Premier Roger Cook has insisted under-fire Nicheliving still can’t lay a brick after the directors cleared a vote to regain control of the building company yesterday.
The WA opposition leader has raised Nicheliving insolvency concerns with the corporate watchdog after the under-fire directors regained control of the company.
Nicheliving directors Ronnie Michel-Elhaj and Paul Bitdorf cleared a creditors vote yesterday to buy-back the holding company and the building arm for $2.7 million.
Premier Roger Cook also expressed his disappointment over the deal getting across the line, and revealed the state - as a creditor - is owed about $600,000 in unpaid payroll tax.
Mr Cook said the state government's representative, who attended the meeting, voted against the deal.
"We're disappointed with the outcome," he said.
"That company owes the state, around $600,000 in relation to unpaid payroll tax.
"We're a creditor, and we believe that more other steps should have been taken in relation to the creditors receiving their money."
The directors lobbed the deed of company arrangement - being the buy-back deal - to regain Nicheliving Holdings and Projex Management & Construction, two of the three entities in administration.
It means those two entities will now avoid liquidation, which according to the administrators, offered a greater return to creditors than the other scenario.
It comes just months after the state government stripped Nicheliving of its building registration and banned the company and directors from building for a decade.
KordaMentha administrators John Bumbak and Richard Tucker were called in to undertake an urgent assessment of three entities: Nicheliving Holdings, Projex Management & Construction and Rubix Future Building Technology.
The DOCA deal is contingent on the directors meeting certain conditions, after which those two entities could continue operating alongside Nicheliving’s several other outfits.
But Mr Cook said the deal changes nothing in regard to the ability to build.
“The fact of the matter is that Nicheliving can still not build, they can still not lay a brick,” he said.
Nicheliving and its directors were banned from building or starting a new contractor business for 10 years after agreeing to drop the fight to regain its builder’s registration - initially cancelled on financial grounds.
That opened the pathway for the trail of impacted homeowners across the state to access $200,000 in home indemnity insurance.
Since then, Mr Cook said 212 claims for insurance had been made, of which 103 had been paid out at a cost pf $19.1 million.
Should the 200-odd homeowners acess the taxpayer-underwritten insurance scheme, it'll cost the state government up to $40 million.
WA opposition leader Shane Love, who has been vocal in his criticism of the building company, said he was taking another issue up the chain.
He said he formally referred the builder to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission over insolvency concerns.
In the latest creditors report, KordaMentha administrators wrote the company likely became insolvent in March 2024, but possibly in the early months of 2021.
Mr Love said he was calling on ASIC to urgently investigate Nicheliving.
“ASIC’s intervention is critical to ensure the directors of NicheLiving are held accountable, and to demonstrate to the building industry and consumers that improper conduct will not go unchecked,” Mr Love said.
“These claims raise serious questions about the financial management and solvency practices of both entities, with significant implications for creditors, customers, and the wider building industry in Western Australia.
“These revelations, while hardly surprising to those who have been aware of the Nicheliving nightmare for the past several years, cast serious doubt on the State Government’s role in overseeing and regulating this builder.”
ASIC has been monitoring developments in the Nicheliving matter, although the watchdog cannot be drawn to comment on any reports or complaints.
