Liquidators pursue homeowners of collapsed builder Porter Davis Homes which owes $25m

Customers at a collapsed building firm are furious as the appointed liquidators plan to pursue some of them over unpaid debts.

EXCLUSIVE

Customers at a collapsed building firm are furious as the appointed liquidators have flagged that they will pursue some of them over unpaid debts.

That’s despite many being left tens of thousand of dollars out of pocket with incomplete homes and facing increased build costs when they go with another company to finish construction.

Last month, Australia’s 13th largest home builder Porter Davis Homes went bust, placing 1700 projects and another 779 empty blocks of land in jeopardy across Victoria and Queensland.

From the preliminary investigation, there are more than 1000 secured and unsecured creditors who are owed more than $25 million.

Insolvency firm Grant Thornton was appointed to 14 companies under the Melbourne-based group Porter Davis.

But in a stern email to customers on Friday, Grant Thornton warned them that home owners with outstanding payments could be pursued for money.

“The Company hereby gives you formal written notice that the Company will not undertake any further work in performance of the Building Contract,” the email from Grant Thornton, obtained by news.com.au, reads.

“We will be in touch with you separately in respect of the payment of any amounts that the Company might have been entitled to prior to the date of this notice. The Company reserves its rights in this regard.”

When contacted, Grant Thornton assured news.com.au that this would not apply to “the majority” of customers especially if they had lost money from the collapse.

The email that arrived in customers’ inboxes on Friday.

One customer who preferred to remain anonymous told news.com.au that the liquidators are “seeking more money from suffering customers”.

Grant Thornton told news.com.au there was no need to panic from the email.

“The Liquidators will not be pursuing payment from Porter Davis customers who are out of pocket,” a company spokesperson said.

“This applies to the majority of Porter Davis customers.

“There are some instances where customers have received the benefit of up to $100,000 in works on their home that have not been paid for. The liquidators are looking into these cases.”

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Suspicious house fire at Porter Davis home in Clyde. Picture: Tim Carrafa

It comes as Porter Davis customers staged protests over the weekend demanding government support as they struggle financially in the wake of the firm’s collapse.

Dozens rallied on the steps of Victoria’s Parliament House, calling for more robust safeguards to protect consumers.

Victim and organiser of Sunday’s protest, Mike Tarno, estimates that 800 families have lost between $30,000 to $50,000 and said many were left without insurance.

There have also been reports of looting and vandalism on Porter Davis homes, including a suspicious house fire and another customer’s taps left running, flooding the nearly-complete build.

Some owners have accused disgruntled tradies angry about the company’s collapse of damaging their properties.

There have been reports of vandalism at some Porter Davis sites.

This set of drawers was found destroyed.

This isn’t the first time a liquidator has tried to pursue customers for their debts following a building company’s collapse.

In August last year, news.com.au reported that the liquidators of Victorian construction firm Langford Jones Homes sent eight letters of demand to customers.

The liquidator told news.com.au at the time that the letters of demand had received “mixed reviews”.

“It’s been a mix, some (of those customers) have paid, some have offered a compromise figure, some have indicated they’re not happy,” they told news.com.au.

One of the customers of Langford Jones Homes, Donna Taylor, said she owed money for a retaining wall but would not be paying a cent as she was left an estimated $180,000 out of pocket over the collapse.

She said she would tell the liquidators to “get f**ked” if they issued her with one of the letters.

Ben Kucenko is one of the impacted customers.

Earlier on Monday, Grant Thornton revealed that they had secured another builder, Nostra Property Group, to complete 375 unfinished homes.

News.com.au previously spoke to Melbourne couple Ben Kucenko, 37 and his fiancee Steph, 33, who are among the impacted homeowners from the Porter Davis liquidation.

They signed a building contract in July last year with Porter Davis for a $320,000 home in Thornhill Park, with plans for their empty block of land to turn into a one storey, four-bedroom house.

Now they are unsure of what will happen to their partially-built property, which is just a frame at the moment, and what kind of insurance payout they will be entitled to.

And in a stroke of incredible bad luck, the pair were also involved in the collapse of another major Victorian builder in July last year, Snowdon Developments, which was court-ordered into liquidation and owed a whopping $28.6 million to unsecured creditors.

“Who can you trust to build your house?’ Mr Kucenko said at the time.

“We can’t believe this has happened again.

“We thought we would build with a reputable builder so we didn’t have to go through the same thing.

“It was kind of a shock to us.”

Name withheld for privacy reasons

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Originally published as Liquidators pursue homeowners of collapsed builder Porter Davis Homes which owes $25m