NSW Fair Trading has launched an investigation into Metricon, the country’s largest home builder, after a notable surge in customer complaints.
A report by ABC on Thursday said that the company had been terminating contracts of dozens of customers and forced them to choose between paying higher prices or losing their new home and deposits.
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The company told The Australian Financial Review on Thursday that it had offered to refund, or refunded, full deposits on the customers quoted by ABC.
The company has been listed on the regulator’s complaints register for the past four consecutive months, prompting over 60 complaints since March.
In June, the company received 18 complaints, surpassing the 11 complaints lodged against Rescon Builders, which has gone into administration.
Metricon’s spokesperson said: “A small percentage of customers have incurred delays in taking possession of their land titles or other delays impacting building timelines well beyond 12 months (in some cases two years), which has led to inevitable cost rises due to issues affecting building costs.”
“In the event that Metricon enters into a new contract with those customers who have exceeded their contract expiry, the price increase from their original contract to the new contract solely reflects material and labour price rises.”
Before this recent surge, Metricon rarely featured on the complaints register, appearing only once in 2022.
However, the company remains a major player in the home construction industry, with 395 new homes currently in the NSW construction pipeline alone this year.
NSW Fair Trading is currently conducting interviews with dozens of affected customers, gathering evidence in the form of photographs and documents, with plans to produce a brief of evidence for further action.
“Almost 70 per cent of the complaints made about Metricon relate to quality of service,” NSW Fair Trading said in a statement on Thursday.Metricon’s spokesperson said the team would work closely with the NSW Fair Trading and “are working through these issues”.
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