Lauer and Ng v Corner

Civil and Administrative Tribunal

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	Lauer & Ng v Corner [2015] NSWCATCD 114
Hearing dates:	19 May 2015
Decision date:	25 August 2015
Jurisdiction:	Consumer and Commercial Division
Before:	G Meadows Senior Member
Decision:	Ike Corner is to pay the sum of $26,040.00 to the applicants within 28 days of the date of these orders
Catchwords:	Administrative law-home building-identity of buider-multiple causes of action claimed-Australian Consumer Law and residential building works-misleading and deceptive conduct-restitution-entitlement of unlicensed builder to retain payments in absence of quantum meruit claim-damages
Legislation Cited:	Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2013 Fair Trading Act 1987 Australian Consumer Law Home Building Act 1989
Category:	Principal judgment
Parties:	Simon Lauer and Rachel Ng (applicants) Ike Corner (respondent)
Representation:	Counsel: Ms Michelle McMahon for the applicants Mr Robert Zickman for the respondent Solicitors:Applicants in person Gerald Aronston for the respondent
File Number(s):	HB 14/35459
Publication restriction:	Nil

REASONS FOR DECISION

Background

1. Ms Rachel Ng is, or was, just prior to the commencement of the hearing in this matter, the National Technical Manager—Motor, Australian Underwriting, for Wesfarmers Insurance. She is married to Mr Simon Lauer, who is, or was, as above, the Sales Development Manager—Primary Freight, for Woolworths Limited. I will refer to them together as “the homeowners”, and individually as required.

2. At the beginning of 2014, the homeowners, who had recently purchased a home which Ms Ng described as “freshly renovated for sale when we bought it”, decided they wished to make further renovations and so started to look for a builder. The place they chose to look, based on the advice of “a colleague”, was a web site called Home Improvement Pages, usually referred to by the parties in this application as “Hi Pages”.

3. This site apparently works as follows: for a homeowner, it is necessary to sign up with the service, and then place a request online, together with a brief description of the services being sought. In the case of the homeowners in this case, they provided the following comment:

“Home improvement, i.e. knock down wall between living and kitchen area, French door/sliding door lead to balcony, house extension, landscaping, bathroom Reno and etc.”

4. Then, those who operate the site arrange to put a number of contractors who have similarly “signed up” in touch with the prospective clients, the object of the site being to enable clients to “get three quotes”. From that point on, the contractors and the clients make any further arrangements for the works to be done.

5. In this case, on or about 25 January 2014 (but probably just prior to that date), Ms Ng received a telephone call from “Ike Comer” (the respondent).

6. At this point, it will be helpful for later understanding and consideration of this application, to set out in some detail the course of events, rather than the usual brief summary by way of background.

7. Mr Comer introduced himself as being from a company called Satisall Pty Ltd. This is significant, because the HI Pages…