Tiler awarded $2,886.60 unpaid balance, owners win money orders for four bathroom defects (SAT, 2026)

What happened

In March 2021 the owner of a house telephoned a tiling and bathroom renovation business and asked for a quote to renovate two bathrooms and a separate toilet (described in the decision as a water closet). The tradesperson inspected the house, then sent a quote by text message for $43,615. After the owner finalised his product selections, a second quote of $46,838 was sent, and the owner paid a $300 holding deposit followed by $13,751.40 in early April 2021. Work began on 24 May 2021. The main bathroom and the separate toilet were finished on 7 July 2021, and the owner texted two photographs with the words "10 out of 10".

In September 2021 the tradesperson sent an amended quote that added variations, lifted the total to $48,818 and showed a balance of $24,766.60. The owner replied asking "Cash?? And why the 2K increase". The owner said that, days earlier, the two of them had sat in the study, worked out half the GST as $2,215, and agreed the balance would drop to $22,551.60 if it was paid in cash. The tradesperson denied any such conversation and said he had told the owner he could pay however he liked but the price would not change. Both sides agreed that $23,200 was in fact paid in cash across September and October 2021. A further variation to paint three ceilings was agreed at $990, taking the quoted total to $49,808.

On 7 October 2021 fluid came back up the ensuite shower drain and flooded the shower. The tradesperson arranged a plumber, who found and fixed a blockage that nobody said he had caused. The owner paid that plumber $350 in cash on the day. The tradesperson attended to supervise. Relations then collapsed. The owner complained to the Building Commissioner in October 2021, threatened to post photographs on Facebook, raised the Australian Taxation Office, and on 1 June 2022 sent the tradesperson a photograph of him and his then primary-school-aged son at a shooting range with the message "Hmmm Wonder if this of interest to the cops …". The Tribunal accepted that the tradesperson and his family felt disturbed and threatened. The tradesperson applied for a violence restraining order, which ended in a voluntary undertaking given on a no-admission basis, and briefly began defamation proceedings that were discontinued.

Three separate complaints ended up before the Tribunal: the tradesperson's 2022 complaint for the unpaid balance, and the owners' complaints of 2023 and 2024 about defective work. They were heard together over five days in May 2026, with a joint expert report from each side's building expert in 2024 and again in 2025.

What each side wanted

The tradesperson claimed $3,161.60 as the final balance, relying on an invoice he created after the job that added $330 for supervising the plumber, $220 for a glass shelf and $165 for a chrome towel hook. The owners said no balance was owing at all: they said a cash price of $22,551.60 had been agreed, that a final $3,200 cash payment squared the account, and that the shelf and hook had been gifts. On the defects side the owners complained of chipped and unclean tiles in the ensuite, badly fitted aluminium window and recess trims, a shower floor that held water, inconsistent sealant at the base of the toilet, missing movement joints in both bathrooms, grout haze in both bathrooms, and water leaking into adjoining walls. They asked for money, including an estimate of $9,246.35 to replace tiles and $1,247.40 for the trims. The tradesperson asked to be allowed to come back and do the repair work himself.

What the tribunal decided

The Tribunal found the renovation was a home building work contract and that the agreed price was $49,808, being the October 2021 quote, plus $330 for attending to supervise the plumbing work, a total of $50,138. The owners had paid $47,251.40, so the amount outstanding was $2,886.60. The Tribunal was satisfied it was appropriate to make a home building work contract remedy order in the tradesperson's favour for that outstanding amount.

On the defects, the Tribunal found four items were faulty or unsatisfactory: the chipping on the cut edges of tiles around the window and shower recesses in the ensuite, the aluminium window and recess trims in the ensuite, the ensuite shower floor holding water near the strip drain, and the sealant at the base of the toilet. Because of the hostility between the parties, the Tribunal decided that ordering the tradesperson back on site would put both sides at unnecessary risk, so it chose money orders instead of work orders for all four items.

The remaining complaints were dismissed: the missing movement joints in both bathrooms, the grout haze in both bathrooms, and the three water penetration items. The Tribunal also refused the owners' claim that the whole ensuite be retiled, finding the expert evidence was that individual tiles can be replaced and there was no evidence matching tiles could not be found. It was working through the cost figures, including a day rate of $800 for a tiler and whether a builder's mark-up belonged in the sum, when the published text available here ends.

Why the tribunal decided it that way

The Tribunal explained the two different types of complaint it was dealing with. A complaint that a party has breached a home building work contract is a home building work contract complaint under section 5(2) of the Building Services (Complaint Resolution and Administration) Act 2011 (WA), read with section 17 of the Home Building Contracts Act 1991 (WA), and the Tribunal can order a party to pay a specified amount under the contract, or compensation, under sections 41(2) and 43(1). A complaint that a regulated building service was not carried out properly, or was faulty or unsatisfactory, is a building service complaint under section 5(1), and if the Tribunal is satisfied of that it must make a building remedy order under section 38(1). The renovation was home building work because it altered, improved or repaired a dwelling, and it was done for gain or reward.

The claimed cash discount failed on the evidence and on principle. The Tribunal was not satisfied any GST discount was agreed: the September quote sent three days after the alleged study conversation was inconsistent with it, and the tradesperson's habit of texting receipts for each cash payment did not look like a scheme to evade tax. Bank records put forward to prove the payment dates had been so heavily redacted that the Tribunal could not be satisfied they were reliable, and in any event a withdrawal is not the same as handing over cash. The Tribunal added that even if such a bargain had been proved, an agreement to discount a price by evading tax would be illegal and it was not persuaded it would be appropriate to enforce it.

The post-job invoice was also rejected, because it was written after the works and charged for items the tradesperson accepted had been supplied as gifts at the time; the parties had never agreed those would be paid for. The $330 for supervising the plumber was allowed, because the quotes reserved the right to charge for extra work outside the quote, the owner's own text messages showed he treated the blockage as the tradesperson's responsibility, and the owner paying the plumber $350 directly supported the tradesperson's account that each would wear their own part of the cost. With Omar's $350 for the same visit as a comparison, $330 was not clearly excessive.

On the defects, the joint expert reports did much of the work. Under rule 39B of the State Administrative Tribunal Rules 2004 (WA), where experts confer and produce a joint statement, no party can later lead evidence that contradicts what the experts agreed unless the Tribunal allows it, so one expert's later opinion that the whole ensuite had to be stripped back was disregarded. For the chipped tiles the two experts' own counts were inconsistent with each other and with the Building Commissioner's earlier proposed order, and the number of chips appeared to grow over the years, which could not have been the tradesperson's doing because he was never allowed back on site. The Tribunal therefore relied on the earlier inspection as the best evidence of what was chipped during installation. The movement joint claim failed because the standard allows perimeter joints to be left out of small floors, there was no evidence of extreme temperature movement, the house predated 2000 so further settling was unlikely, and after about five years the grout joints were sound. The grout haze claim failed because both the owner and the tradesperson said the main bathroom was clean at completion, and the owner's own account was that he and his wife wiped the tiles down themselves, possibly before the grout had dried. The water penetration claim failed because there was no sign of new moisture damage, the early high readings appeared to be false readings from a metal mixer tap, and the flood test was run without a dry baseline, without adjustment for different materials, and without the more reliable penetrative testing. Finally, the choice between a money order and a work order is the Tribunal's to make, not a party's to elect, and the level of hostility shown during the hearing made a money order the safer course.

What this means if you are in a similar position

This decision shows how Western Australia splits a building dispute into two separate questions. One is contractual: what price did the parties actually agree, and has it been paid. The other is about quality: was the work done properly, and if not, what should be done about it. If you are in a similar position, the decision shows the Tribunal looks for what was agreed at the time, in writing where possible, rather than what one side later wrote on an invoice after the relationship broke down. Items the tradesperson threw in as a gift stayed gifts, even after the dispute soured.

It also shows what happens to a side deal to pay cash and skip the GST. The Tribunal was not satisfied the discount had been agreed at all, and said that even if it had been, it would not be minded to enforce an illegal bargain. The practical effect is that a person relying on such an arrangement can be left paying the full quoted price anyway.

On defects, the decision shows the weight carried by expert evidence and by records made close to the time. Agreed expert conclusions were binding on both sides and could not be contradicted later. Later counts that kept rising, and a moisture test run without a dry baseline, carried little weight, while an inspection done months after handover was accepted as the best picture of the work as built. It also shows that asking for a full strip-out is a high bar when the experts say individual tiles can be replaced, and that the Tribunal, not the parties, decides whether the answer is money or a return visit. If you are in a similar position, most people start by putting the problem in writing to the other side, with a list of the items and a deadline to pay or to fix the work, and only then move to a complaint or tribunal application if that gets no result.

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

Source: Mousavi and Lalli-Cafini [2026] WASAT 97 (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.