Michelle Coffey and her husband say their old deck is getting hazardous and they'll have to push ahead with a new deck somehow despite losing $4500. Photo / Alex Burton
Michelle Coffey and her husband say their old deck is getting hazardous and they'll have to push ahead with a new deck somehow despite losing $4500. Photo / Alex Burton
Dozens of Auckland families and tradies say they have been left chasing hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to them after a deck and fence building company went into liquidation.
Crafted Decks and Fences co-director Oscar Brewer said the families and tradies have a right to be angry with himand he's "sincerely sorry" for the mistakes he made running the business.
The liquidator appointed to investigate the company's finances said 23 people and businesses have so far come forward saying they are owed more than $300,000.
Some families say they lost deposits on jobs that were never started by Crafted Decks and Fences, while others have paid tens of thousands of dollars for half-finished decks.
Tradies working as subcontractors - including one recently diagnosed with cancer and another who worked on Christmas Day - also say they have done jobs for the company but were never paid.
The couple are among a string of angry families and tradespeople to contact the Herald.
All hope to recover the money owed them even though many fear little cash may be left once the liquidator goes through the company's books.
All also said they are speaking out in the hope it prevents other Kiwis from losing money to the company's directors in the future.
Sue and Craig Hancock are worried about safety around their swimming pool after a company took $35,000 but never completed the deck it promised to build. Photo / Supplied
They said directors Oscar Brewer and Adam Hickson's business practices are concerning.
They are particularly concerned at how Brewer has regularly started and closed companies in short succession.
Brewer started his most recent company, Anytime House Wash, on January 31 this year.
Ten days later he put Crafted Decks and Fences into liquidation on February 10, having started it just one year earlier on January 19, 2021.
Company failures and high timber costs
Brewer apologised for Crafted Decks and Fences' collapse, saying he is to blame.
"I've had some serious failures managing this building company, and the buck stops with me," he said.
"I'm sincerely sorry. I am prepared to take ownership of the consequences. I have lost all of my own savings and some of my friends' and family's money."
He blamed mistakes and high building costs.
Things going wrong for Crafted Decks and Fences included having to refund customers after some of the mass-produced decks it had ordered proved to be poor quality, Brewer said.
"We employed 10 building firms to do work for us, many of which did not provide a reliable quality of work. We failed to check the quality of their work before employing them," he said.
"We needed to refund or discount the builds on our end."
Brewer said he still paid the subcontractors for those jobs and was soon struggling with rising timber costs and the strain of paying eight staff.
That led him to chase more jobs in the hope he could turn it around, he said.
"We lost money and operated on the strategy that we could recoup our losses by getting more sales," he said.
"Many of our creditors believe that I have personally withdrawn their funds fraudulently but the accounts and bank transactions show that our directors' current account was not excessive," he said.
Michelle Coffey and her husband paid a $4500 deposit to Crafted Decks and Fences for a new deck but the work was never started. Photo / Alex Burton
"I would like to make it clear that the company failed due to high and unforeseen business expenses."
Unfinished decks and lost deposits: the families affected
Sue Hancock, however, accused Brewer of misleading customers and subcontractors.
She and her husband most recently paid $11,500 to Crafted Decks and Fences on January 26, just two weeks before the company went into liquidation.
The company would have had to have known it was facing liquidation at the time, yet it accepted the money anyway, she said.
She said her family in total paid almost $50,000 to the company.
They first hired it to build a fence that was eventually completed.
But while the fence was being built, they agreed to have the company also build a large deck.
They paid an initial $22,000 deposit for the deck, but were then asked to make an extra $11,500 "progress payment" to cover the cost of materials.
Hancock then discovered the subcontractors doing the work had not received the money she had paid Crafted Decks and Fences, she said.
They walked off the job, leaving her deck unfinished.
Sue and Craig Hancock's backyard is a mess of debris and building materials after they paid $35,000 for a deck that was never completed. Photo / Supplied
They also told her that with only 10 per cent of the decking having been completed, there was no reason for Crafted Decks and Fences to have asked for an extra progress payment so soon, Hancock said.
They said the initial $22,000 deposit would have easily covered the cost of building materials up to that point, she said.
Another family, meanwhile, told the Herald they lost a 50 per cent deposit on a deck ordered through Crafted Decks and Fences just one week before it went into liquidation.
Michelle Coffey said she lost a $4500 deposit for a deck that was never started after she saw advertisements for the company on community Facebook pages.
She said her husband had received a bonus payment from work and with that money they had finally been able to go ahead and fix their old and "hazardous" deck.
"Now we have to find that money from somewhere else. With everything else going on with Covid it is the last thing we needed," she said.
Warwick Mills also lost a $500 deposit after he paid to have steps leading to his house built.
When there were delays with the job, he said Brewer told him the subcontractor couldn't come because his car had broken down.
But Mills said he phoned the subcontractor, who said there was nothing wrong with his car and that he wasn't doing the job because he hadn't been paid for it.
Michelle Coffey and her husband say their old deck is getting hazardous and they'll have to push ahead with a new deck somehow despite losing $4500. Photo / Alex Burton
Battling with cancer but owed $30,000: The tradies affected
Peter Gardner, who owns Generation Builders, said he is owed more than $30,000 by Crafted Decks and Fences for subcontract work he did and he could use the money to help with health and other costs associated with his battle with cancer.
He said there were warning signs that not all was right at the company over the Christmas and New Year period.
However, he bought materials and completed the jobs because the customers had paid Crafted Decks and Fences and because he said he would complete the work.
"It is pretty hard for a small business in these times to take a hit like that," he said.
"And for me, I've got cancer, we're trying to pay for a whole lot of additional things at the moment and it is just not going to happen now."
Subcontractor Khan Ahokava said Crafted Decks and Fences also owed him $10,000.
He said had stopped working for Brewer because he hadn't been paid for previous jobs.
However, Brewer phoned Ahokava just before Christmas and implored him to do one more job, after which Brewer would also pay all the other money he owed.
That led Ahokava to work on Christmas Day to ensure the job was done on time. However, Crafted Decks and Fences never paid him for the work, he said.
Liquidator Keaton Pronk, from McDonald Vague: Insolvency Practitioners, said the number of people and businesses claiming losses from the company was likely to climb to around 41.
He said it was not yet known how much of the $300,000 could be returned to those it is owed to.
