smudge1

I believe not enough new immigrants are fully aware of the huge problem that exists here with Leaky Buildings. I personally know of 3 families affected by this and it has been a hugely worrying time for them all. They have lost thousands in legal fees and repairs etc. There was one British family living in Torbay who recently had to tear down the house completely and re-build from scratch consequently wiping out their life savings.

I myself could so very nearly have been in the same situation when I first arrived in NZ due to a totally unscrupulous real estate agent and non familiarity of the housing situation here. Luckily, I had read something about it before arriving so did have some idea and managed to extricate myself from a potentially disastrous house purchase which would have left me in the same position of financial ruin.
Please, please, please make sure you do your homework before you buy your new home here. (not sure if I've added the link correctly, if not this article is in today's NZ Herald)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10583897

Am Loolah

I absolutely agree with you smudge1 - people coming in to the country really need to be aware of this and find out as much information as they can before getting themselves in to a potentially catastrophic situation.

Ash1

I agree too.
Hey Loolah, shouldn`t there be a thread that stays at the top of the first page that warns people about this too? I also know of a few that have been caught out and the outcomes can be pretty serious. Maybe a thread that deals with things factual that all immigrants should know.
You`re a fairy.....anything is possible.
Ash

Am Loolah

I can turn frogs into princes - you've met my Husband haven't you?

I'll collaborate with the powers that be, I'm guessing we'd add something to the Wiki under, perhaps, Lifestyle, but I'm not sure, despite our pointing people in it's direction, how many use it. Other than that we can make a thread a "sticky". Perhaps the alternative is to make a new thread as a "sticky" entitled something like "Do or Die?" Well, ok, granted we may need to work on the title!

Good idea though Gawgus Ash1 - leave it with me. Your wish is my command ...

Ash1

Your wish is my command ... [/QUOTE]

I`ll remind you of that on Saturday night. Wooooooooooohoooooooo.







On a serious note, as long as BE does all it can to point out the seriousness of leaky home , thats all it can do.
Ash

Am Loolah

I`ll remind you of that on Saturday night. Wooooooooooohooo Ash[/QUOTE]

You old tart! I thought we'd covered that at the last party?!

pricklykina

It's such a tragedy...you really have to turn yourself into a building expert to buy a house or fork out for a building inspection for eacj house you are seriously looking at.
There is some great info on this site consumerbuild.org.nz
for anyone one who is looking
It's such a devastating thing to be faced with repair costs that are as much as one's mortgage... especially when the banks are reluctant to finance

smudge1

It's such a tragedy...you really have to turn yourself into a building expert to buy a house or fork out for a building inspection for eacj house you are seriously looking at.

Unfortunately, using a building inspector does not always help. We (naievely) used a building inspector which our estate agent recommended and the report he wrote was not worth the paper it was written on (around $500 if I remember correctly). Apparently, and I believe this is standard practice in NZ, building inspector accepts no responsibility whatsoever and should the house collapse the day after you move in you have absolutely no redress from him! Scary stuff...

Hokey-pokey

Unfortunately " Leaky Home syndrome " can also apply to older houses that have undergone renovations. We had a solid kauri villa . The 100 year old part of the house was completely water tight. The 2 year old extention was not. Check out renovations very carefully.

Batty

One needs to have a building inspector who does infra red moisture reading. Forensic Inspections in Auckland are really good from a buyers point of view. If anyone has any doubts at all about a house the architect should be able to tell you how it was built.

lardyl

Granted, but isn't the problem often that the systems used by the architect in the first place relied too much on certain components such as mastics that were sometimes either not "man enough" for the job or badly installed. So it might be OK on paper but not so good when you look at the house "as built".....but then if they admit how it was built then you or an advisor could spot suspect building systems before you go down the route towards a purchase.....I suppose?

I used to see the type of "as built" issue a lot in large commercial buildings (shopping centres in particular) in the UK with those trival things called "fire breaks", "cavity barriers" and "fire stopping" being poorly installed or forgotten about where they were not obvious (like in cavities!)........not seen the same issues here yet but that is probably due to the number of buildings with sprinkler systems.

pricklykina

I would never trust a building inspector recommended by a Real estate agent.
Always personal reference.
When we bought the REA accused our inspector of being a cowboy when he found problems. Insisted that we got his guy around to check...we refused of course

Matewx

Can you really??

Batty

Every estate agent knows almost every building inspector in their area - most agents wouldn't recommend Forensic Inspections because they are very very pedantic but if I was a buyer (and I'm always a buyer) I'd want to use them.

Lardyl, I've found that architects are quite up front about the materials used - I think it's a case of they 'only' designed them, the cowboys used the shoddy materials!