Secret past of building company boss revealed

Customers have been left horrified after learning more about the man who has promised them he will complete their dream homes.

A building company, still operating despite works stalling and its debts piling up, is being run by a man with a colourful criminal history.

Earlier this year, news.com.au reported that customers of Victorian-based builder Holbrook Homes were begging for the business to shut down to automatically trigger the insurance that would rescue them financially.

But it’s been more than six months since then and Holbrook’s sole director, Marcel Nassour, 59, is doggedly carrying on the construction firm – even though many other businesses won’t work with him amid more than $200,000 of debts. In October, the Victorian Building Authority (VBA) also temporarily suspended his licence.

“He’s only doing stuff he can do himself,” one customer lamented, while another said Mr Nassour appears to do “random stuff” on his home that doesn’t require other materials or tradesmen.

Now a news.com.au investigation has unearthed the troubling past of Mr Nassour – including a bribery conviction, rubbing shoulders with one of Australian’s most notorious organised crime kingpins, and a bankruptcy order.

A photograph news.com.au has obtained of Marcel Nassour.

A newspaper clipping from The Age about the Nassour case.

In 1990, when Mr Nassour was a young man, he was charged with drug trafficking, alongside a friend, Trevor Young.

They hatched an audacious plan to bribe a judge to escape jail time with the help of another associate.

The third man involved in the scheme was Tony Mokbel, who has gone on to become one of Melbourne’s most infamous crime figures and is currently trying to appeal his 26-year jail sentence.

Mr Nassour even earned a mention in a biography about Mokbel.

In a dingy Melbourne bar, Mr Nassour, then 25, approached a seemingly corrupt court staffer saying he was willing to pay up to $53,000 to bribe a judge “as long as the results are there”. He also offered some cocaine to sweeten the deal, according to media reporting from the time.

Unbeknown to him, this court staffer was actually an undercover detective.

The three men ended up being charged and convicted with conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Melbourne gangster Mokbel received a one-year jail sentence over the bribery debacle, with a six-month non parole period. It was Mokbel’s first conviction.

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Gangland boss Tony Mokbel with his ‘Lawyer X’ Nicola Gobbo in 2004.

Tony Mokbel is seen arriving at the Supreme court in Melbourne earlier this year, battling his conviction. Picture: NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

The Victorian County Court wouldn’t share Mr Nassour’s sentence with news.com.au, citing the Spent Convictions Act 2021 (Vic). Spent convictions refer to when an offender rehabilitates and their conviction is essentially ‘wiped’ and does not appear on criminal history checks.

The Magistrates Court of Victoria also recorded that Mr Nassour was charged with possession of a pistol.

This case must have been dropped as the matter was never finalised. It was adjourned for a date to be fixed but this never happened and there is no suggestion by news.com.au that he in fact committed the offence for which he was charged.

Ironically, the original drug charges against Mr Nassour and his friend were scrapped because of the lack of evidence – meaning they would have served no jail time if not for their bribery scheme.

When news.com.au approached Mr Nassour about his bribery attempt, he said he was “young and stupid” but added that he had “never ever” been charged with possession of a pistol.

Holbrook Homes customers are horrified to learn more about Mr Nassour’s past.

Court documents also show that Mr Nassour was ordered into bankruptcy over a $20,000 debt in 2008.

According to the Federal Magistrates’ Court of Australia, Mr Nassour owed a timber and hardware business around $20,784 and a sequestration order was issued against his estate.

No record of his bankruptcy appears on the National Personal Insolvency Index.

Mr Nassour said he did not know about a bankruptcy when speaking to news.com.au.

It comes as Mr Nassour is once again facing substantial debts with his building company, Holbrook Homes.

Five companies have taken Holbrook to court and won default judgments against the business totalling $100,000.

A further five have lodged payment defaults on the CreditorWatch website adding up to $135,000.

Mr Nassour has previously denied that the business is on the brink of collapse and told news.com.au the company would fulfil all its contractual obligations to customers. Once current builds finish, the construction firm won’t be taking on any more jobs, he said.

But this decision to carry on the business has financially devastated some families.

The Jollie family are at the end of their tether.

Don Jollie, a Holbrook customer, said there is “no way” he would have signed a contract with a convicted criminal and someone involved in formal bankruptcy proceedings if he’d known.

News.com.au previously reported that Holbrook accidentally sent Mr Jollie an email calling him “nuts” after he refused to pay for work that had not yet been completed.

Mr Jollie, 51, is locked in a battle with the building firm after he claims he was billed for work that wasn’t done, while Holbrook claims he owes them $62,000.

In the latest escalation, he received a stop work order last week, where Holbrook blamed him for delaying the building. He had blocked building works until issues could be resolved with the frame.

Mr Jollie believes the order is a breach of his contract.

Mr Nassour’s building licence was suspended at the end of October for failing to show a valid letter of insurance. It has since been reinstated as of last week.

Mr Jollie said he received a complaint from a neighbour about a contractor using his neighbour’s electricity to complete work some months back.

The above video depicts an unknown tradie at Mr Jollie’s site who his neighbour said appeared to be using his electricity. This man is not Marcel Nassour.

Marcel Nassour photographed from afar at Don's site.

The Davis family, who are trying to build their dream home with Holbrook Homes, say the decision not to liquidate Holbrook Homes has cost them tens of thousands of dollars.

“We can’t access insurance,” said Aaron Davis, 41 “We’re at the point now where we’ve spent $150,000 with Holbrook Homes. We’ve got nothing to show for it.”

With construction stalling, Mr Davis ended the contract with Holbrook Homes, racking up $10,000 in legal fees in the process.

He claimed there had not been any construction on his partially built lot since November last year.

The dad-of-four kept repeatedly asked Mr Nassour to clean up the rubbish strewn across the site in the months beforehand and decided to do it himself.

“The timber frame had to be pulled down, it was full of black mould, I just burnt it,” Mr Davis said.

“I spent five or six weekends taking down the frame – we had a big bonfire. The site was an absolute mess.”

The timber taken off Aaron Davis’ property.

The text Aaron sent, convinced the timber had been stolen.

In August this year, Mr Davis came back to the site and discovered that a pile of timber which had been sitting there untouched had disappeared.

He actually reported it as a theft to police, before learning Mr Nassour had taken the timber. Although the timber belonged to the building boss so there was no wrongdoing on his part, it left Mr Davis with a sour taste in his mouth.

The dad said he had been labouring away at his family’s future dream home from 7am to 7pm, so Mr Nassour must have got there “in the dead of night”. He also claims the Holbrook boss left “actual rubbish” that was still there.

Mr Davis has engaged another builder which is costing the family $120,000 more than their originally contract “on top of the $150,000 we’ve already paid Holbrook”, he said.

He’s also incurred another $8000 in fees to have the site cut rectified, removing concrete and fixing damaged pipes.

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