<\/p>\n
Many owners planning on renovating or building a new home are new to the entire building and contractual process. Today we talk to someone who entered into a building agreement naively assuming the contract was fair and that she would be protected. She was wrong. Hear Samantha\u2019s story…<\/p>\n
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Kevin:<\/b>\u00a0 Many others owners <\/b>planning on renovating or building a new home are new to the entire building and contractual process. They have little or no knowledge of contractual matters and can be easily intimidated by the builder.<\/p>\n
My next guest entered into a building agreement na\u00efvely, no doubt the same way most newbies enter into these projects. Samantha Powers assumed the contract was fair and that she\u2019d be protected \u2013 Reasonable, I would have thought. Like you and I, she had seen those horror stories on A Current Affair<\/i> and never thought that her experience in fact would be one of them. She was wrong.<\/p>\n
As a result of the experience, Samantha has written an e-book that\u2019s designed to be a guide to make sure that others learn from her experiences, and I\u2019ll tell you how you can get a copy of that e-book in just a moment. In the meantime, Samantha joins me.<\/p>\n
Hi, Samantha.<\/p>\n
Samantha:<\/b>\u00a0 Hi, Kevin. Thank you for having me on your show.<\/p>\n
Kevin:<\/b>\u00a0 Thank you for sharing the experience with us. I\u2019m looking forward to you being quite frank about it. Tell me how bad was it? What exactly happened?<\/p>\n
Samantha:<\/b>\u00a0 It was a pretty shocking, terrible experience for me. It lasted a number of years. My contract and everything started in 2010, and it\u2019s only in January of this year that it actually finished up completely.<\/p>\n
I hired a builder thinking that everything was going to be all right. It was a really simple build, supposed to be a single-story, nothing exceptional, not on a cliff face or anything, standard ground. It should have taken about seven months but at the one-year mark, he\u2019d only just hit the brickwork stage.<\/p>\n
He mismanaged all the money, because he had a whole bunch of projects on the side and during the economic downturn, it just didn\u2019t pan out very well. In the end, he terminated the contract with me and he took a whole bunch of my money with him.<\/p>\n
The subsequent attempts to rectify it was through the VCAT, the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal, and that lasted about a year and a half. Eventually, we had to go to the liquidation stage and then ASIC deregistered his business. Then we had to go through the builders warranty insurance. That all lasted about years.<\/p>\n
Kevin:<\/b>\u00a0 What a nightmare! In about a minute and a half, you\u2019ve taken us through a process that no doubt involved you in a lot of angst over a long period of time. The e-book is a result of all of that. You\u2019ve documented basically where you went wrong. Did you have a solicitor onboard helping you through this process?<\/p>\n
Samantha:<\/b>\u00a0 Towards the end, I did. I had a wonderful solicitor, but I must say that even the best solicitors \u2013 and particularly the good ones \u2013 do cost quite a bit. They\u2019re on average about $450 an hour, and even then further on to go down the liquidation path, they are even more expensive than that. Prior to that, I\u2019d gone through the Building Commission for advice, we\u2019d sought conciliation and all that during the process before the lawyers. But very costly process to get to the end.<\/p>\n
Kevin:<\/b>\u00a0 What are the tips that you\u2019d have that you\u2019d give someone who\u2019s looking at taking on a building or renovation project like this? Have you got some tips along the way?<\/p>\n
Samantha:<\/b>\u00a0 You can protect yourself before and during the contract. To protect yourself before the contract, find a good builder. A good builder is somebody who\u2019s familiar with those projects, he knows what your upfront costs are going to be, what the potential pitfalls are, and he\u2019s going to be pretty upfront with it. Sometimes that builder is possibly not going to be the cheapest builder.<\/p>\n
The first step prior to any contract, definitely try and get a good builder in. On my website, you can download a checklist. It\u2019s free; you don\u2019t even have to sign up for a mailing list. Just a questionnaire on how to get a good builder.<\/p>\n
Kevin:<\/b>\u00a0 That website, by the way, is NewHomeContracts.com.au.<\/p>\n
Stay with us, Samantha. We\u2019ll get you back later in the show and we\u2019ll continue this chat with you. Stay with us. Lots more to come, and Samantha will be back a little bit later in the show with more of those great tips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many owners planning on renovating or building a new home are new to the entire building and contractual process. Today we talk to someone who entered into a building agreement naively assuming the contract was fair and that she would be protected. She was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176692473,"featured_media":4490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13,25],"tags":[101],"class_list":["post-25211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kevin-turner-sponsored-channels","category-latest-story","category-sponsored-channels","tag-podcast"],"yoast_head":"\n