Tauranga City Council will have to debate the leaky homes issue fairly quickly to get its response in on the government's latest offer.
The government has upped its offer, proposing the government and council each contribute 25 per cent with leaky home owners paying the remainder.
Lawyer Bryan Easton says litigating is the only way to make progress in resolving leaky home issues.
Those who accept the offer void their right to sue the government or councils.
Tauranga's leaky homes problem is not as large in number as Auckland's, says Mayor Stuart Crosby, but it could still cost the council $20 million over five or six years.
"But again that would be speculation because we don't know what the uptake will be if people choose to go down this particular path," says Stuart.
"It is only one of a number of options.
"It is a significant move forward from the government and our council needs to sit down and assess the ramifications of it to our community and our ratepayers."
Tauranga is one of the top six councils involved in the leaky homes issue because of the high level of growth and development during the 1990s.
During that period there were 28,000 homes built in Tauranga.
The Tauranga City Council is party to more than 50 legal actions concerning leaky homes.
Bryan Easton, an associate with leaky homes specialist Grimshaw & Company, says the government offer will assist only homeowners whose buildings were certificated and inspected by council inspectors.
Homeowners whose leaky homes were inspected and certificated by private contractors, as many Tauranga homes were, still have to find 75 per cent of the money themselves.
But even people whose buildings were inspected and certificated by the city council, can still be seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix the other half.
Lawyers are a necessary part of the process because people; councils, designers, builders and contractors won't respond to an invitation.
"If you don't hold a gun to someone's head you don't get money out of them," says Bryan.
"We used to write to parties and invite them to have a meeting and it never worked. You have to litigate to get everyone in the room."
3 comments
MONEY GO ROUND BUT NOT FOR LONG
Posted on 20-05-2010 16:17 | By The Master
Mayor Crosby sat=y there are 28,000 homes built in the 1990 s and that there maybe $20 million cost to TOWN Hall. If we said on a mere 10% were leaky homes and Council staff inspected them all that that is only $10,000 per house from Council, that also means the average repair bill will only be $40,000. Sorry folks but you better get in quick before the $20 million runs out.
LAWYERS IN HEAVEN
Posted on 22-05-2010 14:28 | By The Master
Mayor Crosby has not been clear here. Government estimates as reported are that there are about 80,000 houses in NZ affected as a leaky home, there is an estimated bill by Government of between $22bn and $24bn, lets be generous and say $24bn gives $300,000 average per house, this will often be more than building new. Government share of this is $5.0 billion dollars, Councils in NZ will be less (perhaps $4.0bn) than this because some councils contracted out the certification and compliance work to private companies like TOWN Hall did in Tauranga, but regardless there are a lot of new houses that have been built in Tauranga in the last 10 years. If we said that there are 4,000 homes in Tauranga and at an average of $300,000 each to repair the Tauranga bill is $1.20bn, Government will pay $300 million and TOWN Hall will be about $250 million. Then it gets worse because who will be paid to administer it all . And who pays for that?
MARE DAMAGE CONTROL MODE
Posted on 22-05-2010 14:21 | By The Master
Tauranga is one of the top six councils who were in discussions with Government on the proposed package for home owners, they are only there because they are one of the MOST affected by the package financially If the impact on TOWN Hall is only $20 million perhaps only 0.001 % of the total bill then why and how can TOWN Hall be one of the top six in NZ ?
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