A legal battle to stop the sale of 1140 state homes in Tauranga has been rekindled.
The transfer of the homes' ownership from Housing New Zealand to Accessible Properties is set to take place on April 1.
In December, advocacy group State Housing Action Network, operating under a slightly different name, lost a legal bid in the High Court to stop the sale.
The group argued that the ministers of housing and finance should have paid more attention to a chronic shortage of social housing in the city before signing off on the deal.
Justice Simon France ruled that the ministers had no obligation to read the sales contract nor "believe the transaction would immediately solve or improve Tauranga's social housing situation".
He was satisfied the ministers had fulfilled their legal obligations in terms of the Government's statutory objectives to increase the supply of social housing.
Network's national convener, John Minto, said an appeal was lodged in the Court of Appeal last week but no hearing date had yet been set.
The appeal was made after Network's lawyers sought independent legal advice from a QC.
"There was lot of evidence presented at the judicial review which clearly supported our arguments that the sale is definitely not a good move for Tauranga because it is not going to resolve the chronic shortage of social housing in the city."
Mr Minto said the city's housing crisis was likely to worsen well into the future.
He and Network's legal team were confident of success, and the opposing sides agreed that a hearing needed to be held as soon as possible.
A Treasury spokesperson said the Ministry of Social Development and Housing New Zealand were continuing to work with Accessible Properties to transition the Tauranga properties and tenancies by April 1, when Accessible Properties would become the new landlord.
The spokesperson said Treasury did not expect that date to be affected by the appeal.
Accessible Properties is a non-government social housing provider. Its chairman, Paul Adams, earlier said his charity was committed to providing social housing in Tauranga for at least 25 years.
In addition to improvements to and maintenance of existing homes, it also planned to provide at least another 150 more homes in the city, he said.
Accessible Properties
Is a registered charity
Is a subsidiary of IHC
Has been providing housing in NZ for more than 60 years
In Tauranga, for more than 50 years
Manages more than 1600 properties