Twenty houses surveyed last week all had good or reasonably good claims to bigger payouts from the Earthquake Commission (EQC), says residents' advocate Bryan Staples.
Mr Staples was in Whanganui with teams of engineers, builders and loss-adjusters. They assessed properties damaged by slips in June, whose owners had been told they would not get enough compensation from EQC to repair them.
One was a house pushed down the hill by a slip, yet Mr Staples said its claim had been denied outright.
His Christchurch-based business, Earthquake Services, will work with owners to get bigger payouts. Its fee is a percentage of the increase.
The owners of the 22 houses inspected last week would get reports from Earthquake Services sometime next week, he said.