Fake tradie Tevita Tiliti Ungounga pleads guilty to dodgy building work across Sydney, Wollongong

After fleecing clients of almost $300k and turning their homes into disaster zones, a fake tradie has admitted to conning the property owners for shoddy work in Sydney and Wollongong.

Tevita Tiliti Ungounga leaves Parramatta Local Court on August 17 after a hearing date was set for the alleged unlicensed tradie.

Fake tradie and serial liar Tevita Tiliti Ungounga was prosecuted in Hawaii for tax evasion and unlicensed building work before arriving in Australia, it can be revealed.

Now he is about to have a longer rap sheet after fleecing local homeowners of more than a $280,000 for faulty work that threatened their safety and drained their pockets.

Between 2020 and 2023, he managed to convince seven homeowners at Carlingford, Earlwood and Liberty Grove in Sydney, and Stanwell Park in Wollongong, to hand over wads of cash to start unfinished backyard and interior renovations despite never holding a NSW Fair Trading contractor licence.

Shockingly, many of the offences were committed when the 57 year old was on bail after leaving a trail of destruction at other properties.

At Parramatta Local Court on Friday, when a hearing was scheduled, Ungounga pleaded guilty to five counts of contract to do residential building work without a licence, four counts of doing residential building work when unlicensed, four counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception and three counts of doing residential building work without insurance as prescribed.

Tevita Tiliti Ungounga leaves Parramatta Local Court in August 2022 but is now in custody.

Stanwell Park

Police facts expose his long trail of offences, including when he pocketed $93,800 from a Stanwell Park man after introducing himself as “David Unco” in December 2020.

Ungounga had already scored a job next door to the Old Coast Rd house and managed to convince the victim he was an expert in the field.

Throughout December and January the following year, he quoted the victim tens of thousands of dollars to build a sandstone wall, work on a carport, prepare work for a granny flat, buy materials, hire machinery, and use the services of an engineer and private certifier.

On one occasion the victim forked out $6000 in cash so concrete could be delivered but it never arrived. Another time Ungounga wacked up the price by another $16,700 so he could use bigger bricks.

During the excavation to prepare for the granny flat that was never built, Ungounga broke 17 sheets of fire proofing used to protect the house, and sewerage and stormwater pipes after he operated the machinery.

Repairing the pipes cost another $10,000.

Facts revealed the offender became agitated and started threatening the victim that he would walk away from the job and he declared he needed more money for a steel slab that was never poured.

Ungounga has never been a licensed tradie.

“Not much work was carried out after February 10, 2021,’’ the facts state.

“(The victim) states that taking a step back and looking at it as a whole, the only work the (offender) had performed was dig out a lot of dirt, move it around to make it look like he’s doing something and built a very primitive sandstone retaining wall, which is so defective it will need to be demolished and rebuilt.’’

That was not the only property Ungounga targeted in the same Stanwell Park street.

Between March and May 2021, he ripped a woman off by $13,500 after he was hired to replace a pool deck, build a driveway retaining wall and began clearing a garden bed without her permission.

“The (offender) is known to commence work without direct permission from his customers to give the customers the impression he is diligent and that work will progress efficiently and to lock customers into an obligation to pay,’’ the facts state.

After months of incompetence and undelivered materials, Ungounga turned on the customer. “Don’t stuff me around, don’t be causing trouble like your neighbours,’’ he said.

“Do you want the job done or not?’’

The rogue trader lied to the woman about the need to travel to Canberra to buy concrete sleepers but he was exposed when she saw a label for the nearby Bunnings Bellambi on the materials when they arrived at her house.

Ungounga bought materials from Bunnings Bellambi but lied about travelling to Canberra for them.

Carlingford

Ungounga hit two properties on the Lasburn Cres in 2020 and 2021.

In October 2020, Ungounga again used the alias David and ripped off a homeowner $51,500 to work on projects at the three-bedroom family house.

Again he started using an excavator to remove shrubs without permission and the victim felt pressured for Ungounga to continue after reasoning his quotes were the cheapest and he had already dropped off equipment to start the word.

But Ungounga’s damage spree escalated when he broke the water main and damaged a wall in a bid to remove spider-infested trees with his excavator and ruined several terracotta tiles with his bobcat.

He lied to the client about needing $12,500 to “re-do the driveway from scratch so it would look better and be in better shape”. The client agreed.

Tevita Tiliti Ungounga is a serial reoffender.

Shortly later, Ungounga pulled off another ruse to get the man’s credit card details by telling him he was providing the details to a traffic control company.

He read them aloud so Ungounga could hear the credit card number but after the victim reviewed his financial tatement, he saw $680 was credited to Ivan’s Butchery at Chester Hill to buy two baked pigs.

When the victim raised this with the tradie, he told him the butcher’s brother was handling the traffic control so payment was made through the butcher.

However, the butcher owner confirmed he had no brothers and had no involvement with traffic control.

The victim’s next door neighbour was fleeced of a staggering $63,500 from October to December 2020.

After botching up requests for backyard projects on the five-bedroom property, the victim started to doubt Ungounga when he failed to produce a public liability and WorkCover insurance documents.

The offender conceded: “No, I don’t have no trade licence, don’t have any Public Liability and WorkCover insurance. You are a good man and I’m sorry.’’

In October 2021, he attended Castle Hill police station by appointment where he was arrested and openly stated to detectives “that he is aware that he does not have a licence but still does good work’’.

But that didn’t stop the former Riverwood and East Hills resident from reoffending just a month later while he was on bai.

Liberty Grove

He left a Liberty Grove woman $17,000 out of pocket after demolishing her kitchen and failing to complete the requested upgrade in November 2021.

She raised concerns with the Fair Trading Department who confirmed it was the dodgy builder, who also stuffed up the plumbing.

He inflicted more damage on the woman’s home including “poor quality” tiling with grout missing, and uneven and unparallel surfaces.

“The work is of such extremely poor quality that existing ‘renovations’ conducted by the (offender) will have to be demolished which will cost the victim more money,’’ the facts state.

Ungounga was arrested on February 28, 2022 at Kogarah police station.

He was again given bail.

Earlwood

A woman shelled out $19,600 after Ungounga offered to provide free sandstone to build a retaining wall in February and March 2023.

He told her he was a sandstone specialist when he met her at the Jackson Place property but started to build a second wall without her permission and turned her backyard into a rubbish tip.

“The (offender) had also brought a lot of rubbish and waste building material such as broken concrete, old timber garden gate, steel mesh, steel poles, old buckets with hard cement, broken ceramic plumbing pipes and the like to her property and scattered it over her garden,’’ the facts state.

“The (offender) was asked about this rubbish and he stated that he was going to use the broken concrete to build the wall to make it stronger.’’

He failed to remove the rubbish and the concrete was discovered buried in her garden during the rebuilding of the retaining walls.

“The quality of the work is substandard and may pose a danger to the victim and any other person visiting her yard/premises,’’ the facts state.

Ungounga’s shameless acts continued in the same suburb in March 2023 when he convinced a man the Colorbond fence at Highcliff Rd home “might kill somebody” if it wasn’t fixed and replaced with a sandstone structure.

The fraudster will be sentenced at Parramatta Local Court in April.

The court heard he lied to the victim about a neighbour consenting to the fence. When soil and dirt spilt into the neighbour’s yard while Ungounga and his workers tore the Colorbond down, he used it as an excuse to demand the victim pay $15,000 instead of $9000.

Ungounga also visited an architect’s design studio at Earlwood and lied to the victim about needing $7500 for their services.

The company confirmed just $770 was quoted to carry out an inspection.

While at the studio, Ungounga spoke about architectural plans for a double-storey seven-bedroom, six-bathroom, four-car lockup garage open rooftop residence near the beach on Nuku’alofa Island in Tonga.

The victim was ripped off $23,750 for the fence that was built incorrectly.

He has remained in custody since April, 2023.

Facts state the former T & T Sandstone Construction director is a serious reoffender who has received 24 complaints since 2015.

In 2017, NSW Fair Trading fined him more than $56,800 and in June 2021 he was given a 14-month intensive correction order, 200 hours of community service and $37,395 in fines and costs.

Facts stated: “Open source media indicates the accused has previously been prosecuted on a number of occasions in Hawaii in relation to tax evasion and unlicensed building work prior to arriving in Australia.’’

Ungounga is due to be sentenced at Parramatta Local Court on April 10.