Fighting for Subbies Rights
I can't believe how people care so little for the people who trusted them. They lie their guts out to keep subbies and employees working while they bleed them for every last drop of blood then, when they have bled them out, they discard their bodies and move onto the next one like the bloodsucking fleas they are.
How many times have you heard the lines, "we have no money", "we are waiting on the developer to pay us". "We are expecting payment next Tuesday and we will pay you in full".
Future Urban Residential Pty Ltd
Future Urban's new licence application was granted on Tuesday 30th January 18 and was suspended on Wednesday 21st Feb 18. That is a QBCC flip flop of the highest order. The director and licensee both worked for Q1 Homes and obviously learnt a few tricks of the trade from the master.
They are heading down the same path as Q1, phones are gone, office closed, website down, facebook page deleted and they come up with the limp excuse, "we are upgrading our phones at the moment but I am still available by email". Whats wrong with being available face to face?
Translated into English, that reads, "we have gone to ground until the heat dies down, fend for yourselves suckers".
Who in business leaves themselves without a phone while upgrading, if there is an outage by the service provider, their customers go into meltdown. They must think they are dealing with 2 year olds.
Chronology of the short life of this company
7th April 2016 - Start date - the QBCC licence was born. This is the day they were let loose on the subcontractors and suppliers of South East Queensland and lets spare a thought for the unsuspecting families they were building homes for. This was the day that financial hardship and ruin for some was ordained by the QBCC. I know one subcontractor who is owed $75,000 and there are many others.
I know one of their clients who paid them a $60,000 deposit in October 2017. The one saving grace for the home owners is that the QBCC Home Warranty Insurance will kick in when a company liquidates and they will be paid but in the meantime, they are paying holding costs on their land and rent where they live and putting up with the gut churning, all consuming anxiety of being ripped off.
Note to home owners contracted to Future Urban:
Do not agree to their request to cancel your contract, mutual cancellation of the contract could negate your ability to claim on your home warranty insurance in the event of liquidation. Seek legal advice.
See Future Urbans QBCC License
11th May 2016 - the QBCC licence became active
24th Jan 2018 - Director was licensed
30th Jan 2018 - Licence was cancelled on the contractors request
30th Jan 2018 - New application
21st Feb 2018 - License suspended
They lasted a whopping 20 months and in that time, according to the licence, they turned over $13,113,412.
Minimum Financial Requirements (MFR)
With the new application, were the directors required to submit up to date financial information to meet the minimum financial requirements? I would say yes and if so, how closely was it scrutinised by the QBCC when there is clear evidence that they have not been paying subcontractors since last year and have been accepting deposits but not starting the builds for their clients.
A subbie emailed me yesterday and said the following;
Mobile phones disconnected, website taken down and facebook page deleted. QBCC License Suspended as of yesterday 21/2/18
I am not sure how many others are owed money but they owe us $75K
20 months, 13 million, BANG, gone to ground.
How can you do 13 million of work in 20 months and then tell your subbies you have no money?
- A flawed business model?
- New home for the directors?
- An investment property?
- New vehicles?
- Overseas holidays?
- Toys such as boats or jet skis?
I have seen all this before, no surprises here if it was the case.
21 days after the new application was granted, the QBCC suspended their license.
28 days after that, unless they can satisfy the QBCC that they are viable, they will cancel the license but it would appear that they should never have approved it in the first place, what information did the directors provide to the QBCC on the 24th of January to gain that license?
They couldn't pay their subbies then so how did he get past the MFR requirements?
In general, the breach of trust and the lies that come before and after is what still shocks and astounds me. Even after the frauds are exposed, they compound it all with even more lies, they don't know when to stop, they start to believe their deceit as being true.
Only a pathological liar and narcissist could do what liquidating builders do and live with themselves.
We at SubbiesUnited demand that the QBCC fully investigate how they failed subcontractor and the community including the home owners who signed up and paid deposits to Future Urban.
If they find evidence of false financial information and documentation, we demand that they refer the evidence to the Queensland Police Service to investigate the possibility of fraud and put pressure on to have charges laid.
Message to Future Urban Directors
There is still time to redeem yourselves, we all make mistakes and bad business decisions. Feel free to contact us and we will help you through the process and if possible, help you turn the business around or at the very least, wind it up with some dignity intact. If you are taking advice from pre insolvency advisors, let me assure you, this will not end well.
Why is it up to us to protect subbies? Because the regulators won't do their job.