A Victorian building company appears on the brink of collapse after construction work has stalled for months while tradies are owed tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid debts.
News.com.au can reveal that Melbourne-based Apex Homes Australia Pty Ltd is facing the possibility of being ordered into liquidation later this month, on February 28.
Concreting business Aerolink Property Group lodged a winding up application against the building company over a $46,200 debt dating back to October last year.
Matthew Blum of insolvency firm BDO has consented to be the liquidator in the event that the company goes into liquidation.
A spokesperson for Apex Building Group said they had hired solicitors to “oppose” the court case and were trying to trade out of their financial difficulties.
They said they had restructured the business after Christmas to try to address customer concerns and acknowledged it had been a “tough three years”.
News.com.au has spoken to half a dozen customers of Apex Homes who say they are currently in a nightmarish limbo, unsure if their builder is about to go under.
One customer, Jason*, who preferred to remain anonymous, told news.com.au his builder had “every excuse under the sun” as to why his build was being delayed, including public holidays like long weekends, Easter and even Ramadan. “Their communication is abysmal.”
Another customer likened Apex’s opposition to the winding up case to that of an attempt for a “stay of execution”.
Another customer, Felix*, signed a contract with Apex Homes in late 2021 but said there’s been a massive staff turnover in the last two and-a-half years.
“Almost everyone has left from the people we dealt with back then,” he told news.com.au.
Their “communication was awful”, he added. “It’s a horrendous experience.”
In response, an Apex Homes representative said: “All staff are aware that all clients must be updated on a fortnightly basis”.
Another family who are building with the construction firm said their house had been stuck up at the lockup stage for months with no end in sight.
“I talked to all my contractors on site. Literally everybody is owed money,” Alan* told news.com.au.
A CreditorWatch report news.com.au has obtained shows that Apex Homes has had four payment defaults lodged against it since July, although one has paid.
There are still outstanding debts of $19,000, $3000 and $160,000, not to mention the ongoing court case.
The $160,000 debt dates back to July last year and is owed to a roofing and plumbing business.
News.com.au contacted the lawyer for Aerolink Property Group, the company taking Apex to court, for further comment.
News.com.au also spoke to two tradies who said Apex’s debts with them had all been paid back in full although now they insist that they are paid upfront for any jobs they do with the builder.
One tradie, who was owed $110,000, said “usually builders would have long gone, see you later. (But Apex) are really trying“.
This tradie estimated that at Apex’s peak, the construction company had around 200 homes they were building.
Apex did not say how many builds are currently on their books.
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News.com.au understands some customers have terminated their contract while others are in the process of doing so.
Alan* said he and his wife had engaged a lawyer and had terminated their contract with Apex. He estimates he has lost about $100,000 by ending the contract, calculated by the amount of work that’s been done compared to what he paid for.
“They had 380 days to build, it had gone past 700 days,” he lamented.
An Apex spokesperson said: “Any customer that has ended their contract will receive their deposit back minus any expenses incurred as per their contracts.
“This is addressed on a case-by-case basis. If these clients reach out directly, we are happy to look into this for them.”
Yet another customer, Mike*, said that he had been nagging the company for a schedule for his building works but had so far received “very little” by way of communication.
“There’s times I try to call 10, 20 times a day,” he said.
He said it took four months for a response, which simply told him they couldn’t give him a time frame.
Mike’s dream home is currently just a slab, despite signing the contract with Apex nearly two years ago.
Jessica* and her partner moved from overseas to Melbourne and embarked on a journey to build their dream home, but say their experience with Apex has been far from ideal.
She told news.com.au staff briefly did try to contact her every fortnight but this “fizzled out real quick”.
“I have an ongoing joke that we may as well buy a fancy tent and just move onto the cement pad and live,” Jessica said.