It’s a long story but I’ll try and summarise:
Had a water leak from a fish tank which ruined the floor boards. An assessor was sent out and rejected the claim on the basis of the floor boards ‘not being installed correctly’. Blamed the damage on the installation by the builder.

I rang Coles and complained so they sent assessor number 2. He agreed with my claim.

Coles then send out assessor number 3. This guy works for Coles parent company . Has all the credentials. Starts out by asking me who I want to do the repairs and I advised I didn’t have a preference. About 20min later he then backflips and says he tends to agree with assessor number 1. And denies the claim.

I ring Coles again to complain and they send out assessor number 3. He is some big burly guy
full of tattoos with the credentials of a building engineer. He comes with a water meter and a thermal gun trying to impress me with his gizmos. He does not know that I am a real engineer so I wasn’t fooled by his nonsense. He claimed the house wasn’t built correctly and lacked enough sub floor ventilation and water has come in from outside and caused the piers to become dislodged which caused the squeeking floor boards. The fish tank water would not have caused the damage. He wrote a 20 page report stating if the fish tank was the issue there would be water staining on the bearers and on the chip board under the floor boards. However we did not have access to the sub floor so there was no proof. Claim denied again.

I rang Coles again and asked if I got my own building report done would they review it and they said yes. My guys report agreed with me however before he came I cut a hole in the floor and got pictures of the under floor. The pictures showed water staining of the bearers and effervescence on the ground from the Fishtank water. Proving I was right.

However my guy wrote at the top of his report ’Without Prejudice’. This is a legal term which means he cannot be held responsible in a court of law. Why he did this I don’t know to this day. However Coles said to me his report was useless as it held no weight. They said if he removed those two words, then they would review the report and possibly pay the claim. I got them to speak with him directly and he refused to remove those two words.

By this time I was fed up and went straight to the ombudsman. Long story short the ombudsman reviewed all the reports and the photos and agreed with me.

The claim went from a $10,000 payout to a $76,000 payout. Had they paid out as per the second assessors quote it would’ve cost them $10,000. The ombudsman requested the first assessor come back and reassess, and his quote increased as he believed the whole floor had to be removed in the entire house. This now meant removing the kitchen and storing it off site. This then meant we had to leave the house for six weeks and Coles had to pay for this as well which meant the claim increased to $76,000.

The whole process took a year with the ombudsman, taking about six months to conduct their investigations not a fast process by any means, but well worth it in the end.

They also had to pay for my original report.

Don’t let Coles bully you with their assessors if you believe you are correct, go straight to the ombudsman and they will deal with the issue fairly.

Most people would’ve walked away after the first assessor denied the claim as they couldn’t be bothered dealing with the process. However, I’m glad I went through to the end as I had the last laugh. I got the floor fixed for $10,000, went on a went on an overseas trip while the work was being done and pocketed the remaining money and reduced my mortgage.

Thanks Coles.