Ballarat construction firm Goldfields Building Co has gone into liquidation, with at least one shattered client of the company facing a bill of hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete their home.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The company, previously known as Cavalier Homes and Cavalier Homes Goldfields, applied for voluntary liquidation on April 4.
The director of Goldfields Building Co, Lachlan Rodgers, has previously put another of his companies, LTR Construction Pty Ltd, into liquidation owing over a million dollars to staff and creditors.
In Ballarat, Daryl Neale and his partner are facing a $200,000 bill to complete their home after the collapse of Goldfields Building Co.
Mr Neale says he signed with the firm in 2020 while it was still called Cavalier - a name he recognised as an established company, which he thought would provide him with security and insurance.
By the time work began on the house in early 2021, the firm was no longer Cavalier and had become Goldfields Building Co. Despite misgivings about the name change, the Neales pressed on with their build.
"In hindsight, there was a lot of little little red flags like things not getting done or getting done out of order; taking a long time to get tradies or tradies signing up to do work, then disappearing," Daryl Neale says.
"We had no proof anything was really wrong other than those tradies disappearing, but Ballarat's not a very big place when it comes to builders, and people talk to each other... we had a lot of trouble getting a brickie.. and then the toilet went missing.
"It disappeared and I said to Lachlan, 'The toilet's gone!'
"He said, 'Yeah, they got the wrong one.' And I thought fair enough, they'll get the right one back. But when it all happened I realised he didn't get the wrong one; someone took it because he hadn't paid for for it. All that sort of thing, just little stuff."
That 'little stuff' has now added up to an unfinished home for the Neales, who estimate there's at least $230,000 worth of incomplete work on their home. The bill is mounting daily as costs rise for materials. The list of unfinished tasks is so long Daryl Neale is not sure he's across everything remaining undone.
"I'll probably miss some things, but there's a lot of flooring, tiling, painting, joinery, wardrobe fronts, door fittings, plumbing, electrical fit outs, roller door, concreting it front and back - that was included - rendering," he says.
"We got a quote from a builder, and because of the prices right now, it's $230,000 or $240,000 to finish. We had the insurance but he had to be dead, disappeared or insolvent, and at the time he was none of those, so we couldn't even get the insurance."
Forensic accounting firm Worrells Insolvency and Liquidation confirmed they are liquidating the company, with more information, including money owed and creditors affected, to be revealed within days.
IN THE NEWS
Mr Rodgers' former company LTR was made insolvent in November 2021. Worrells found the company had no effective assets beyond a related party loan account which was disputed by the director.
Australian Securities and Investment Commission disclosure documents via the liquidator reveal that company owed almost $10,000 to one employee for superannuation and holiday pay, with another $29,706 owed to the Australian Taxation Office for unpaid superannuation. The ATO is also owed $289,000, while sundry creditors - listed as 'suppliers' - are owed $330,000.
A 'beneficiary loan' of $322,544 is listed as money owed to LTR Construction by Mr Rodgers, who has written 'which includes my wages from 2015' on the document. The status of this amount is unclear.
Property owned by Mr Rodgers in Lucas was listed for sale last year, but caveats lodged on the property have prevented it changing hands.
- with Alex Ford
Have you signed up to The Courier's variety of news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in Ballarat.