Upmarket building company fails leaving homes unfinished
Thursday, 21 March 2024
An upmarket Auckland home building company has been placed into liquidation.
Selah Homes Ltd failed earlier this month, leaving a trail of angry tradies, and three homes unfinished.
The liquidators said they’d been told the reasons for the company’s failure were the “poor health conditions of the sole director”, an increase in building costs and “cashflow difficulties”.
An award winning bespoke home building company has collapsed leaving a trail of angry tradies, and three homes unfinished.
Selah Homes Ltd built high-end family homes designed by award winning architects for more than a decade.
Its sole-director, Mark Berryman, is an award winning builder who has travelled to Samoa with the charity Habitat for Humanity.
But on March 13, the Auckland company was placed into liquidation.
Joint-liquidator Adam Botterill, from Waterstone Insolvency, told Stuff that three houses Selah Homes was building weren’t finished when it failed. He said he understood Berryman had tried to “connect” the home owners with another builder but was unsure if they had taken up the offer.
The first liquidator’s report, published on March 19, said Selah Homesowed more than $70,000 to small and large companies - but that figure is expected to rise.
Stuff has spoken to some tradies who say they’re owed money and have yet to make contact with the liquidators.
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In their report, the liquidators said they’d been told the reasons for the company’s failure were the “poor health conditions of the sole director”, an increase in building costs and “cashflow difficulties”.
The report said the liquidators would review yet-to-be completed building projects to determine if there is any liability.
It also said it was unknown if IRD was owed money and it was too soon to know what, if anything, would be paid to creditors.
A creditors’ meeting was scheduled for March 27 at the Pupuke Golf Club in Auckland’s Campbells Bay.
An owner/ operator electrician told Stuff his company was owed $20,000 for work on two Riverhead properties.
The man laughed when asked if he was hopeful of getting that money back.
“I’m a small cog in the wheel - I’m not expecting anything.”
He said the loss of $20,000 really hurts.
“For us, it’s the profit for the last couple of months … $20k would’ve paid a couple of week’s wages.”
The electrician said the liquidation came without warning, and Berryman had stopped answering emails and phone calls.
He said it was the first time he’d been left out of pocket on a job in his six years of operation.
A door manufacturer owed about $4000 said while the figure was not high, “every dollar counts”. He hoped to recoup his money.
“The industry isn’t good at this time.”
Berryman started out with a renovation business when he was 20 years-old, before branching into building his own homes.
Nine years later, in 2016, he won a Registered Master Builders gold award in the $500,000 to $650,000 category for a home in Riverhead, in north-west Auckland.
A house labelled “beach lover” built in the North Shore suburb of Torbay featured in the House of the Year magazine in 2019.
When Stuff tried to contact Berryman for comment, his landline had been disconnected and his cellphone account was not receiving voice messages.
But Berryman did respond to a text message, saying the liquidator’s report was an “accurate reflection” of Selah’s situation.
He referred to his health condition, saying he had Ramsay Hunt Syndrome after getting shingles. Ramsay Hunt Syndrome can cause facial paralysis, effect hearing and eye sight.
“[I] haven’t recovered to an extent that I can work in a way the business needs.”
When asked for an interview, Berryman said he was “not up to answering questions on the phone”.
He referred further questions to the liquidators.