Stuff Digital Edition

Family caught in container home nightmare

Melanie Carroll

‘‘He’s destroyed our lives. He’s taken our half million bucks, blown it, and we’ve got nothing.’’ Justin Steves

A Northland man who paid a container home company more than $500,000 for his dream home says he has received nothing and lost his life savings.

Justin Steves wanted to build a home for his family of five on land he bought in Tutukaka, north of Whanga¯ rei. Steves, his wife and two children had been living in Brisbane but were ready to return to New Zealand.

In April 2019, Steves came to New Zealand and met Warren Sinclair, the owner of Whanga¯ rei company Ready Homes.

Ready Homes creates houses out of metal containers, which the company claims on its website are ‘‘the opportunity to get on the ladder for fraction [sic] of the cost of investing in bricks and mortar’’.

Options on the website range from a simple single-container sleepout priced from $24,995 to multi-container, four-bedroom homes costing more than $350,000. They are built offsite, and then transported to the owner’s property.

‘‘He [Sinclair] pitched me an idea for a container home, it was a 17-odd container build. It’s on a hill, so it’s an awkward build,’’ Steves said.

‘‘When we first met him, he gave me a verbal figure on-site for the build of about $500,000 to $600,000. We were a bit gullible, when we went back to Australia I paid a deposit before I’d even signed a contract.’’

After receiving the $35,000 deposit, Sinclair provided a quote in July 2019 of about $930,000.

‘‘Just straight away we thought oh no, we’ve paid money, what do we do,’’ Steves said.

‘‘We negotiated it down to about $770,000, I was obviously going to finance the rest once we got here and got a job and all that.’’

By May 2020 they had paid Ready Homes $512,000.

‘‘He hasn’t done anything.’’ Sinclair was approached for comment, but he said he was advised by his lawyer not to discuss it as court proceedings were under way. The Sunday Star-Times has seen a copy of the contract between Steves and Ready Homes, with an expected completion date of December 16, 2019, consent applications pending.

The family had sold their house in Australia, and used savings which took 20 years to build up. They were now living in a tiny rental property with no money.

‘‘He’s destroyed our lives. He’s taken our half million bucks, blown it, and we’ve got nothing, and he’s created so much drama along the way.’’

Steves, a fitter and turner, started working for Sinclair as a tradesman in mid-last year, a few months after returning from Australia, and briefly worked for him as operations manager.

In November 2020, Sinclair wrote to Steves saying that Covid had significantly delayed the project. He also said that Steves had made significant alterations to the house plans without consulting Ready Homes in terms of costings and extra time it would take.

One of the variations was the placement of the building further up a hill, which made the crane selected impossible. Steves was taking Sinclair, and Ready Homes, to the High Court to get his money back.

Ready Homes Ltd briefly went into receivership this year, from February 26 to March 19, owing creditors $1.35 million. The company refinanced and repaid the lender in full, the receivers said in their report.

Another Ready Homes customer, Emma Tyler of Otorohanga, said she and her husband were told that once they had paid $43,000, it would take six to eight weeks to get their house.

Instead, it took from September last year to June for the house to arrive, and it still needed work to gain council certification, she said.

In the meantime, they had stayed in a caravan. Her husband had cystic fibrosis and was told by his doctor that over the winter in the caravan his lung function had dropped.

They ended up spending $30,000 on another, better caravan to live in until the house was ready, Tyler said.

Sinclair told them that trouble with materials had caused the delay, but it was difficult to get information out of him, she said.

The council told them the building needed a different roof and some other work done before it could be signed off.

Tyler said they chose Ready Homes because it seemed quick, reasonably priced and straightforward, and having to pay for the roof and other work was ‘‘gut-wrenching’’.

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2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

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