THE SUBBIES

GOLD Coast subcontractors are once again carrying the can for a failed building company – with local small businesses working for Future Urban owed at least $750,000 – an amount that’s expected to grow sharply once the true scale of the collapse is known.

Among them is landscaper Paige, who only wants her first name published, and claims she is owed $41,000 by the company.

Paige was wary of dealing with Future Urban as she’d previously been stung in the Queensland One Homes-Empire Constructions debacle and she knew Andrew and Kirsty Thew had previously worked for them.

Queensland One Homes director Paul Callender will face a public examination this year after a liquidator found company records had been destroyed by water after being left in the back of a ute.

“They told me they used to work for Q1 but didn’t like how they operated and that’s why they left,” she said.

“(Ms Thew) assured me that they would never run their business like that and everything would be fine.

“But for the first couple of invoices, we were chasing payment – we started getting read receipts for our emails and we could see when we were chasing payments she was reading the emails but not replying.”

Paige’s business had paid its suppliers and, after weeks without reply, Paige finally got a swift phone call and email from Ms Thew after telling her she’d made a complaint to the building regulator.

“Within two minutes she called me,” Paige said.

“She left a message saying she understood my frustration. I said ‘I don’t care what you say, I’m going to the QBCC’.”

Plumber Garret Waller says he is owed $17,000 by Future Urban for two jobs done this year.

He said he’d submitted a quote for work on a 10-unit project in Brisbane by Future Urban just last week.

“We don’t usually do work for the smaller builders,” he said.

“I don’t think we’ll get that money back.”