What happens to my build if the builder goes into liquidation?

Confirm the appointment before you act on rumour: search the company on the Companies Register or the NZ Gazette, where every liquidator appointment must be published. The notice names the liquidator and the appointment date.

Stop making any payments the moment the appointment is confirmed. Money paid after liquidation for work not yet done is very hard to recover.

Secure the site and your documents: photograph the state of the work, gather your contract, invoices, payment records and any correspondence. You will need all of it for the liquidator and for any guarantee claim.

For any amount you paid ahead of completed work, you generally become an unsecured creditor of the company. Unsecured creditors rank behind the liquidator's costs, employees and secured creditors, so recovery is often partial or nil. File your claim with the liquidator anyway: it costs nothing, and you cannot share in any distribution without one.

The liquidator's contact details are on the Gazette notice. Send them your claim in writing with your contract and proof of payments.

If you paid a deposit by credit card recently, ask your bank about a chargeback. Banks have their own time limits, so ask early.

If the build carries a Master Build 10-Year Guarantee or an NZCB Halo guarantee, loss of deposit and non-completion are exactly the events those products exist for. Contact the guarantee provider directly, not the builder, and lodge the claim within their notification window.

Check your contract for retentions and any third-party bonds. On larger jobs, retention money held in trust may be recoverable separately from the liquidation.

You will usually need a new builder on a new contract to finish the work. Get the existing work independently inspected first, so defects by the failed builder are documented and not absorbed into the new builder's scope.

Before you sign with the replacement, check their record the same way you now wish you had checked the first company: current registration status, any insolvency notices, the directors' other companies, and court or regulator findings. A builder taking over distressed jobs at speed deserves more scrutiny, not less.

Building work already done remains subject to the Building Act's implied warranties, and consent obligations stay with the property, so brief your council early if the job had an open consent.