Land Settled, Builder insolvent before starting Build, Help replacing?!

Hi all,

We purchased a 3/2/2 H&L (on 350m2,normal shape block) package from Modra Homes in Wyndham Vale in April last year, fully turn key.
Unfortunately, once the builder stopped communicating with us, one of their sales reps has called us to say that the Builder is going to be declared insolvent and the rep was let go. Luckily, we were only at the soil testing stage of development, no works completed on site yet.

We are now scrambling to find another builder within the price range that we were going to be paying - that would be 206k or below (ideally 196k or below to recoup our lost deposit that the builder took). Do you think that this is a price we can realistically expect to pay for a simple build, turn key? What do you guys think our first steps should be?

Important to note that, as we are only onto our second IP, we stupidly paid our construction contract deposit prior to the insurance certificate being provided to us, and having checked with VMIA got this response:
"Unfortunately we were unable to find any records of Domestic Building Insurance (DBI) certificates being issued by the VMIA, that match the address provided."

Is there any chance of getting our deposit back?
And again as above, which builder is recommended that could assist?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers

 

Contact fair trading - builder didn't effect insurance.

 

We have checked here: Domestic building insurance and insolvency

and spoken to them but they said they cant really do anything until they are actually declared insolvent. Regardless, it says on that page: "If you claim on the policy for work that was not completed:

• you may find your claim limited to only 20 per cent of the contract price
• the policy will not cover your advance payments.

Im not sure if this is exactly what applies to us. We really need another Builder regardless as well.

 

Just bumping this up, as another builder, Mega Homes, has apparently been contacting all the previous clients offering to finish their builds.

Does anyone have any experience with them? Or any other recommended builders who would do a good job? PM's are welcome