Sydney families visiting builder’s offices hoping for answers met with grim sign

After weeks of no response from their builder, frustrated homeowners marched into their offices and were shocked by what they found.

A NSW residential construction company has seemingly “fallen off the face of the earth” after the business cleared out its offices and didn’t tell its customers where it was going.

News.com.au can reveal that homeowners who have signed a contract with Sydney-based Willoughby Homes Pty Ltd have been unable to get in touch with the builder for weeks and in some cases months.

The phone number listed on the building firm’s website goes straight to a message bank and when frustrated customers visited its Castle Hill headquarters, all they found were spiders, a jumbled up sign and empty office space.

It’s understood Willoughby Homes left its office two weeks ago, with the landlords, ASIC and customers unsure where it relocated.

Multiple homeowners have visited the abandoned offices, causing the landlord to put up a sign advising them that Willoughby Homes is no longer a tenant.

It comes after a news.com.au investigation last month reported that Willoughby Homes is under investigation by NSW Fair Trading due to months of unpaid debts to subcontractors, construction sites languishing while also signing up new customers despite not having the insurance to complete works valued at over $20,000.

“It looks like everyone’s packed up and called it quits,” dad-of-one Saif Nabi told news.com.au.

The 28-year-old and his wife Hanniya bought a house and land package in Box Hill, signing a building contract with Willoughby last year, but now, nearly 18 months later, he only has a vacant lot to show for it.

News.com.au has called, texted, emailed and left voicemails for Willoughby Homes and its director, Steve Willoughby. Neither responded.

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Customers found nothing but spiders, jumbled up signs and empty space when they went to confront the builder.

All that's left of Willoughby Homes. This sign previously was hung up and spelled out the company name.

The empty offices where Willoughby Homes used to operate from.

At first the Nabi family were ecstatic about the prospect of building their dream four-bedroom, double garage home, forking out $18,000 in an initial deposit.

But as the months passed by, Mr Nabi said the situation turned “into a nightmare” when Willoughby Homes “kept delaying” his build.

Getting nervous, in June, Mr Nabi called a meeting with senior management where they agreed to mutually end the contract and the company promised to generate a deed of release.

“Since then it’s just been complete radio silence,” he said. Emails and calls have gone unanswered and now he doesn’t know where the company went.

They reported it to NSW Fair Trading and were eventually referred to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT).

Last week they had a NCAT hearing where no representative from Willoughby Homes showed up. The case was adjourned for next month.

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Willoughby Homes has packed up and left its Castle Hill offices just weeks after a news.com.au investigation. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Customers visited its offices and were alarmed by what they found. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Saif and Hanniya Nabi and their two-year-old son.

“One and a half years into it and we’re no closer, it’s just an empty lot of land,” Mr Nabi lamented.

During that time he and his wife have had to pay off their mortgage but can only afford interest only repayments and also other costs such as mowing the lawn of their unused land, with council threatening to fine them if they didn’t.

“We have also lost the chance to obtain the $15,000 HomeBuilder grant,” he added.

To meet the criteria for the grant, building had to have begun on their site within 18 months of entering into the HomeBuilder contract — a deadline which has since passed.

“Build costs at the moment are through the roof, we did contemplate selling the block and buying an established property but because of the way property prices exploded, we’re going to be left behind,” he added.

“We’ll have to come up with the five per cent deposit for this new build, we’ll have to pay LMI [Lenders mortgage insurance] because we simply can’t come up with another $20,000.”

Ms Nabi and her son on their empty site where a house should stand.

The Nabi family have been waiting for 18 months for building to begin.

More than a dozen customers that news.com.au knows of have taken Willoughby Homes to NCAT this month, with many cases adjourned until August.

In two cases that have been decided, the company was ordered to pay back deposits for two customers, amounting to more than $100,000.

On June 8, NCAT ordered Willoughby Homes to pay back $76,837 and then last week, on July 21, another customer was also awarded $38,456, payable immediately.

Both payments have not been made and are overdue, according to the public register.

Earlier this month, Regno Trades took legal action against Willoughby Homes calling for the company to be “wound up in insolvency” after failing to pay back $184,310, according to court documents.

H & R Interiors Pty applied for a default judgment for $73,925 they claim is owed to them.

Millers Scaffolding Australia and Green Resources Material Australia did the same after claiming they are owed $22,794 and $6,503 respectively.

The co-owners of Elba Kitchens, Caterina Chiefari and George Fabre, claimed to news.com.au that they were owed around $80,000 from Willoughby Homes, with outstanding payments dating back to July last year.

They set up a payment plan with the embattled builder but for the past few months no money has been coming through.

“We wanted to work with them to trade through this, hence the payment plan, but then that just stopped and then communication stopped, then it just went silent,” Ms Chiefari said.

Their last email to Willoughby Homes was on June 21 and they have yet to receive a reply.

Willoughby Homes is overdue on two NCAT orders, according to the public register.

Another Willoughby Homes customer when their house was at the frame stage.

Then there’s Trueform Frames and Trusses, who claim they are waiting on an outstanding payment from Willoughby Homes of $24,684 from an invoice issued more than six months ago.

Finese Electrical and Air Conditioning claims it is owed $4531. The company’s owners Milan and Deanna Milosev previously spoke to news.com.au and said they had been “stitched up” by Willoughby Homes.

They were days away from making a bulk order of airconditioning units in the belief they would be paid back by Willoughby Homes before they decided to hold off and claim they would have been financially ruined if they’d gone ahead with the purchase.

Prospa Advance Pty Ltd, which gives out business loans, claims it waited more than 90 days for $60,913 from the builder while ATF Services Pty Ltd, a fencing company, commenced legal proceedings for a $5658 bill they believe they were owed.

News.com.au knows of two other suppliers owed money.

At the end of last month, NSW Fair Trading confirmed to news.com.au that an investigation was underway and it’s understood they have visited the company’s empty offices as part of their inquiries.

It’s understood at least 28 customers have lodged reports to Fair Trading several have given witness statements to police officers.

A Fair Trading spokesperson said: “The investigation into Willoughby Homes Pty Ltd is ongoing and no comment can be made at this time.

“NSW Fair Trading encourages anyone who has contracted with this trader to call 13 32 20.”

Marice Hartono was awarded $38,000 from an NCAT hearing but is yet to see her money.

Marice Hartono, 43, from North Ryde, was the customer that NCAT awarded $38,000 to last week after going through a two month ordeal with Willoughby Homes.

Although the amount was meant to be paid immediately, at time of writing she still has not received her money back. A Willoughby Homes represenative did not attend her case.

Ms Hartono signed a contract with Willoughby Homes in May for a $644,000 home but soon alarm bells were ringing.

The mum-of-two, with a five-year-old and one-year-old, noticed negative reviews piling in online while her own building site stalled.

“I got a bad feeling,” she told news.com.au.

Then she learned that NSW insurer iCare had not reinstated Willoughby Homes’ Home Builders Compensation Fund (HBCF) since April 2021, with the state body rejecting multiple applications, it confirmed to news.com.au.

That means legally the construction firm cannot begin any new projects that require HBCF — even though they signed Ms Hartono on just two months ago.

It also means Ms Hartono is not insured and if the company does collapse, she cannot receive any compensation from insurance.

A NSW Fair Trading spokesperson told news.com.au that “It is a breach of the Home Building Act for a builder to enter into a contract to complete residential building work above $20,000 without HBCF insurance.”

Concerned by this discovery, Ms Hartono and her husband marched into Willoughby Homes’ Castle Hill office last Monday but found it cleared out.

“We went there during business time, there was a spider in between the door, they hadn’t been there for a while,” she recalled.

“I said to my husband, ‘We need to get a new builder I think’.”

Greg Denton’s property, a customer news.com.au spoke to in June.

Kenneth Hor’s property, a customer news.com.au spoke to in June.

David Baker, a consulting principal at Sydney-based KeyPoint Law, is representing three impacted customers of Willoughby Homes and says the company’s collapse appears imminent.

“It’s got all the classic hallmarks,” he told news.com.au.

“On the basis of the facts that we know so far, it looks like this company is going to fail.

“They haven’t paid their suppliers, they haven’t worked on jobs for eight to 10 months.

“It becomes a house of cards and the whole thing starts to collapse.”

Sarah Little and Nikki Young have been pressed financially as they wait for their home to be built.

What their property looks like after a year and four months since signing the contract. The skip bin is not theirs and has been dumped there.

Sarah Little and Nikki Young are two more impacted homeowners who forked out $29,000 as a deposit but have yet to see a single worker set foot on their vacant lot.

“They seem to have fallen off the face of the earth,” Ms Little told news.com.au.

“It’s taken a pretty big toll on our mental health and we’ve gone from being pretty financially stable to now having to really consider if we can even afford the home we dreamed of.”

The pair of paramedics signed with Willoughby Homes in March last year for a $291,000 four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Menangle Park, in Sydney’s south west.

Between then and now, they’ve churned through three different site supervisors as the previous ones keep quitting.

“That’s probably when the hairs on the back of our necks really started to raise, to have that high turnover,” Ms Young said.

“We came to the conclusion that something was seriously wrong.”

Their broker advised them not to “go throwing good money after bad” and they decided to break out of the contract.

The couple sent a dispute letter where both parties had 10 days to reply but they never received a response from Willoughby Homes.

They don’t expect to ever see their $29,000 deposit again and a year later, their dream home is now even further out of reach.

“Nowadays we’re looking at 15 to 20 per cent more expensive for a build,” Ms Little said.

Ms Little and Ms Young have forked out $29,000 to the builder.

The couple are desperately waiting for answers.

Jen* and her fiance, in their early 30s, are due to be married in October but are no closer to having a completed house even though they signed the contract with Willoughby Homes 44 weeks ago.

“It is really really hard,” she told news.com.au. “We’re getting married in October, we have no home to go into.”

She added: “Financially we are drowning. We can’t even go on a honeymoon.”

Jen claims she has struggled to get straight answers out of Willoughby Homes staff with phone calls and emails never being replied to.

“It was like an email trail where I was responding to myself, I’m still waiting for a reply [for an email I sent] in May.”

They’ve missed out on a $10,000 government grant because of the delays and new builds are going to cost an additional $50,000 at least.

“We’re not paying Monopoly money,” she added. “We’re paying our hard earned money that we worked our arses off. We don’t know what our next move is.”

Australia’s construction industry in crisis

Australia’s building industry is in crisis, with many companies going into liquidation so far this year amid rising costs for construction materials and ongoing supply chain issues, putting them out of business.

An industry insider told news.com.au earlier this year that half of Australia’s building companies are on the brink of collapse as they trade insolvent.

There are between 10,000 to 12,000 residential building companies in Australia undertaking new homes or large renovation projects, a figure estimated by the Association of Professional Builders.

A healthy construction industry is vital to a strong economy and ongoing growth, with the sector accounting for the employment of almost nine per cent of Australian workers and 7.5 per cent of Australia’s GDP, according to CreditorWatch.

*Name withheld over privacy concerns

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Originally published as Sydney families visiting builder’s offices hoping for answers met with grim sign