with Oracle Platinum Homes in December 2020. However, nearly two years later, the home is not complete and now the company has sunk. .
Meanwhile, his mother, Boz Thurtell, was fired over the phone Wednesday morning when she was told the company had gone into liquidation.
She has worked at the company for three years and is owed about $50,000 in commission wages.
“It’s heartbreaking, it’s terribly worrying,” he told news.com.au.
“After crying a bit, I’ll call some recruitment agencies, try to pull myself together, I guess I’ll get on with my life.”
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