Concreter ordered to pay $11,647.85 to rip up defective concrete and repair walls (QCAT, 2026)

What happened

Concrete works were carried out at the home owner's house at Windsor in Queensland on 1 March 2024. The tribunal had already dealt with liability in a decision published on 1 July 2026. It found the concreting was defective, and it found that the man she dealt with was contractually bound to her even though he said he was not a party to the contract. The tribunal applied the "undisclosed principal doctrine" — the rule that where someone deals as an agent without revealing that they are acting for another business, the person they dealt with can hold them to the contract. On 1 July 2026 the tribunal ordered him to pay $9,338.40 by way of restitution (money paid back because the work was not properly done).

In that first decision the tribunal also found the concreter was causally responsible for the need to remove the defective concrete and to repair the internal walls of the home. It did not fix a figure for that work at the time. Instead it directed that the matter come back for a further hearing to work out how much those costs were. That further hearing took place on 17 September 2026.

The defect was not only the quality of the concrete. The tribunal recorded that the concreting ran water off in the wrong direction, into the foundations of the dwelling. The home owner produced tax invoices dated 15 July 2024, 11 September 2024 and 29 September 2024. They showed $10,000 plus GST, so $11,000, to remove the concrete works, and $647.85 including GST to repair the internal walls of the laundry. She had already paid those amounts to have the work done. Both sides represented themselves.

What each side wanted

The home owner asked for an order under section 77 of the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 (Qld) and relied on her paid invoices as the measure of her loss. The concreter asked the tribunal to adjourn the hearing on the amount and to stay (pause) the 1 July 2026 orders while he pursued an appeal. On the amount, he argued the job did not need the scale of work the home owner had commissioned, accepted that in his view the repairs would run to about "four to five thousand dollars", and guessed that around two thirds of the concrete did not need to come up. He also argued that he, or FJA Concreting, had offered to do the rectification work themselves and that offer was refused, so she should not now be able to claim the cost of having someone else do it.

What the tribunal decided

The tribunal refused the adjournment and stay applications and went on to decide the amount.

The tribunal ordered that, under section 77(3)(b) of the Queensland Building and Construction Commission Act 1991 (Qld), the concreter pay the home owner $11,647.85 by way of damages within 28 days of the date of the order. That is the $11,000 to remove the concrete plus $647.85 to repair the laundry walls.

The tribunal stated that this sum is in addition to the $9,338.40 ordered to be paid by order 1 of 1 July 2026.

Why the tribunal decided it that way

On the adjournment and stay, the tribunal gave two reasons. First, there was no use in delaying the amount question until an appeal court had dealt with the application for leave to appeal, because an appeal is against orders, not reasons, and at that point there was no order at all requiring payment for the concrete removal or the wall repairs. It was better for any appeal court to have the whole decision, liability and amount, in front of it. Second, the concreter had filed his leave application on 24 July 2026 in the Appeal Tribunal, QCAT's own appeal division. Because the tribunal at first instance was constituted by a supplementary member who was then an acting judge of the District Court, and so a "judicial member" under the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld), any application for leave to appeal lies to the Court of Appeal and not the Appeal Tribunal. The tribunal said the Appeal Tribunal application therefore appeared to be incompetent, while making clear that it was not its role to rule on that, and took that apparent problem into account on the stay.

On the offer to fix the work, the tribunal accepted the home owner was entitled to refuse. Given everything that had happened and the unsatisfactory nature of the original work, she was more than justified in insisting that a new and different contractor do the repairs. The tribunal also pointed to the inconsistency in the concreter's own case: he had argued he did not hold the relevant licence under the Act to do the work in the first place, so he could not then argue that he, or someone he supervised who was also unlicensed, should be allowed in to clean up the job.

On the size of the claim, the tribunal relied on the concreter's own concession that repairs would cost about $4,000 to $5,000, and on the nature of the work needed, and found the scope shown in the three tax invoices was appropriate. It rejected the argument that only part of the concrete needed to come up. The damage was the installation of the faulty concreting and the way it directed water run-off into the foundations, so the home owner was entitled to have all of the concreting removed. The costs of ripping up all the concrete were proportionate and directly referable to the damage she suffered, and so were damages recoverable from the concreter. The tribunal noted the decision was issued under section 194A of the QCAT Act and, if needed, section 14(2)(a) of the District Court of Queensland Act 1967 (Qld).

What this means if you are in a similar position

If you are in a similar position with defective building or concreting work, this decision shows a few things about how the rules are applied. A tribunal can split a case in two, deciding first whether someone is liable and later how much they must pay, and until the second decision there may be no payment order to appeal. It also shows that the person who quoted and ran the job can be held to the contract personally, even if they say the contract was with a company, where they never told the customer they were acting as an agent.

On the amount, the tribunal worked from paid invoices and from the other side's own estimate. A figure put forward by the person who did the work can be used against them. Where the defect is in the whole of the work, and the fault causes a further problem such as water running the wrong way into the foundations, the tribunal was prepared to allow the cost of removing all of it rather than part. The decision also shows that a refusal to let the original tradesperson come back and fix the job does not automatically cut down the claim, particularly where there is a licensing problem or the first attempt was unsatisfactory.

In disputes like this, most people start by putting the problem in writing to the builder or tradesperson, with a dated list of each defect and a deadline to fix it, before any tribunal application is made. Keeping the quotes, invoices and photographs is what later gives a tribunal something to measure the loss against.

How to apply: our step-by-step guide to a QCAT application. More decisions: QCAT cases and builders and building defects.

Source: Roebuck v Mooney (No 2) [2026] QCAT 422 (read the full decision). This summary was prepared from the published decision for general information. It is not legal advice, and the tribunal’s own reasons are the authoritative record.