Melbourne family finishes it own home after builder Chatham Homes goes bust
A Melbourne IT worker left hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket after his builder Chatham Homes collapsed says his family had no choice but to pick up the tools and take on the daunting task of finishing their home.
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Melbourne IT professional Hamish always enjoyed woodwork at school, though it never occurred to him that one day he would be forced to finish building his own home.
The Pascoe Vale South resident felt he and his wife Barbara had no choice but to pick up the tools and take on the daunting task of finishing their family home when their builder, Chatham Homes, went bust.
The collapse left the Melbourne family hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket and “burnt” too badly to trust another builder.
“This decision to proceed as owner-builders likely cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars but we wanted to progress and move on,” Hamish told the Herald Sun.
“We could not bring ourselves to trust another builder having been already burnt.”
An owner-builder is someone who owns a property and decides to take charge of their own construction or renovation project.
Point Cook builder Chatham left 50 projects across Melbourne and regional Victoria in limbo when it went bust in October last year.
Chatham Homes started construction on the family home in Pascoe Vale South nearly three years ago, collapsing 18 months into the project.
Hamish and Barbara made the difficult decision to take over construction, spending countless weekends and late nights after work tirelessly trying to complete their family home.
Hamish, who was renting nearby, said carrying the weight of a mortgage, rental property and two sets of utility bills was “not sustainable”.
“The hundreds of hours of work to progress the house all took a toll on the family,” he said.
“The lost opportunities of family vacations with a young family is probably the biggest impact.
“Lost opportunities to create memories with my family will be the one thing I will never forgive the builder for.”
The Melbourne family finally moved into their home in August, 10 months after taking over the construction – nearly a year and a half after the original contract completion date of April 2023.
“I joke to people who comment on the finished house, that in high school I studied two year 12 subjects in year 11, Woodwork and IT. I was top of the class for Woodwork and middle of the class for IT. Maybe I should have gone into the building industry instead,” he said.
“I have a passion for both, and working on weekends and nights after my day job, as long as they were, was not a chore, just a task that needed to be done for my family.”
He said taking on the project allowed the family to put the attention to detail into the finish that is otherwise “hard” to find in the construction industry.
“It also allowed us to do things like bringing timber from our old house into the new. The same timber that my kids learned to walk on, now is used as a feature wall and flooring. Carrying memories from the old into the new is so important to me” he said.
“We live in an amazing community in Pascoe Vale South, and they rallied to support us, and without their support we’d still be renting.”
During construction with Chatham, Hamish said they faced delays for several months and faulty works.
“The most stressful part of the process was watching the slow progress and lack of attention to detail. I couldn’t blame the site supervisor, in some cases they were trying to manage 20 builds from Torquay to the eastern suburbs of Melbourne,” he said.
“Early in the process we identified a key issue that had been overlooked by the builder – that ultimately broke our trust in their ability to deliver a quality product.
“The countless emails, requests for meetings with the builder, desperate but fruitless calls to the VBA, DBDRV and CAV to get the builder to complete the house all took a mental toll.”
When Chatham was still operational in April last year an unknown person visited the family home and spray painted the windows with graffiti.
“This damage wasn’t rectified before the builder went bust, and we were left to fix this. This should have been a warning sign to us of things to come,” he said.
An end-of-year report lodged by appointed liquidator Andrew Schwarz of AS Advisory, shows Chatham collapsed owing more than $4m.
This included $427,337 to employees and $3,604,447 to 282 unsecured creditors.
The boutique home builder had projects underway across Wyndham, the western and northern suburbs, the Surf Coast and Ballarat when it went bust.
All employee debt, including for wages, leave and redundancy entitlements, has been paid under the government’s Fair Entitlements Guarantee.
Mr Schwarz put future estimates of the company’s assets between $50,000 to $500,000. He said more than $20,000 in assets had already been realised.
“Our investigations and asset recoveries are ongoing and we will be producing an update report to creditors early in the new year,” Mr Schwarz told the Herald Sun.
Chatham was contacted for comment.
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