Privium collapse: Founder’s son Jared Harder tells court he can’t recall receiving six-figure payments

The son of failed major home builder Privium’s founder has told a court he couldn’t remember six figure payments landing in his bank accounts in the weeks before and after the collapse.

Privium collapse, Jared Harder, Robert Harder.

The son of Robert Harder, founder of failed major home builder Privium, has told a court he couldn’t recall hundreds of thousands of dollars being paid into his bank accounts in the weeks before and after the collapse.

It was the final scheduled day of public hearings into the $80m collapse of Privium Homes, which went under in November 2021 leaving more than 700 unfinished homes around the country.

Jared Harder faced public examination by liquidators in the Federal Court of Brisbane the day after his mother Rachel Harder exploded with laughter and broke down sobbing while she was on the stand.

Mr Harder’s influencer fiance Pamela Chua, a teacher with more than 83,500 followers on Instagram, watched from the courtroom.

Tuesday’s hearing heard Mrs Harder was currently general manager of a separate building company called Tekna Homes – which her son had also worked for, the court heard.

Rachel Harder and Robert Harder, founder of collapsed building company Privium Homes.

Like his mother, Jared Harder prefaced most of his responses with the word “privilege” and repeatedly said he couldn’t recall or didn’t know the answers to questions from Peter Somers, barrister for liquidators FTI.

Under questioning, Mr Harder, 24, said he knew about the existence of an entity called Harder Bloodline Trust, which was created in March 2021, but could not recall when he learned it existed.

He was shown documents that indicated the trust paid $140,000 into his bank account during October 2021 – a month before the administration – but said he couldn’t remember it.

“So as a (then) 21-year-old, you can’t recall that you received payments of $140,000?,” Mr Somers said.

Mr Harder said: “I don’t recall”.

Mr Somers quizzed Mr Harder on why he also could not recall further payments totalling $250,000 being made to his account eight months after Privium collapsed.

“You said earlier that the impact (of the collapse) was your dad didn’t have a job and lost his business – but you didn’t know the source of where $250,000, in July 2022, would have come from?,” he said.

Mr Harder said “no”.

Jared Harder and Robert Harder.

QBCC records show Tekna, which was still advertising home building services this week, has held an unrestricted licence since December 2022.

The court heard Jared Harder was a previous director of Tekna, which had previously been named Rock Invest.

Mr Harder told the court he was not aware his mother was Tekna’s general manager, or that the company had changed its name.

“My role was mainly to help with design and website and things like that,” he said.

Privium founder Robert Harder, 52, has been bankrupt since November 2022.

Earlier hearings in the examination heard the company founder planned to donate 10 per cent of Privium’s profits to a charitable trust called The Promise he had set up to “spread the gospel”.

Robert Harder told the court he had helped set up another charity called Joii with Jared to handle the construction and other labour work for the Privium Group.

The public examination has been adjourned at dates to be fixed, leaving the door open for the Harders and other witnesses to be called back for further questioning later this year.

Originally published as Privium collapse: Founder’s son Jared Harder tells court he can’t recall receiving six-figure payments