An East Gippsland resident, who lost her home in the black summer bushfires, says she was shocked to be told by her builder, an awarded Master Builders Association of Victoria member, they would go broke if he built her house.
Kerral McFarlane’s farmhouse was burnt to the ground during the 2019 fires that tore through Buchan. About 18 months ago she inked a contract with a local builder to rebuild her home and was last month told it couldn’t be done for the price to which she had previ-ously signed up for.
The builder indicated they would need more than 50 per cent extra, on top of the original price, to construct the house.
Mrs McFarlane told the Advertiser she wasn’t able to agree to such a request. “A con-tract is a contract,” she said.
Mrs McFarlane said she had tried to contact the builder several times over the past 18 months to ascertain when the build was going to begin.
“He just didn’t answer the phone, he just wouldn’t talk to us,” she said.
“We thought does he want to build this house?”.