Smith Nick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2055. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): I move That the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported by 31 July 2015. The Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006 was amended by this Government in 2011 to establish the financial assistance package to help owners of leaky homes to get their properties repaired. The financial assistance package is an important part of the Weathertight Homes Tribunal scheme that the Government has provided to help those owners of leaky homes. Too much money was being spent on litigation instead of getting on and fixing the leaky homes. The financial assistance package provides an alternative track to litigation by offering funding from the Government towards the repair costs. The financial assistance package represents a major commitment from the Government especially in pretty tough financial times to the repair of homes.As at 31 January 2015 there were 1147 claims representing 3528 homes that had been assessed as qualifying for the Government contribution of 25 percent towards the repair costs. The estimated future cost to the Government in the financial assistance contribution is estimated at about $115 million. That is expected to generate an estimated $460 million of repairs via this assistance package. This bill has the same objective as the Government when it established the financial assistance package: to avoid unnecessary litigation that would divert resources away from the practical job of repairing homes. This bill addresses three matters that could be the cause of litigation if the Government does not address them in the law. Given the history of litigation around leaky homes I want to do all I can to prevent money being wasted on needless court battles and delays to the repair of those homes.The first two matters addressed in the bill arise from legal interpretations of eligibility for the services provided under the Act. It is important that the legislation is clear about who is eligible to make claims under the Act and who can get access to the financial assistance package. First the bill takes two of the criteria from the financial assistance package out of the Gazette notice that they are currently in and puts them into the criteria in the Act. Last year a High Court case caused concern that the criteria could be successfully challenged simply on the ground that they are set in the Gazette notice rather than in the Act. In light of this the bill proposes to move two of the criteria from the Gazette notice and put them in the law. The change is simple—it simply moves the location of the criteria. The wording and effect of the criteria are actually completely unchanged. The bill simply moves the criteria from one legislative instrument to another. The bill also validates past decisions that have been made using the criteria when they were in the Gazette notice. This validation is not because there was any error in those decisions but to avoid any unnecessary debate about those previous decisions after the criteria have been moved into the Act.Second in relation to the word “built” which is used in the Act a Supreme Court decision issued on 10 June last year in Osborne v Auckland Council interpreted the word “built” differently from the previous decisions that had been made by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The interpretation of “built” has a significant impact on determining whether a claim made under the Act is eligible to proceed as eligibility under the Act requires claimants to make their claim within 10 years of the dwelling being “built”. Had the Supreme Court’s interpretation of “built” been current earlier it is possible that more claims would have been eligible to access the dispute resolution services available under the Act and also possibly the financial assistance package. The bill therefore proposes to deem those claims that would have been in the situation had the interpretation applied at the time to be eligible but only in respect of the time they were built. The claims will still have to meet other eligibility criteria in the Act to be able to proceed. It is estimated that there will about an extra 70 families with homes that will be eligible as a consequence of that change.The third matter dealt with in the bill relates to the proposed expiry of the financial assistance package. When it was introduced it was for a fixed period of 5 years; that period will end on 23 July 2016. Claimants who wish to access the financial assistance package will need to have issued a notice to proceed by that date. The steps involved in getting to issue a notice to proceed can take varying amounts of times to complete depending on whether the claim relates to a single home or to a set of apartments. To ensure that the closing date of the financial assistance package does not arbitrarily kick in for claimants who are making good progress towards issuing the notice to proceed the bill proposes to allow claimants who are making active progress with their claims to issue their notice to proceed after that 23 July deadline in 2016. This bill does not change anything about the financial assistance package; the bill simply removes doubt and provides certainty for claimants who want to access the financial assistance package. Certainty for claimants was a matter of key importance raised in submissions on the 2011 amendment bill that established the financial assistance package.This bill will ensure the ongoing validity of that financial assistance package. It will ensure that as many homeowners as possible are able to access the services under the Act by aligning the law with the most recent decision of the Supreme Court and it is going to reduce the risk of litigation around the operation of the financial assistance package by transferring Gazette issues into the law. I commend this bill to the House.