An experienced Illawarra builder has been ordered to pay $71,500 in fines and professional costs for starting work on four Koonawarra properties without getting the required construction approvals.
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Nova Bundalo and GC Property Holdings, the company of which he is the sole director, were each charged with four counts of building without a construction certificate after a Wollongong City Council investigation revealed the four neighbouring homes on Wyndarra Way were being erected in violation of the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.
Council documents tendered to Wollongong Local Court this week said the homes had received individual development consents between July 28 and August 1 in 2014, however each had a stipulation saying a construction certificate must be obtained before any work was to commence.
However, Bundalo began erecting the homes in February or March 2015, without having been issued a certificate. The council issued him with a ‘please explain’ letter in December 2015 prior to laying the charges.
Bundalo subsequently pleaded guilty to all charges. Prosecutors revealed Bundalo had previously been convicted of carrying out development without consent offences in September 2014 and ordered to pay $45,000 in fines and professional costs.
Facing court on Thursday for sentencing on the fresh matters, Bundalo admitted he’d been distracted by two family crises at the time of the offence, culminating in the death of his mother-in-law from terminal cancer and another close relative undergoing life-threatening heart surgery in the same month.
“It [was] the toughest six months of our lives,” he wrote in a letter tendered in court.
“During this [time] a few things were overlooked or forgotten. [But] GC Property Holdings has built well over 50 houses in the past two years and not once has this ever happened.”
Magistrate Michael Stoddart fined Bundalo and the company a total of $66,000, saying the community would be right to expect an experienced builder to have been more careful. He also ordered Bundalo pay professional costs of $5,500.
It was the toughest six months of our lives
- Nova Bundalo