Perth’s Flexible Homes builder goes bust leaving home-buyers in the lurch

Another construction company has gone bankrupt, leaving devastated customers with half-finished homes.

Perth-based Flexible Homes was turned over to trustees on Tuesday with at least 19 unfinished properties on their books and possibly many more being contracted out for construction.

Single mom Brooke Fitzsimmons, whose home under construction is little more than a set of walls, said she lost hope.

“When we signed the contract we were excited to have a house to raise my son and two years later the end is not in sight,” she told 9News.

Ms Fitzsimmons said she didn’t know what would happen to her house and struggled to get hold of the construction company.

“It’s just an email, they don’t give us an address, they don’t give us a phone number, they don’t give us anything.”

Monika Goyal also has an unfinished house in the northeastern suburb of Perth, Bennett Springs.

She said work on her home was contracted out to another contractor, Western Luxury Homes (WLH), who now says it has no affiliation with Global Homes.

“We had never heard of WLH…we made all our payments to Flexible Homes bank account and received communications through their email address,” said Ms. Goyal.

“It never occurred to us that they weren’t the same entity we signed with.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, when we get our house, whether we get our house or not.”

Ms. Fitzsimmons’ unfinished home is one of many structures left in limbo after Global Homes went into administration

Flexible Homes changed hands just six weeks ago when former owners and directors Pavreet Singh, MD Touhidul Islam Sunny and Manhoman Singh transferred their combined 50,000 shares to Christopher Platt on May 18.

Ms Goyal and her partner Sanket Baweja emailed Mr Platt to find out which builder was doing the work on their house.

“The new owner responded and stated that we did not sign the contract with Flexible Homes but with WLH and the contract between them has been terminated, therefore Flexible Homes is no longer responsible as a customer contact for WLH,” said Ms. Goyal. the Western Australian.

The Western Australian regulator Building and Energy said it understands 19 homeowners had direct contracts with Flexible Homes but was investigating “where the contract arrangements are less clear and may involve other builders”.

The spokesperson expressed the hope that people with a direct contract can claim home contents insurance.

Monika Goyal (pictured right) and partner Sanket Baweja were shocked to learn that the construction of their house had been outsourced

An email reportedly sent by Mr Platt on Sunday outlines why Global Homes was placed in the hands of Administrator Kim Wallman of HLN Mann Judd Insolvency WA.

“This is all getting too stressful,” the email said,

“It was never meant to be, but now with all the media and negativity it would be impossible for me to run the company.

‘Moreover, there was never any misrepresentation to any of the clients, who signed with another builder because Flexible Homes was their subcontractor.’

Mr Sunny told The West Australian on Monday that he had stepped down as director in February because ‘the prices of everything had gone up’.

Builders across the country are going out of business in record numbers due to a perfect storm of fixed-price jobs and rising equipment and labor costs, experts say.

Between July 2022 and April 2023, 1,709 builders went into receivership.

The previous Morrison administration The HomeBuilder grant introduced in June 2020 has boosted the housing industry.

More than 130,000 clients signed up for the program, with builders mostly agreeing to take work on a fixed-price contract, which continued to haunt them as costs began to climb.

Supply chain problems erupted in 2022, spurred by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, driving up world prices for building materials such as steel and timber.

Labor shortages also emerged, creating more demand for crafts, which paid them more and slowed the completion of work.

Along with a wave of wild weather in 2022 and rising inflation, builders had a huge backlog of work that cost them much more and took longer than they planned.

Global Homes could not be reached for comment.