- The Moekialo family is selling their unfinished renovation after suffering financial heartache.
- They lost $180,000 and are unable to complete the renovation on their Papakura bungalow.
- The house, marketed as “Beauty and the Beast”, will be auctioned on May 22 by Ray White.
A South Auckland family is selling their unfinished renovation project after a disaster cut short their attempt to turn a 1930s bungalow into a dream home.
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The Moeakiola family told OneRoof they had been forced to sell after building work on the site abruptly halted due to a financial wrangle with their project manager. They were devastated by the turn of events, which left them $180,000 out of pocket.
“We just want to raise awareness. We don’t want other families to go through what we went through and losing that much money,” Jeoff Sale Moeakiola said.
Most of the work on the property has been completed to a high standard. Photo / Supplied
The owners were unable to complete the outdoor living space. Photo / Supplied
The four-bedroom home on 62 Dominion Road, in Auckland’s Papakura, is being marketed by Ray White agents Bob Lemalu and Malo Tuiloma as “Beauty and the Beast” after the family ran out of funds to complete the final part of the renovation.
Sale Moeakiola said his father, Malupe, had been buying and renovating houses for many years, and had picked up the bungalow on Dominion Road in 2005 as a rental. He passed away in 2023, but he had drawn up plans to renovate the property.
“The house was vacant for a year before we decided to carry out the renovation. That’s when we hired a project manager. If he had been well, Dad would have managed it all,” Sale Moeakiola said.
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The project manager asked the family to pay upfront $180,000 of the estimated $280,000 build cost. “This guy had a website and everything, he said he would bring in his own tradies. He gave us a three-month building project plan, and work started in November. The agents who recommended him said he did great work,” Sale Moeakiola said.
“Two weeks or three weeks in, I went to check the project and then got a phone call that he had passed away.
“The builder had only stripped out one wall in three weeks. His tradies were hustling me for money, and I was like, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, but what I can do is offer you a job now and I can pay you’.”
Sale Moeakiola said he sought legal advice about getting the deposit back. “I tried to recover some of that money, but they said [the project manager’s firm] had gone into liquidation. There was no money. It’s not like he put the money into a bank account. Everything was gone.”
The Moeakiolas estimate they spent $200,000 on the rebuild on top of the $180,000 deposit they lost. Photo / Supplied
The listing agent expects buyers to make their own plans for the incomplete home. Photo / Supplied
Sale Moeakiola took on the job of project manager, and with the tradies tried to complete the renovation. The 1930s house now has a new kitchen, bathroom, laundry, and flooring. But after spending an estimated $200,000, the family’s funds are depleted, and they are unable to finish the job of turning the former sleepout into an outdoor living space.
Sale Moeakiola said they are resigned to never seeing their $180,000 deposit back but are hoping to get a good price on the nearly completed house so that they can update his mother’s home in Clendon.
“When we sell it, the idea is to pay whatever’s left to Mum, so she can enjoy her retirement. We want a good price so that Mum can retire and have fun with her last years of life. She turns 75 this year. We’d always intended to do it up and sell it and have some surplus, but now the surplus is gone in this guy’s pocket.”
Lemalu, who is bringing the house to auction on May 22, said that it was hard to put a price on the property. “People might like to restore or remove the whole thing. It is hard to gauge the price. The CV of $1.175m was set four years ago - now it’s irrelevant,” he said.
“The vendors want to sell, so I’m saying to buyers, ‘just come in and have a conversation’.”
His advertising emphasised the upside: “This property presents you with a magical opportunity to be able to live happily ever after. Create your own fairy-tale ending by transforming this home back into a right royal Prince Charming.”
- 62 Dominion Road, Papakura, Auckland, goes to auction on May 22
