Dying homeowner welcomes builder’s ban after botched construction

Marc is $1 million out of pocket and dying from brain cancer, but he’s glad to have lived long enough to see the builder he says ruined his home brought to justice.

Marc Webster is $1 million out of pocket and dying from brain cancer but at least he has the satisfaction of seeing the builder he accuses of ruining their home banned by Fair Trading.

Mr Webster, wife Deidree and now Fair Trading say builder And­rew Rolfe Tom failed to “correctly construct the footings” at their property in northern NSW in 2009.

The home has internal and external cracking, exposed reinforcement, a sewage system that often “chokes up”, damage to gyprock, architraves, skirting, sills and cornices, brick dampness, problems with door and window operation and defective downpipe connections.

A 2018 NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal judgment did not find the home was built without piers.

The home which NSW Fair Trading says was constructed without piers.

Deidree and Marc Webster’s home was riddled with cracks and structural problems.

However, according to a specialist report commissioned by NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler, the Websters and Engineers Australia, the home was constructed without piers – a load-bearing pillar that transfers weight from the home to the ground.

On March 10, NSW Fair Trading disqualified Mr Tom from entering into contracts requiring insurance under the Home Building Compensation Fund for three years.

“Mr Tom’s failure to correctly construct the footings at a Townsend, NSW property formed part of the basis for this decision,” a NSW Fair Trading spokeswoman said.

“The grounds for disciplinary action are … that the holder of a contractor licence is guilty of improper conduct. and is not a fit and proper person to hold a contractor licence.”

Cracks in the home.

Marc and Deidree Webster with NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler during site a visit in June 2020.

The decision allows the couple to claim as much as $300,000 in home warranty insurance.

“I was concerned that Deidree would have to keep fighting this on her own,” Mr Webster, who has stage four cancer, said.

“I know I will be leaving this earth sooner than my time. With this news I know I can rest easier.

“When I heard the news I said ‘it’s about bloody time’,” he said.

Mr Tom declined to comment, with his lawyer saying the Fair Trading decision is subject to a NCAT appeal being heard on Monday.

Builder Andrew Rolfe Tom with wife Lyndsay.

The house was constructed without any piers.

NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler told a NSW Budget Estimates hearing last week the state government is introducing a 10-year guarantee against major defects in apartment buildings.

But such a scheme could theoretically be introduced for houses as well, Mr Chandler said.

“If it was possible to produce a 10-year warranty product which was available on day one for each class 2 building, it may not be a stretch to think that might be possible for class 1, instead of this awful pain where it has to happen well down the track,” he said.

Greens MLC David Shoebridge, who has been chairing an Upper House inquiry into building standards said: “There’s a lot of talk from the government about the Building Commissioner, but the fact is he has no power to intervene where the building dispute is about a house rather than an apartment”.

“Despite the growth in the apartment sector the great majority of new housing builds are stand alone homes and that part of the industry is just as unregulated now as it was a decade ago,” Mr Shoebridge said.

“It’s well past time that we moved from having a single Building Commissioner to a fully resourced and fully empowered Building Commission with industry wide cover.”

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