Janice was thrilled to buy her own unit. But she has no idea if she will ever move in

Janice Cahill thought the plans for her cosy second-storey unit looked perfect. Recently widowed, the retiree had sold her family home and spent $60,000 on a deposit for a one-bedroom off-the-plan apartment in a new complex in Kembla Grange, near Wollongong. The location would allow her to live close to her grandchildren, and the building’s lift would help avoid difficult stairs.

Cahill was told the building would be ready by December 2025. Then the developer emailed with news it would be delayed until March 2026. Then April. Then August. Then September. She still hasn’t moved in. “It’s pretty depressing,” she said. “It does really and truly affect my mental health.”

She signed a contract with UPG 113 Pty Ltd – a company Cahill did not know, and claims she was not informed, was in fact a subsidiary of Bathla Group, one of the state’s most prolific and controversial developers. The firm is now teetering on the edge of collapse as it deals with more than $3 billion in debts and a circling Building Commission investigation into its key properties.

Questions have been raised for more than a year about the ability of Bathla Group, and the more than 450 subsidiary companies identified by the Herald , to pay its debts and remain in the market.

In the latest development, the company, which is a major sponsor of the Western Sydney Wanderers, is trying to sell off land in the profitable north-western suburbs. It is advertising a block of undeveloped land in Bella Vista it bought for $15.71 million from receivers for the developer Dyldam, which collapsed in 2020 with debts of half a billion dollars – less than the amount Bathla owes.

Building Commission NSW, the state’s construction watchdog, has undertaken more than 40 inspections of Bathla sites over the past few months and has identified defects at sites in Marsden Park, which the commission said have mostly been rectified, and the Kembla Grange development into which Cahill is planning to move.

The company’s spokesperson said the company’s records indicated the agency had only conducted five inspections “with no issues noted”.

Fed up with the lack of progress on her new home and having heard that the tradesmen had walked off the site because they were not being paid, Cahill contacted an executive at Bathla in November 2025.

“We met for coffee [and] he apologised for the delay and gave all this story about the plumbing issues, and Sydney Water not being connected,” she said.

A spokesperson for Sydney Water said there had been no delay at the site.

“He assured me that he would keep in touch with me and keep me updated, which to this point hasn’t happened,” Cahill said. “I’ve emailed him and asked him what the updates are, and I’ve had no response. So I think he’s ignoring me.”

“He said, ‘Oh, tradies will always say they put invoices in that they haven’t done work for, and that’s why they haven’t been paid’. And I just thought, this meeting is useless.”

Bathla’s spokesperson said the company had communicated to unit buyers through their purchasing agents and that its executives had been in direct contact with some.