Sio William: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2060. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I suspect that at a time when this country of ours is faced with a housing crisis and the leaky home scenario that has been around for quite some time it would be premature for Government members to be patting themselves on the back and claiming that this is a wonderful piece of legislation even though it may be. I suspect that the thousands of people who have experienced a leaky home and who have been fighting to try to get claims through their council and central government will not feel as optimistic as Government members might feel.I think it was the Home Owners and Buyers Association that said that the term “leaky building” has now been in the Kiwi vocabulary for 10 years. That is an indictment on the pieces of legislation that enabled such buildings to occur in the 1990s. Yet today the country is still struggling to come to grips with the reality that many of our homes built in the last 19 years or before 2006 are seriously defective and in need of repairs that often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.Just by way of background the initial response to the leaky building crisis was the introduction of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act in 2002 which was later replaced by the 2006 Act in force today. This Act was intended to provide speedy flexible and cost-effective procedures for assessment and resolution of claims relating to leaky buildings as opposed to using privately engaged building surveyors and the courts.In April 2009 the National Government engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers to produce the report on the size and cost of New Zealand’s weathertightness problem. The report released to the public late in December 2009 found that the likely number of homes affected was in the range of 22000 to 89000 with a consensus focus of about 42000 failures at an economic cost to repair of about $11.3 billion. The report also recorded the view of many experts that the majority of mono-clad dwellings constructed before 2006 would suffer from weathertightness issues making the total number of failures in excess of 110000 homes at an estimated repair cost of about $30 billion. Many experts in the building industry suggest that this figure is more likely to be the case and that it even understates the size of the problem.As a response the Minister for Building and Construction at the time Maurice Williamson announced a financial assistance package for leaky home owners in May 2010. Under the package an eligible owner will get a contribution of either 25 percent or 50 percent of the agreed repair cost if they can prove their ability to fund the balance. The financial assistance package has been described by the Prime Minister John Key as “spreading the costs as evenly and fairly as possible.” He suggested that this is the solution to the leaky homes problem.Many in the industry many homeowners and those who are facing leaky and defective homes do not consider this to be the case at all. Owners of stand-alone homes constructed or renovated more than 10 years ago under the New Zealand law have no chance of recovering the cost of repairing their home from those responsible for the faulty construction. To be eligible to use the Government’s system for assessment resolution or to take up the financial assistance package the home has to have been built within the last 10 years. Therefore owners whose homes are more than 10 years old are left to bear the full financial burden of repair by themselves.There are situations where homes may not meet the eligibility criteria for Government assistance but may still have a viable claim in the courts. For stand-alone homes less than 10 years old certified by a council and where the council has been responsible for the certification of the home the council owes a duty of care to the owner no matter whether you are the first owner or a subsequent owner. As a result owners in this category have the opportunity to recover a significant portion of the repair cost from the local council and any other regional party still in existence either through the Government’s Weathertight Homes Tribunal or the court.Where the council is found to have breached its duty to the owner it will usually be found liable for 100 percent of the total amount awarded with the opportunity to recover a portion of this from other liable parties. For those with joint or several liability an owner gets paid all that is owing to them if others default but under the financial assistance package an eligible owner in this category would receive a contribution of only 25 percent of the agreed repair cost from the council and the same from the Government as long as they can prove their ability to fund the remaining 50 percent.For stand-alone homes less than 10 years old where the home was certified by a private certifier unfortunately the local council owes no duty of care to that owner as all the private certifiers are now in liquidation or are struck off. In many cases the other parties involved in construction are also long gone. Owners in that category often have no chance of recovering their repair costs.I state that because I have owners of leaky homes in my own electorate of Māngere as I am sure other members have. To talk to them about this after many many years of trying to get a claim through is just distressing for them. They just do not have any confidence whatsoever that they are going to see a light at the end of the tunnel. So yes absolutely the Labour Party supports this legislation and will support it going to the select committee.It is important for the Government of the day to attempt to try to serve the very communities that are hurting at the moment. Housing is such a significant issue. This just compounds the state of dire need that many families are facing. It has just been going on for far too long. We have got another bill before the House that hopefully—hopefully—is going to fix this. Far too many families have lost their homes and their livelihoods as a result of the leaky homes saga.I want to say that one of the reasons why I said at the beginning that it is too premature for Government members to be patting themselves on the back for this piece of legislation is that the late Paul Holmes in a 2000 interview discussing the leaky homes crisis said that it was the Bolger Government that passed the Building Act 1991 which allowed untreated timber and mono-cladding to be used on homes. I think that of all the members on that side of the House Maurice Williamson will know that because he too admitted in an interview during this saga that the fault lay with the Government when it deregulated the building industry. There was no oversight in terms of ensuring that the quality of the homes that we were building was to the highest standard.So the Labour Party has no problems. The bill clarifies that the claimants are not eligible for a Government contribution to the financial assistance package while pursuing a civil case against a participating territorial authority unless that participating territorial authority agrees and they discontinue legal proceedings. I think we do need to state clearly for all those concerned what their rights are.I would hope that when this bill comes through the select committee the opportunities are given to everyone—homebuyers homeowners organisations—to make their submissions on it. I would hate to see the select committee rush through the analysis of this bill. As much as it may want to I think it has taken us so long to arrive at this stage here that we do need to get it right and in order to get it right it is going to be important for homeowners homebuyers and all of those in the building industry who have a stake in the leaky homes situation going forward to be given every opportunity to participate.