Brand new home littered with defects

As the name suggests, the handover phase is when a new-built building is ready to be given to its new owner – presumably neat, tidy, compliant and free of defects.

But TikTok-famous housing inspector – Zeher Khalil – says that often isn’t achieved.

Khalil was called to the outer Melbourne town of Beveridge earlier this week to complete a handover inspection for a client, the home’s new owner, and surprisingly he was not shocked by what he saw.

In this particular home, the latest of his visits to go viral on his TikTok channel, leftover building materials, including an entire door and roof tiles, were left strewn across the property, as was rubbish and mouldy old “smoko” food.

Rooms throughout the house were filled with dead crickets.

In addition to the cleanliness, Khalil picked up on some defects, including exposed pipes in a bathroom where a basin should be, non-compliant ventilation in the roof, faulty taps and a faulty window that doesn’t open correctly.

The bathroom’s shower base also had no water stop, and hollow cavities were underneath the shower tiles.

“Would you accept this if this was your brand new home?” he asked his millions of viewers.

Speaking to news.com.au, the now-popular social media identity said he rarely attends handover inspections that cut the mustard.

“I’m coming across this every single day,” he told news.com.au

“You can see I’ve got so much content – I’m not cherry picking – I’m seeing it every day.”

Less than an hour north of Melbourne on the Hume Freeway, the median house price in Beveridge is $627,500 for a three-bedroom home or $722,500 for a four-bedrooms.

Homebuyers in Victoria are urged by Consumer Affairs Victoria to thoroughly inspect their newly purchased properties and document any issues on the handover sheet.

This period, commonly called the ‘defects liability period’ in the contract, allows discussions with the builder to address concerns.

Mr Khalil said that once a client is told to return to their builder with the list of defects and non-compliant items – it is “usually” bought up to standard relatively painlessly.

“Most of the volume builders that we deal with, they go back and fix it,” he told news.com.au.

“It’s private, smaller builders that give the homeowner trouble because they’re losing money – it’s going to cost them money to fix all those items.”

“And don’t forget, what (inspectors) are picking on is non-compliant items which means what we’re picking on the minimum Australian standards – so the bare minimum.”

A handover sheet is critical in outlining the property’s condition before the buyer takes possession, and by carefully recording any defects or problems, potential disputes regarding responsibility for repairs can be prevented.

And, if building work problems are found in the new home, buyers may be covered by statutory building warranties that establish the standard of workmanship for domestic building work or the builder’s domestic building insurance.

Nicknamed the “David Attenborough of Building & Construction” by his followers, Khalil posts softly-spoken videos of himself going through homes and finding concerning defects.

At one home he looked at in TikTok video, he found wonky floorboards, incorrectly installed waterstops (meaning the whole bathroom would have to be re-waterproofed) and that a cabinet maker had used double-sided tape to stick a panel to the bottom of a dishwasher.

“This is just unbelievable,” he said in the video.

Mr Khalil said the roofing of the home was defective and the roofer had over-tightened the screws, compromising the weather seal.

In other videos he even includes technology such as thermal imaging and law-enforcement grade UV lights to detect leak stains.

He also adds some humour to his videos.

In one video he picks up a dead spider on a window sill and says “sadly, this spider could not take the amount of defects in this home and decided to leave this world behind” – before burying it outside.

However, his videos have made him public enemy number one among some local tradies, with some reportedly sending him death threats.

The father of four said last year one builder was so enraged at a video review he did that he told him, “if you review another one of my properties, you’ll end up in my boot”.

In that case, a buyer pulled out of a sale, potentially costing the project builder hundreds of thousands of dollars after seeing Mr Khalil’s assessment.

Problems becoming all too common

Victorian firm Site Inspections sales and marketing manager Ed Waldman told news.com.au the company was on a mission to educate homeowners and tradies about all-too-common issues, which range from “cosmetic” problems to more serious cases of “noncompliance” involving breaches of Australian building standards.

“We detail these things in our reports and obviously those sorts of things are then up to individual customers to determine if they’re not happy with them, and if they take it to the builders to get rectified,” he explained.

“Big issues with noncompliance can be things like roofing leaks which let leaks into the home, or work carried out in bathrooms, such as waterproofing.

“The builder is given a compliance certificate by the tradies saying the work has been done in a compliant fashion … but we are finding 90-something per cent of jobs in these two areas alone are non-compliant.”

He explained that while roofing leaks would be spotted fairly quickly, bathroom problems were far more insidious.

“With bathrooms it can take longer, it could take five years or more before problems start to become apparent,” he said, adding that building defects were not only frustrating, but could also cause serious problems down the track.

“Water leaks, for example, almost 100 per cent of the time lead to a mould infestation in the home if they are not dealt with quickly,” he said.

“Mould removal can cost thousands, depending on how big the home is and how long it has been left unattended, and it can have health repercussions – we’ve had some clients who say they haven’t been feeling well, and then we find black mould on their loungeroom ceiling.

“There are some serious health risks attributed to black mould, it is a nasty beast.

“Poor waterproofing in bathrooms can take a couple years to show up, and by that stage, you have to remove the timberwork and framework and plaster and tile to rectify, and the job could cost $10,000 to $20,000.”

He said noncompliance had long been an issue for the industry.

“I’ve been in the industry for a good few years and we’ve always seen this sort of stuff unfortunately. Some of it is due to standards changing over time … some people say ‘I’ve done it this way for 20 years and not had a problem’ – some are a little bit slack and haven’t bothered to keep up to date with changing standards over time,” he said.

“I don’t believe it’s a case of people just being too busy.

“One defect we find almost every time is waterproofing over dirty surfaces – that takes five minutes to sweep or vacuum a bathroom floor, so that’s not going to impact your ability to move onto the next job, it’s just a bit of laziness.”