An Australian real-estate developer went bankrupt and destroyed the plans of a woman who hired him to renovate her home for her dad, who was suffering from dementia, who eventually passed away without seeing the renovated home her daughter dreamt of.
The developer now owes Beake $132,573, an amount awarded to her by the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) after a long lawsuit. However, due to the developer’s bankruptcy, she is unlikely to receive it.
Living in Western Australia, Kerry Beake hired a company named Buildwise Solutions of Peter Jon Edmonds, which was located in Byford, a town on the south-eastern edge of Perth.
Beake now stated that she could not be aware of any complaints against the builder before hiring them. She argued that she was scammed for trusting a person posing as a professional who was supposed to carry out his job diligently. The woman also suggested that people are afraid of the building community of Western Australia, and the system does not support her.
Beake ran into the troubling developer in 2020 when she wanted Edmonds to convert her shed into a granny flat, introduce some safety mechanism in the bathroom, and make an office out of a carport, among other renovations.
After realizing that the project was severely mishandled, Beake was faced with an additional $185,000 estimate to correct the issues that Edmonds created himself. Despite charging her for home indemnity insurance, Edmonds never actually secured the policy, which was supposed to provide Beake a safety net that typically comes into play when a builder goes bankrupt.
Beake recounted that the builder failed to obtain the necessary permits and insurance for her project and the construction was so poorly done that there were visible gaps in the walls, and removed windows led to water flooding inside her home.
Initially, Edmonds had promised to complete the project within 35 days, but he unnecessarily dragged the work and stopped responding to Beake, who could not contact him in the upcoming months.
Beake now fears she will not receive her $152,250 back and believes other people can also run into similar scams. She expressed frustration in accepting that no other law protects her as a consumer.
Her goal was to keep her father away from aged care, but she had no other option except to allow him to live in one such facility when her home was under renovation. Her father eventually died last year.
In the wake of these events, Beake has contacted government officials to advocate for stronger consumer protection laws to prevent such tragedies.
The Mandurah Magistrates Court slapped Edson with a $2,000 fine after he admitted carrying out construction work on Beake’s property without securing the required home indemnity insurance, which would have compensated her for the amount determined by the SAT. Beake believes that this is an “insulting” decision from the court.
