Can renovations continue during lockdown? The home owners left without bathrooms and kitchens

When Benny Peng started his home renovation at the beginning of June this year, he was advised it would probably take eight weeks.

Three months on, with his kitchen ripped out and bathroom stripped, he’s now being told it could take six months – or even longer.

“We were halfway through when the COVID lockdowns came and badly affected everything,” said Benny, 40, who lives in Croydon Park in Sydney’s inner west with his wife Joyce, 35, and their children Joshua, seven, and Melissa, five.

“All the people working on the house come from different areas in the south-west and west of Sydney hotspots, and they can’t leave their own LGAs now, so everything has stopped dead. We moved out, so everything could be done at once. But who knows when we’ll be able to go back?”

Now Benny and his family are working and home-schooling from a small rented two-bedroom unit in Concord while checking the NSW government websites daily to see if there’s any end in sight or any changes to the regulations on working during the COVID-19 crisis.

“They’ve recently been able to do a bit here and there since the restrictions changed again, but everyone’s so confused about what they can or can’t do,” said Benny, a marketing manager for a supplements company. “And the tradesmen say they’re now having problems getting some of the materials, like tiles and timber.

“Last week, they asked us what colour we’d like the kitchen cupboards, but said they only have white. It’s very stressful, but I can feel the stress of the workers, too.”

His family is just one of the thousands caught up in renovation nightmares, with work halted mid-flight by the Sydney lockdowns or postponed indefinitely. With such a huge backlog of work, particularly with so many signing up to the HomeBuilder incentive program last year and the vast majority of Sydney’s tradies and building supplies companies located in the west and south-west, the city’s massive renovation boom has crashed to a sudden, silent stop.

Workers from the nominated pandemic hotspot areas aren’t allowed to leave, according to NSW Health regulations. Other tradies are permitted to carry out renovations but with only two masked people allowed in any one indoor area at once, while residents are elsewhere. Some major tasks, which require more than two workers, will not be possible to be carried out.

“We now have so many families in similar situations,” said architect Brad Inwood, a director of advisory and referrals service Archicentre Australia. “We’ve had so many jobs interrupted now or postponed, with people hanging on and on to finish.

“Materials are also an issue with the factories down that way, and some temporarily closed down because of positive cases, or supplies from overseas disrupted. Prices are going up with the shortages, sometimes by as much as 60 per cent, while some of the tradies who are allowed to work are putting up their charges or others won’t sign contracts because, if this goes on, prices could go up still further and they’ll end up working at a loss.”

On the other side of the equation, many tradies are also finding customers are trying to avoid paying them for the completed renovations too, having either lost work themselves or suffered a cut in their income, or sometimes simply refusing to pay for work done.

Business development manager Andrew Squires believes that non-payment has now become a $20 billion-a-year issue in Australia and has developed an app, Securely, to bring tradies and their customers together on a Uber-like platform to make sure payments are deposited and released when the customer is happy with the work.

“It’s a very tough time at the moment, all-round,” said Squires, now the CEO of Securely. “A lot of people are stuck at home and want to renovate, but the lockdowns and shortages and tradies worrying about not getting paid are all adding to the uncertainty.”

Still, Inwood believes there’s little alternative to the current regulations. “I wouldn’t say if they’re right or wrong; we just have to get on with them,” he said. “The biggest issue is how confusing they are. I sometimes don’t know what I can and can’t do.”

Meanwhile, Benny and his family are just trying to make the best of the situation. “I try to stay positive and keep ourselves feeling happy despite working on a budget with the house, the renovation and the rent of the unit,” he said.

“But fortunately, everyone is healthy, and we are very lucky in that. Some people are complaining, and I feel their pain, but we’re all in this together, and we all have to do the right thing.”