When Zac Meyers and his partner started contemplating a place to call to home, they did so thinking they could bank on government support.

Key points:

  • HomeBuilder grants were launched in 2020 to generate building activity
  • About 1,400 applicants in SA have not yet been approved
  • A committee heard hundreds may miss a looming deadline

Enticed by HomeBuilder grants of up to $25,000 — announced under the previous federal government in 2020 as an economic stimulus — they began building a townhouse in Adelaide’s west.

“We signed in November of 2020, and construction started about mid-2021,” Mr Meyers said.

“It was definitely a contributing factor with the build.

“It allowed us to give us some confidence to go ahead and buy something new that we knew was going to last us for a while.”

But that confidence is now evaporating for Mr Meyers, who is among hundreds of homebuyers in South Australia who now run the risk of missing out entirely.

Mr Meyers said construction on his townhouse began in mid-2021 but is unlikely to be completed before June.(Supplied: Zac Meyers)

A South Australian parliamentary committee on Monday heard there are as many as 1,400 people in the state who have applied for the grants but — for reasons including construction delays — may miss the April 30 deadline to submit key paperwork to Revenue SA.

“For approximately 600 of those, we’ve been provided the building contract and some other relevant information but we haven’t received the documentation to finalise the grant, whether it’s a renovation, a new build or an off-the-plan,” Revenue SA’s commissioner of state taxation, Julie Holmes, told the committee.

“[But] we have about 800 where we are needing a lot more information.

“The basic information that we need to provide conditional approval is a signed contract that meets all the criteria of things like income and resident status.”

Ms Holmes said she was unaware of any plans to extend the deadline.(ABC News)

Under the HomeBuilder scheme, a crucial requirement to be eligible for the grants — of either $15,000 or $25,000, depending on when work began — is that construction is completed, and proof of that fact submitted, by April 30 this year.

However, SA Best MP Frank Pangallo, who sits on the SA Budget and Finance Committee, on Monday said construction delays throughout the building industry meant hundreds of people who applied for the grants in good faith would now likely be ineligible.

“Their dwellings can’t be finished on a specific deadline of April 30th, and mostly because of chronic supply shortages in the building industry, so it was really no fault of theirs,” he said.

“These people entered into off-the-plan contracts in good faith and were seduced by the grant.”

Ms Holmes said she had been advised that there were currently no plans “to make any changes to the cut-off date”.

‘Out of pocket $25,000’

In Mr Meyers’s case, his home is unlikely to be completed before June, well beyond the deadline.

“None of this was within our control,” he said.

“This was all to do with the delays with construction materials, labour shortages and just the unprecedented nature of the last 18 months to two years,” he said.

A parliamentary committee heard delays and shortages throughout the building industry were among the factors responsible.(Supplied: Zac Meyers)

He described those months as a “real emotional roller-coaster”.

“Building is never easy and it’s definitely not any easier when you’ve got this looming deadline, very arbitrary deadline, of April 30th to effectively move into your house,” he said.

“It now means we’re sort of out of pocket $25,000. It’s something that not just my partner or I are dealing with, it’s something that thousands are dealing with.

“We’ve been handballed back and forth between state and federal government consistently for the last couple of months. There needs to be some responsibility taken by either government.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the federal treasury said: “HomeBuilder is administered by the states and territories under the terms of the National Partnership Agreement on HomeBuilder.”

State Treasurer Stephen Mullighan said the arrangements to roll out HomeBuilder were entered into by the previous governments and could not be changed.

“Of course, I understand the frustration that some people may have who aren’t eligible for this,” he said.

“All we are doing is carrying on the arrangements which were struck between [former federal treasurer] Josh Frydenberg and my predecessor Rob Lucas, and we’re doing that on exactly the same terms and exactly the same arrangements that every state and territory around the country is doing.”