Regulator increases builder ban
A BANNED builder with a history of incomplete, unapproved homes, and whose company failed owing $4.8 million, has been slapped with a further disqualification by the state’s construction regulator.
Adrian Hill, whose AB Hill Constructions company went into liquidation with debts of $4.8 million in May 2018, will be banned from the industry until September 2022 after an extra 16 months was added to his already three-year licence suspension.
The Queensland Building and Construction Commission fined Mr Hill a total of $9135 and gave him 30 demerit points, finding he had failed to fix defective work and had disregarded his initial ban, performing building work after his licence was cancelled, some of it without a contract in place.
The regulator swooped on Niecon Tower in February after Mr Hill set up in an office there.
Last year, a spray-painted threat of “pay tradesman or burn” on one of Mr Hill’s sites sparked a police investigation after the company was placed into liquidation.
The Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) said at the time some homes by the builder may have to be demolished after revelations they were built without proper development approvals.
Other homes were approved by the council after they were built, leaving neighbours with no way of objecting to developments that impacted them.
Despite Mr Hill’s building licence having been suspended multiple times in recent years for failing to pay debts, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Appeal Tribunal gave it back to him in October 2017, allowing his company to keep taking money from clients and sending subcontractors to jobs for another month.
His company’s 147 unsecured creditors did not receive any of their money back as liquidator Michael Dullaway was only able to recoup $2631 in assets for the failed company, including $200 held in a joint account held by Mr Hill and his wife Amber Bottomley.
Property records show mortgagees sold a fivebedroom luxury home fronting Palm Meadows Golf Course, owned by Ms Bottomley, to a new owner for $1.5 million last September.
A statement from the QBCC said it had excluded Mr Hill from the building industry from May 16 last year to May 16, 2021 after AB Hill Constructions went into liquidation.
“The QBCC has now taken additional action to disqualify Mr Hill from the industry until September 12, 2022, for accumulating 30 demerit points within a three-year period, which results in an automatic disqualification under Queensland law,” the statement said.
“The demerit points arose from three incidents.
“These included two instances where AB Hill Constructions failed to rectify defective building work, and the QBCC subsequently issued fines to Mr Hill, as the director of the company.
“Mr Hill was also found by the QBCC to have performed unlicensed building work after his personal licence was cancelled and to have started that work without having a contract in place.
“He was fined $2611 for the unlicensed work and $1302 for the contract-related offence, which also attracted 10 demerit points.”