Lizzie Brown
Can a builder sue you for a bad review? A viral TikTok ends up in court
A homeowner took to Facebook and TikTok to complain about a building company he said had ruined his dream home. The TikTok had over 220,000 views, strangers piled into the comments, and allegations about the company’s financial position began circulating online.
The dispute has now made its way to the Victorian Court of Appeal, with a decision that serves as a warning to anyone who has ever been tempted to air a grievance on social media.
In Singh v Singh Homes Pty Ltd [2026] VSCA 191, the Court considered whether a homeowner could be held liable for his online criticism of a builder, and whether the company’s directors had suffered serious harm to their reputations as a result.
A dream home turns sour
In 2022, Gurvinderpal Singh engaged Singh Homes Pty Ltd to build a new home in Truganina, Melbourne’s western suburbs. But by April 2023, the relationship had broken down. The parties were in dispute over the quality of the work and delays in Mr Singh’s payments.
Singh Homes terminated the building contract on 12 February 2024. Two days later, Mr Singh posted on the Facebook page “Dodgy Builders Melbourne”.
“My life is ruined because of this Melbourne Worst custom Builder,” he wrote, describing it as the “worst ever experience and worst ever customer service and worst ever management and worst ever decision to select this unprofessional builder”. His dream home he said had been “shattered”.
There is enough hyperbole here to keep an HSC English marker busy. But Mr Singh’s choice of words was more than just an exercise in dramatic expression because his posts would eventually become the subject of a legal dispute of their own.
On 17 February, he took his ‘rant’ to TikTok. In a video spoken in Punjabi and translated into English, Mr Singh criticised the quality of the house and accused the supervisor of failing to pay proper attention to the work.
The video attracted approximately 220,000 views. And as often happens online, the comments took things further. Other users made allegations about the company and its directors, including suggestions that the business was heading into liquidation.
Singh Homes and its directors, Mr Sarwara and Mr Anand, subsequently sued Mr Singh.
$673,000 for a social media dispute
The case involved three legal claims: misleading or deceptive conduct under section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), injurious falsehood and defamation.
At trial, a jury found Mr Singh liable for misleading or deceptive conduct and injurious falsehood. The judge awarded Singh Homes $673,000 for lost business profits attributed to the publications, plus $10,000 for damage to its commercial reputation. An injunction also required Mr Singh to remove the material and restrained him from publishing similar content.
The directors’ personal defamation claims, however, were dismissed.
Under section 10A of the Defamation Act 2005 (Vic), a person bringing a defamation claim must establish that the publication caused, or was likely to cause, serious harm to their reputation.
The trial judge considered evidence that the directors felt ashamed and believed people were avoiding them. But she found that this was not enough to establish serious harm.
Mr Singh challenged the decision, arguing that his Facebook post and TikTok video were not made “in trade or commerce” and therefore could not breach section 18 of the ACL.
What about the comments?
The Court of Appeal refused Mr Singh leave to appeal. But it is important to understand what the Court did not decide: it did not resolve whether a consumer’s online review of a business, in circumstances such as these, amounts to misleading or deceptive conduct under the ACL.
The Court considered that question unnecessary to determine because the jury’s finding of injurious falsehood independently supported the damages award and injunction.
The directors had more success. The Court found that the trial judge had failed to adequately consider the comments made by other users in response to the TikTok video when deciding whether serious harm had been established.
Those comments included allegations that the directors were responsible for the company going into liquidation, were unqualified and greedy, and ripped off their customers.
Taking those comments into account alongside the other evidence, the Court found that the serious harm requirement had been satisfied. It allowed the relevant ground of the directors’ cross-appeal and sent the matter back to the trial judge to assess damages.
In other words, the Court recognised that the damage caused by an online publication cannot necessarily be assessed by looking at the original post alone. The responses to that post also can contribute.
Ultimately, Mr Singh’s “worst ever” review cost him a $673,000 damages bill, while the Court of Appeal ruled that the comment section couldn’t simply be ignored. Turns out, when it comes to dodgy builder allegations, and an online consumer ‘vent’, the law might have something to say about it.