‘Lots and lots of tradies’ out of pocket as builder in major national franchise collapses

An independent building company that is part of a major national construction chain has collapsed and all reference to it has been removed from their website.

An independent building company that is part of a major national construction chain has collapsed.

News.com.au can reveal that Victorian-based building company Station 293 Pty Ltd went into liquidation last Friday with money owed to “lots and lots of tradies”.

The construction firm traded under Cavalier Homes Geelong and as its namesake would suggest, it was a franchise business in the Cavalier Homes network.

Cavalier Homes was established in 2001 and has 19 franchises all along the East Coast, spanning across four Australian states.

The Geelong branch no longer appears on its website.

Cliff Sanderson of insolvency firm Dissolve was appointed as the liquidator of Cavalier Homes Geelong and said so far more than 40 creditors have contacted his office.

Cavalier Homes Geelong went into liquidation last week. Picture: Facebook

The company’s sole director, Nathan Downing, told Mr Sanderson that the building firm had only two active residential builds on its books at the time it went under.

“At this stage I can’t determine if that’s true or false,” Mr Sanderson said.

He has been informed that Cavalier Homes Geelong owes around $687,000 to creditors, but again, he is yet to verify this.

“Normally it turns out to be more than the director said initially,” he explained.

“The Australian tax office is a creditor and a large bank is owed some money and lots and lots of tradies.”

No staff have been affected.

The company blamed market conditions and the failure to receive more bank lending as reasons for its failure.

Cavalier Homes Geelong had been a registered business since 2017.

It used to trade under the eponymous name of the director, Nathan Downing Builders, before it became a franchise of Cavalier Homes.

News.com.au has contacted the sole director, Mr Downing, for comment.

The head office of Cavalier Homes was also contacted for comment.

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The franchises that Cavalier Homes has under its banner.

Cavalier Homes Geelong joins the graveyard of dozens of other building companies which have buckled under economic pressure in the past two years.

In 2024 alone, news.com.au has reported on more than a dozen building companies which have gone under.

This isn’t even the first building company of the year to affect Geelong homeowners.

Montego Homes Pty Ltd went into voluntary administration in January, impacting 71 sites including some in Geelong.

Then there was Langdon Building Pty Ltd, with its collapse leaving 115 homes in jeopardy. Geelong was one of the impacted areas.

Data figures revealed that up to the end of November last year, 21 Geelong construction businesses had gone belly up.

A staggering 2349 construction firms have collapsed in Australia in the past year — with expectations that more may fall soon.

In times of economic hardship and inflation, building companies are usually the first to feel the pinch as they run on such small margins.

Indeed, of the 8471 business collapses for 2023, almost 28 per cent were in the building and construction industry, according to data put out by the corporate regulator.

The previous Morrison government’s HomeBuilder grant, which was introduced in June 2020 and handed out $2.52 billion to owner-occupiers who wanted to build or substantially renovate a home, turbocharged the sector.

More than 130,000 customers signed on for the program, with many tradies agreeing to the work under fixed-price contracts that soon became unsustainable as prices began to soar.

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Originally published as ‘Lots and lots of tradies’ out of pocket as builder in major national franchise collapses