Fenbreeze Homes’ builder Joseph Biju Kavilpurayidathil jailed for ripping off clients

A “naive and stupid” home builder whose Ponzi scheme quickly unravelled is behind bars after he left his trusting clients $500k out of pocket and uninsured.

A builder who left clients $500k out of pocket and uninsured has been jailed for over two years after he was too late in his efforts to rectify the damages.

Joseph Biju Kavilpurayidathil, also known as Mr Biju, ran a Ponzi scheme in a desperate attempt to save his unviable business model.

Kavilpurayidathil’s Ferryden Park company, Fenbreeze Homes was placed in liquidation in 2017, after he provided fake building indemnity insurance certificates to multiple clients, leaving them unable to claim for unfinished or substandard work.

During sentencing, the court heard Kavilpurayidathil, 48, started Fenbreeze Homes in 2014 and aimed to provide an affordable, fixed-price housing construction option.

“Your apparent appeal was to customers from the subcontinent who for obvious cultural reasons more readily placed their trust in you,” Judge Paul Slattery said on Thursday.

Joseph Kavilpurayidathil was jailed for 19 counts of dishonestly dealing with documents. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Kelly Barnes

“This is the very trust which you abused by your actions.”

Kavilpurayidathil’s company was initially successful and completed 32 houses, before it fell into financial difficulties in late 2016.

The court heard Kavilpurayidathil needed to take on more clients to receive deposits to pay the contractors but the company had already hit its $5m insurance cap.

Under the Building Work Contractors Act 1995, it is compulsory in South Australia for builders to take out a building indemnity insurance policy on all domestic construction projects that require development approval and have a value of $12,000 or more.

The court heard Kavilpurayidathil provided fake insurance certificates to new clients so he could continue working and issued fake invoices for work that was never performed.

Victim impact statements were read to the court in May.

General Practitioner Kamal Wellalagodage, who hired Kavilpurayidathil to build three houses for him and his family, said the fraud impacted him significantly.

“As a result of Mr Biju’s actions, I was not able to sleep for months due to ongoing stress and anxiety,” he wrote.

“Our houses were vandalised with tradespeople who had not received money from Mr Biju for their work.”

The father-of-two pleaded guilty to 19 counts of dishonestly dealing with documents.

“I do not deem this offending to have been committed purely out of greed but more out of being dishonestly informed by your naivety and stupidity,” Judge Slattery said.

The court heard Kavilpurayidathil offered to pay $25,000 restitution per year for the next 12 years if he avoided immediate jail.

However, Judge Slattery said it was of “great concern” that Kavilpurayidathil’s offer came many years after the offending and had doubts whether it was genuine or because of the real risk of jail.

Ultimately, Judge Slattery decided 12 years was a long time and there was a risk Kavilpurayidathil wouldn’t be able to sustain the offer.

Kavilpurayidathil was sentenced to two years and eight months jail, with a non-parole period of one year and five months.

“You vowed to help these individuals with arguably one of the biggest and most important purchases of their life,” Judge Slattery said.

“You took advantage of the individuals you said you would support and protect by lying and breaking their trust.

“Faced with many choices, you deliberately chose to act dishonestly.”