My Mother's house has got (recently discovered) extensive damage from some dodgy building, and an engineer has told her that one course of action is to inform the owner builder she bought it from to survey it in person before legal action. We were told to send a registered letter to them, but only have an old forwarding address. Is there a straight forward, ethical way to find a proper address? We don't have much information about the person besides a Facebook page and email address for his work (in a different industry to building). Afraid that if we send a message / email asking for postage address that it will alert them to what's coming.
Finding A Builder's Home Address to Send Registered Letter
AustraliaObscura on 20/03/2019 - 15:12
Comments
Proof of an email sent to the last known email address should work just as well.
edit: just saw it's owner builder
in vic, you should get owner builder insurance cert. if owner builder sold the house within 6 yrs.
perhaps you can pull details out from the insurance cert.
I was an owner-builder some 30 years ago, and I had to register with a government body. I assume that something similar would still be in place.
You might like to find out which body this is (Google seems to say it's https://www.vba.vic.gov.au/ ) and ask them how you can track down the owner-builder.
White Pages?
electoral roll
There's nothing forcing the owner builder to rectify the problems, is there?
depends which state you're in
There is in Victoria.
Wouldn't your mother be liable for all building works if she bought the property?
Vic has mandatory Owner Builders insurance that can be claimed against. On top of that, if something was done dodgy, then there are other avenues.
@Typical16-bitEnjoyer: The insurance is a backup and can only be claimed in the event where the owner builder is bankrupt/dead/missing.
@dcep: There's no "cheap" fixes when it comes to structural issues. They'll be the former or the latter quick smart if they sniff a claim coming.
Obtain your mother's Contract of Sale and Vendor's Statement. All this information should be contained in it.
Did your mother get a building inspection done when she bought the property?
ABN Lookup perhaps