Builder Liquidation Lawyers in Melbourne

The site has gone quiet and the clock is already running

Your builder has gone into liquidation or administration, the site is fenced and silent, and you are somewhere between a slab and a lock-up stage you have already paid for. What you do in the next fortnight decides most of what you recover. We run builder collapse files for Melbourne homeowners weekly, and for subcontractors left holding unpaid invoices. Two problems are running at once here, a building one and an insolvency one, and the insolvency side sets the timetable, which is why a collapsed build belongs with insolvency lawyers rather than with a building practice alone. Call 1800 130 120 and the first call is free.

Before anything else, stop paying invoices, including any marked urgent from an administrator. Dig out your insurance certificate and your building contract. And photograph the site exactly as it stands, because the insurer will assess the completion stage against what you have already paid.

Which insurance covers you depends on one date

Victoria changed its scheme on 1 July 2026, so your contract date controls everything.

If you signed before 1 July 2026, you hold a domestic building insurance policy issued through VMIA, which was required for domestic building work over $16,000. It covers up to $300,000 per dwelling, and it pays out where your builder became insolvent, died, disappeared, or failed to comply with a court or VCAT order. Incomplete work is capped at 20 per cent of the contract price, and defective work is generally claimable for six years after completion, or two years for non-structural defects. The Building and Plumbing Commission now handles claims on these policies.

If you signed on or after 1 July 2026, you are under the new Home Warranty scheme run by the Building and Plumbing Commission, which applies to contracts over $20,000. Cover rises to $400,000 and incomplete work carries a 30 per cent sub-limit. It is also a first-resort scheme, so you no longer have to wait for a formal insolvency event before you claim for defective or incomplete work. Notification windows run from the moment you become aware of the loss, so your claim starts now, whatever the liquidator is doing.

The insurance claim is where the money comes from

Most homeowners get one shot at the assessment. We prepare the claim so the completion stage, the overpayments and every defect are on the record from the start, brief an independent building consultant where the numbers justify it, and challenge low assessments. If your dispute turns out to be about defects rather than insolvency, the fight moves to VCAT as a domestic building dispute.

Start your claim review

The liquidation itself: lodge, then look past it

Lodge a proof of debt with the liquidator for everything the insurance will not cover: the gap above the cap, lost rent, your excess. Do not expect much back from it, because unsecured creditors of failed builders usually recover cents in the dollar. Treat it mainly as a source of information. The liquidator’s report to creditors flags insolvent trading, deposits taken while the company was already gone, and missing insurance, and each of those can support a personal claim against the directors. Where directors signed guarantees or traded while insolvent, we pursue them directly, and what that involves is set out under director liability. The process the company itself is now going through is liquidation, and it explains most of the silence you are getting.

Subcontractors: your doors are different

The insurance is there for the homeowner. If you are an unpaid subbie, your recovery runs through the PPSR and retention of title over materials, any director guarantee buried in your trading terms, a proof of debt, and the Fair Entitlements Guarantee if you were on the books as an employee. Security of payment claims are close to worthless once the builder is in liquidation, so if the builder is wobbling but has not yet fallen over, ring us today while a progress claim can still bite. Our debt recovery lawyers handle the enforcement end.

Get the claim moving this week

Call 1800 130 120 or use the form on this page. Have your contract, invoices and any insurance certificate nearby if you can find them. You will finish the call knowing which scheme covers you, what it should pay, and what the next step is. Defect and contract fights with a builder who is still standing are handled by our building dispute lawyers.