Multiple Darwin families have been left in financial difficulty after Kassiou Constructions abandoned their home builds.
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00:00Walking into a nightmare, what was meant to be a dream home, now an abandoned construction site.
00:09I feel angry about everything.
00:11After signing a contract to build a four-bedroom house in October 2021,
00:17Darwin builder Cassiou Constructions, owned by Lewis and Elias Cassiou, abandoned it in March
00:242023, the frame unfinished, even though payment had been made.
00:29I was promised that it will be done in six months' time,
00:32and it's over two years now and it's still the same.
00:37The saga has left her single income family paying both a mortgage on their unbuilt house,
00:43plus the rent at their current home.
00:45Considering its derelict state, she believes her only option is to knock down what's been built,
00:52despite having paid Cassiou Constructions, altogether, more than $134,000.
01:00Jessica and Ryan Fuss have been stuck in a similar situation.
01:04The stress, I can't even begin to tell you.
01:07They signed a contract with the company in March 2022,
01:11and were promised their house would be built by Christmas that year.
01:15After several delays, in April the following year,
01:18they were invoiced for work which hadn't been completed.
01:22We looked around and there's no way. We still had no ceilings, little wires hanging out.
01:27After Jessica and Ryan refused to pay,
01:29they say Cassiou Constructions illegally terminated their contract,
01:34leaving them to engage another builder to finish it, at a huge cost.
01:38Probably close to $200,000.
01:40Despite abandoning the home builds in early 2023,
01:44Cassiou Constructions' company registration was renewed by the NT government in December,
01:50with some conditions, leaving homeowners unable to access the NT Fidelity Fund,
01:55a scheme designed to protect them from financial loss.
02:00Although the company's registration was eventually suspended in June this year,
02:05people like Supreet Kaur are still waiting for the fund to pay out.
02:09We, you know, work hard to build our houses. There's no support for us.
02:14Subcontractors, suppliers and clients like Jessica and Ryan
02:18have decided to pursue the company in court, with 14 separate cases filed since 2020.
02:25A warning for people pursuing the Australian dream.