Building and construction law, for the people actually on the job.
Contracts, payment claims, variations, defects, and the disputes that follow when they go wrong — for home owners, builders and developers across NSW. Plain advice, given early, when it still changes the outcome.
Michael Phontos
Principal · Construction Lawyer
Construction — the act of building and the law that governs it — is a mixture of time, money and documents.
I've developed projects, built them and litigated them over 35 years. When I started, with more than 150 apartments going up across five sites, I wired them back to the office so I could see what was actually happening. Neither the hardware nor the software was up to it. The idea was sound. Only the tools were missing.
They're not missing now. The cloud and AI can carry the paper trail between the contract in the office and the work on site — the daily record, the correspondence, the photographs, the progress claims, the time claims — created as it happens, not reconstructed once the argument has started. That trail is what proves a party's obligations and entitlements when the money and time are in dispute.
Documents, documents, documents.
Who we act for
Home owners
Let's get your home finishedThe contract before you sign it. The variation before you pay it. The builder who has slowed, stopped, or left — and the path that gets the build finished, which is rarely the path that starts with a writ.
Builders & Trades
Cashflow is your lifebloodProgress claims that hold up, security of payment run properly and on time, variations that survive scrutiny, and contracts that don't give away the margin before the job starts. And when it turns: adjudication, NCAT, arbitration and litigation. Paperwork done at the time beats lawyers after it.
Developers
Lockup or lockoutHead contracts and consultant agreements that allocate risk on purpose, administration through the build, and a firm hand when completion, defects or delay turn commercial. The exit is designed at the entry.
How an engagement starts
The first meeting is free. Email your available times and we'll speak by phone or video. We spend it learning your project and telling you honestly whether you need a lawyer at all — often the answer is a letter, not a lawsuit.
Email enquiries@phontos.com.au