Family paid $500k for modular home they may never receive

PHOTO: Podular | PODULAR.CO..NZ

According to the NZHERALD Wellington doctors Kathryn Percival and David Pirotta should be spending their holidays and long weekends in picturesque Marlborough Sounds.

Instead, they fear they’ve lost more than $500,000 making progress payments on a house they now believe may never be built.

Auckland-headquartered builder Podular had promised to build the modular home in a factory and deliver it completed to the couple’s property within months of the build plans being finalised in August last year, they say.

It still hasn’t come. Now they worry the company may go bust before the house arrives – and that they could in turn lose a huge chunk of their life savings.

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Podular director Charles Innes and major shareholder Ilan Gross failed to provide the Herald with comment by the time this story went to print.

But Percival said chasing down answers from the company has been “extremely stressful”.

She has been left to care for their four children virtually alone, while Pirotta spends every spare hour at his computer seeking what he describes as “justice” from Podular.

“We don’t really know what’s going on, haven’t had a straight answer, an apology – even an acknowledgement that it’s not going according to plan.”

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They are one of six families the Herald spoke to, who describe being left in tears and feeling physically sick from the stress and “chaos” of dealing with delays by Podular and director Innes.

Collectively at risk of losing more than $900,000, they said they are speaking out to sound a warning about their experiences with Podular to other Kiwis.

Kathryn Percival and David Pirotta say they've spent all their spare time trying to get answers from builder Podular. Photo / Mark Mitchell — **Kathryn Percival and David Pirotta say they’ve spent all their spare time trying to get answers from builder Podular. Photo / Mark Mitchell**

They include a single mum who worries she could now spend years squeezed into a caravan with her 10-year-old son after she said she paid $265,000 in progress payments to Podular for a home that was supposed to be finished last Christmas but still hasn’t been delivered.