Licencing drama not put to bed for Raptis

QUEENSLAND’S building industry commissioner is having another crack at the licence of veteran developer Jim Raptis, launching fresh court action against him and two of his companies.

Commissioner Brett Bassett, the Queensland Building and Construction Commission and bureaucrat Mark Wilson are appealing a Supreme Court decision in March to let Mr Raptis keep his Queensland builder licence.

The regulator has spent a year in court since threatening to cancel the developer’s licence and those of two of his construction companies, Ezra Constructions and Garnet Constructions.

The QBCC had asserted Mr Raptis should be excluded from holding a licence because two companies he used to develop the Sapphire tower at Labrador had failed with debts of more than $11 million.

However, Supreme Court Justice David Boddice ruled the regulator’s notices to cancel the licences be set aside because of changes to the QBCC Act which happened in 2014 and 2015, as the companies collapsed.

The judge found that, after Mr Raptis had been threatened with exclusion from holding a licence, he should have been afforded the right to apply to be a “permitted individual”, in line with the older legislation.

Judge Boddice found because Mr Raptis was not afforded that right, the QBCC’s threats to cancel the licences were invalid.

In documents filed with the court, the QBCC claims Judge Boddice was mistaken in declaring Mr Raptis had the right to apply as a permitted individual and so the decision to set aside the licence cancellation notices was also an error.

Lawyers for the QBCC will argue that the judge should have made his decision based on the legislation that was current at the time the notices were issued, in April last year, instead of in line with previous laws.

They are seeking the March court order be set aside and that Mr Raptis and his companies be liable for the regulator’s court costs.

Lawyers for Mr Raptis and his companies lodged a notice to contest the appeal at a Court of Appeal callover in Brisbane yesterday. Mr Raptis said his “legal advisers are confident of the outcome of the appeal and we can make no further comment at this stage”.

Since 2016 Mr Raptis has been a registered nominee builder for Garnet Constructions, part of his ASX-listed Raptis Group, and for Ezra Constructions, which is also linked to his operations.

Ezra Constructions has developed the towering Waterpoint Residences at Biggera Waters and the 57-townhouse Panorama Residences at Carrara, entering two building contracts with a total value of $47 million.

The Raptis Group returned to the ASX in 2015 after an eight-year suspension in 2008, when the group was delisted after collapsing for the second time, owing creditors almost $1 billion.