eHome has subcontractors sweating

The company was one of three working in the Waimahia Inlet Special Housing Area. Photo / Nick Reed

Nearly half the staff laid off at Kumeu company eHome NZ.

Many trade subcontractors are owed money by eHome, New Zealand's biggest off-site residential prefabricating business.

Luke Roberts of Elegant Spaces, which specialises in porcelain and natural stone tiles, said his business was owed about $26,000.

"That is for tiling work completed in the Flat Bush subdivisions. The money was due on January 30 and on February 5, they went into receivership," he said.

An electrical services business said it also wanted payment but didn't want to be named. Others expressed extreme disenchantment.

"This company owes these two small, hardworking landscapers nearly $250,000," a reader said. Those landscapers were claiming a further $60,000 from another builder, Tribeca Homes. "Wonder why they even bother to go to work."

eHome was capable of putting up a house in eight hours. Its directors are Marsh Hudson and Chris Morton. Shareholders include secured creditor CJM eHome.

Receivers Peri Finnigan and Tony Maginness of McDonald Vague said the business owed creditors about $17.5 million but how much is returned depended on what sale price was achieved.

A finance specialist has been appointed to deal with buyers, Finnigan said, but interested parties should deal directly with her and Maginness in the first instance.

Expressions of interest about buying eHome have come from Australia and New Zealand. The prefabricator owns sophisticated European equipment worth about $6 million in its Kumeu factory, Finnigan said.

A former eHome staffer who did not want to be named has questions.

"As a recent terminated employee and having been at eHome from just after the start, the use of terms like financially stretched to describe the reason for the company's failure is a very soft generalisation," he said.

"Why are serious questions not being asked as to how a housing company fails during a housing shortage?"