Nicheliving ‘being thrown on rubbish heap’ as debts exceed assets by $32m, tribunal told

Nicheliving’s lawyers have accused the State Government of seeking to throw the embattled builder “on the rubbish heap” as it fights to regain its registration. The group is arguing in the State Administrative Tribunal that the Building Services Board’s decision earlier this month not to renew its registration was, according to lawyer Martin Cuerden SC, “completely wrong”. The deregistration leaves Nicheliving’s residential construction arm unable to carry out works — and more than 200 homes are yet to be complete. But with Nicheliving’s financial solvency in question, the decision had removed the “risk” of more customers being signed up, the board’s lawyer Catherine Ide told the tribunal on Wednesday. And critically, it allowed frustrated and long-suffering customers to apply for up to $200,000 in State Government-underwritten home indemnity insurance that can cover, or go towards, the completion cost. The tribunal was told that 155 claims had been made. Mr Cuerdin said that left “60-odd people who haven’t made claims”, suggesting they wanted Nicheliving to finish them off. He also questioned whether other building companies had the capacity to “pick up the slack”. They “either don’t exist or if they do, the tribunal would have been told”, Mr Cuerdin said. The tribunal was told the group’s property holdings were worth $44 million compared to total debt of $76 million. Ms Ide said the board hadn’t made a positive finding about its financial status but wasn’t convinced it was not insolvent. Mr Cuerdin said that if the construction company folded as a result of deregistration, that would cause “the downfall of the whole group”, representing a “self-fulfilling” prophecy by the board. Ms Ide’s response to that was “If you’re already pregnant, you can’t get more pregnant”, drawing quiet titters from Nicheliving clients in the public gallery. Mr Cuedrin said home indemnity insurance was for the purpose of protecting the customers of insolvent building companies but was in this instance being misused. His client was being “thrown on the rubbish heap” so insurance could be accessed, he said. That was a “very circular way” for the State Government to assist after playing a role in “hyperstimulation” of the residential property market at the height of the Covid pandemic, he added. But Ms Ide said Nicheliving had taken on four years’ worth of work in just two years. Disgruntled customers Kathleen and Jim Clarke, who have been long waiting for their Dalkeith property to be finished, were watching the proceedings with great interest. “If their argument is that the costs have gone up, at the end of the day, they still signed on a lot more people than they could cope with,” Ms Clarke told reporters. “You’ve given them money, but you haven’t seen them finish your house, and yet they go and buy more land up the road, and then that sits vacant.” The tribunal was previously told that one of the managing directors, Ronnie Michel-Elhaj, claimed to have access to a number of “undisclosed” financing arrangements.