Charles Innes: Podular tiny home businessman running third company while millions owed to creditors

A Podular home shown on social media. A company insider claims as many as 60 customers paid for homes that were either not started or not completed. Photo / Facebook

Homeowners believe it’s “morally wrong” and liquidators say they’re concerned that businessman Charles Innes has been running a third building company while two others he is in charge of have left creditors facing $6 million in losses.

Innes is director of failed tiny home and shed-building companies Podular Housing Systems and Sanders Manufacturing, which went into liquidation in November and April, respectively.

Podular owes an estimated $5.28m to creditors, having failed to deliver finished tiny homes to up to 60 buyers, according to liquidators and a company insider.

Sanders Manufacturing owes about $800,000 after as many as 68 customers likely paid deposits for cabins and sheds they didn’t receive, the liquidator says.

While those liquidation processes continue, Innes is understood to have been profiting from deck and fence-building jobs through his directorship of a third business, called Ten Four Limited, trading as Fenceadeck.

Young Wairarapa dad Eli Thomas is among those facing financial ruin as he battles to make payments on a $350,000 mortgage for a tiny home Podular never delivered, and says he believes it is “absolutely morally wrong” that Innes is still advertising for new customers.

“It’s like we’re going backwards while he’s still going forward,” Thomas said, adding “the emotional impact of every day ... trying to dig ourselves out of this massive hole” was devastating.

Podular and Sanders’ combined collapse are among the largest failures in the modular home and cabin sector, an industry that is seen by some as a key to helping to ease the housing crisis by building more homes quickly.

The companies advertised they could make homes, cabins, sleepouts and sheds, using modular designs that could supposedly be mass-produced, while also being modifiable to suit the needs of individual customers.

The Fenceadeck.co.nz website of Innes’ third company states the business can build fences and decks, and claims it is “a premier timber outdoor specialist”.

Along with a “dedication to exceptional service”, it claims it has “staff and tradies with decades of experience”.

Innes established the company as its sole director and shareholder in 2020, calling it Krib Limited before changing the registered name to Ten Four Limited in November 2021.

Eli Thomas and Sophie Annen with daughter Charlie-Rose at the site of their unbuilt house in South Wairarapa. Photo / Dave Lintott

He is understood to have then left New Zealand a month or so before Podular went into liquidation in November last year, spending time in Bali and Western Australia.

He recently updated his address details on the Companies Register to a beachfront, townhouse address in Cottlesloe, Perth.

While overseas he is understood to have continued taking commission on jobs booked through the Fenceadeck website, with a local installer he previously worked with at Sanders doing the work.

However, after the Herald sent questions to Innes about the company on Wednesday, Innes removed himself as a director and shareholder in Ten Four.

The local installer who had been building Fenceadeck’s jobs is now listed as the company director and shareholder and told the Herald he intended to buy the company.

Garry Whimp, of Blackrock Rose, which is liquidating Sanders, said he was aware Innes had continued to trade through the third company.

“I’m aware of it, the other liquidators are aware of it, but we’re focusing on what’s in front of us at the moment,” he said.

“But it is a real concern.”

Ben Francis, of Gary Rea Partners, which is liquidating Podular, said it was “something that’s been brought to our attention” but his focus was on recovering money for creditors of Podular.

Wellington couple David Pirotta and Kathryn Percival were also customers of Podular, paying more than $500,000 for a modular home they have not received.

While there is no suggestion that Innes has done anything illegal by running Ten Four, Pirotta still believed it was “disgraceful”.

He accused Innes of fleeing overseas to escape the fallout from the collapse of Podular and Sanders.

He should come back to New Zealand “and face the music”, Pirotta said.

For Pirotta and Thomas and other Podular customers, the fallout has been an “ongoing nightmare”.

They are locked in a legal battle with liquidators about ownership of the half-finished modular homes they paid for and which were being built by Podular in its factories before the company collapsed.

That matter was heard in the High Court on Thursday, with the judge reserving a decision on the matter.

Eli Thomas said that, even if he won ownership of the exterior shell of his tiny modular home, he still faced the prospect of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars extra on top of the $350,000 already spent to finish what should have been a $400,000 build.

It was not just a question of money. “When your dream was to have your daughter grow up out on a little lifestyle block and instead you’re broke living in a rental in town, it’s a big change.

“So it has an impact every day on our family.”