An Australian building inspector who posts scathing assessments exposing tradies’ dodgy workmanship is receiving death threats.
Zeher Khalil, 40, has been threatened several times since he started posting videos in May pointing out the mistakes and shortcuts taken by tradies in the residential housing sector, mainly in Melbourne.
To back up his many claims that tradies failed to comply with minimum standards, Mr Khalil, Site Inspections’ chief inspector, shares meticulous and unflinching video breakdowns of the flaws in each property.
He even includes technology such as thermal imaging and law-enforcement grade UV lights to detect leak stains.
The father of four told Daily Mail Australia one builder was so enraged at a video review he did that he told him, ‘if you review another one of my properties, you’ll end up in my boot’.
In that case, a buyer pulled out of a sale, potentially costing the project builder hundreds of thousands of dollars after seeing Mr Khalil’s assessment.
Zeher Khalil, 40, has been threatened several times since he started posting videos in May pointing out the mistakes and shortcuts taken by tradies in the domestic housing sector
The father of four told Daily Mail Australia one builder was so incensed at a video review Mr Khalil did for Site Inspections, he told him ‘if you review another one of my properties you’ll end up in my boot’
‘I told him “I didn’t know it was your property, I’m just doing a job for a client”.’
While the threats worry him so much he registers his car to his office, not his home just in case he’s followed from a job – the angry tradies won’t stop him from exposing dodgy work.
‘When I released one video people are like: what are you doing working on a Sunday?’
‘But I said I’m not working, this is fun for me, I really like what I do.
‘I really like doing it helping buyers and connecting people to the right advice.’
Site Inspections uses law-enforcement grade UV lights to detect leak stains that have occurred in the past
Site inspections reproduces thermal imaging readouts to show whether work done met heating and cooling requirements
Some tradies ask for advice and thanked him but a few have threatened him
Site Inspections posts rave reviews from clients on its website and with buyers saving potentially hundreds of thousands its easy to see why
Mr Khalil said his popularity – and notoriety – has taken him by surprise.
‘I didn’t expect this to happen, I just thought I was posting normal videos,’ he said.
So far he reckons 95 per cent of the houses he’s checked contain non-compliant work and 80 per cent of homes have so many problems that require fixing that he’d tell buyers to back out of their deals.
He puts those shocking numbers down to ‘a combination of laziness and lack of education’.
In another video he exposed how a bathroom’s water stop had not been installed correctly, which will allow water to easily escape the wet area.
‘The average tradie hasn’t studied the regulations properly that he works to,’ he said.
‘Australian standards are not free either – you have to buy the documentation.
‘But in general, I think people are just trying to get away with doing less.’
At point point Zeher showed a stormwater pit that appeared to have been started but not finished
Mr Khalil, who has worked as a registered builder for 10 years, started posting the videos in frustration at the standard of work tradespeople he contracted on his jobs were delivering.
‘A builder is flat out managing his own company and cash flow, communicating with clients, booking materials, coordinating trades,’ he said.
‘He can’t oversee all the work done, he’s not sitting with tiler or the waterproofer saying “let me check if there’s enough glue behind those tiles” or whether the waterproof membrane is thick enough.
‘I’m not trying to be a hero, I just know the process, I know both sides: how trades operate and the homeowners’ view too, and I saw the missing link.’
Mr Khalil has been compared by some viewers as ‘the David Attenborough of houses’ for the deadpan audio on his TikToks.
In one video he picks up a dead spider on a window sill and says ‘sadly, this spider could not take the amount of defects in this home and decided to leave this world behind’ – before burying it outside.
While Mr Khalil clearly has a dry sense of humour, he is shining a light on a serious issue that industry has wrestled with for years and not solved.
That is the practice of cowboy tradespeople signing documents to falsely claim their work meets Australian standards.
The ramifications of a bad property inspection report can be so serious that it sends a builder into bankruptcy – when a buyer backs out of a purchase or the builder is forced to do expensive repairs.
In one home, the builder forgot to install a flue for the rangehood so cooking fumes can escape the home
While it is regarded to be common practice in the building industry it rarely comes to light until documentation and certificates are examined and compared to photographs of work in court cases.
‘The problem really only gets discovered when things go badly wrong, when the owner takes the builder to court and the documentation shows the work done was non-compliant, especially on things like waterproofing and painting,’ Mr Khalil said.
In some cases the cost of going back and fixing non-compliant work can add up to as much as $200,000 – more than enough to bankrupt small building companies.
Across all trades, Mr Khalil said the standards of waterproofing are usually the poorest, he said.
‘The waterproofing industry in Australia is not properly regulated,’ he said.
‘Your next door neighbour can say you’re compliant on a job. From what I’ve seen every waterproofing job is non-compliant which leads to water leaks everywhere.’
Tiling standards are also poor, he said.
While some builders are unhappy at what he does, most people are not. Buyers are generally relieved or pleased to have defects pointed out.
Inside this crack in one Melbourne home, Mr Khalil found a flock of birds nesting
His reports enable buyers to go back to a builder and negotiate compensation for the repairs needed.
Builders are also requesting specific advice from Mr Khalil about how to meet compliance standards.
Most surprisingly, Mr Khalil said some builders thank him for the critiques of their own projects.
Mr Khalil is now planning a Patreon account where he can be paid for delivering customised content – such as explanations of the tools he uses or the documentation he follows.
A spokesman for the Victorian Building Authority told Daily Mail Australia anyone falsifying compliance certificates for work done was in breach of the Building Act (1993).
He said any consumers with suspicions that aspects of work completed on a home were not up to standard should contact Consumer Affairs Victoria or the Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria.
‘The Victorian Building Authority (VBA) actively targets non-compliant building and plumbing work through our Proactive Inspection Program (PIP),’ he said.
‘More than 12,297 proactive inspections of building and plumbing work were carried out by the VBA in 2021/22.’
Fiona Neild, regional director for Victoria’s Housing Industry Association, said in a statement to Daily Mail Australia that most defects spotted in a ‘post-handover maintenance process [are] usually minor’.
‘HIA members aim to operate to the highest standards and know that the best way to promote their product is to build quality homes,’ she said.
‘Our members regularly respond to consumer queries about their building work and will attend to defects and any concerns about the work.’
Furious property inspector exposes the shoddy workmanship in off-plan homes leaving new homeowners with $100k worth of defects – including missing bricks, dodgy roofing and WILDLIFE
An Australian property inspector has revealed he received death threats for exposing the ‘horror’ workmanship of dodgy off-the-plan homes in viral videos.
Site Inspections found defects in a new Melbourne home bought off-the-plan by a young woman that he estimated would cost $100,000 to fix.
A video uploaded to TikTok, showing close-ups of the shoddy workmanship and a smooth commentary of where the builders failed to meet minimum standards was viewed more than 600,000 times.
‘Buy off the plan, buy horror,’ he said.
Site Inspections’s Zeher found defects in a new Melbourne home bought off-the-plan by a young woman that he estimated would cost $100,000 to fix (Pictured, he claimed the facade didn’t resemble the plans)
Although the woman had settled on the Tullamarine home shown in the video, she booked a property inspection after her father-in-law insisted on one.
‘She wasn’t going to get an inspection, but her father-in-law told her she needs to get one asap,’ inspector Zeher said.
‘Let’s just say she is very lucky that she took his advice.
‘It looks like the poor homeowner has a lot of work to do to before she can move in.’
One viewer on TikTok described the commentary, by inspector Zeher, accompanying the close-ups of the poor workmanship as ‘like David Attenborough but for houses’.
At one point, Zeher shines a torch inside a cavity left open by missing bricks. Inside are twigs and feathers that suggest a bird is already building a nest.
‘The missing brickwork is allowing water to enter the property, creating a habitat for birds and other creatures,’ he said.
But not everyone was so soothed by the videos. Another commenter asked what builders make of his brutal criticisms.
‘They hate my guts,’ I received abusive messages all the time! The latest builder has given death threats to me if I inspect any of his homes!’
The roofing wasn’t fixed in places and fell short of building standards, he claimed, while the rendering on the front step was ‘horrible’
One viewer on TikTok described the commentary, by inspector Zeher, accompanying the close-ups of the poor workmanship as ‘like David Attenborough but for houses’ (Pictured, the man shows where missing brickwork has apparently allowed birds to start building a nest in an open cavity)
The inspector showed a catalogue of mistakes and shoddy and non-compliant workmanship in the roofing, plumbing, concreting, paintwork, plastering and the facade of the woman’s new Tullamarine home.
Some of the criticisms seemed tough – but he explained why things such as the paintwork wasn’t up to standard.
‘The paintwork is defective if the application has blemishes such as paint runs, paint sags, wrinkling, bare or starved painted areas, colour variations, surface cracks, irregular and coarse brush marks, and sanding marks.
‘It looks to me like the paintwork is incomplete or simply extremely poor.’
The roofing was a major issue – confirmed by commenters: ‘I think there is more concerning work than the paintwork,’ one man said.
‘The whole roof needs to come off, brickwork finished, re-rendered and concreted.’
Another commenter asked, ‘so what happens now she has settled?’
‘Legal proceedings,’ Site Inspections replied. ‘Unless [the] builder comes back, which he won’t I’m guessing. There is over $100k worth of defects here.’
It appeared the woman would need to re-engage plasterers, roofers, painters, concreters and builders to get the home to minimum Australian standards.
Some of the painting and plastering looked shoddy and waterproofing was substandard
‘The builder got confused and installed the wrong cladding on the wrong side of the home leaving the front façade not looking like the contract documents at all.
‘The works throughout this home did not meet the minimum standards.’
He showed ‘deteriorated’ outdoor paintwork and ‘horrible and incomplete’ rendering on the step leading to the front door.
He said the installation of outdoor air conditioning units, roofing, waterproofing and paintwork was ‘non-compliant’ and showed a ‘stormwater pit’ in the garden that appeared to be started but not finished.
He also showed a stove that wasn’t firmly in place with loose cords behind it.
‘The appliances were also not fixed, nor connected,’ he said.
Site Inspections is based in Victoria but sends its inspectors out to other Australian cities including Sydney.