Court rejects Paihia unit owners' case

Bridgewater Apartments at Pahia. Photo/Google Streetview

The Supreme Court has refused to hear a case brought by a group of owners of an upmarket Bay of Islands apartment block suffering weathertightness issues.

The case involves owners of Bridgewater apartments in Paihia which the court said had leaky issues.

The block's body corporate wants to begin comprehensive repairs expected to cost about $3 million but owners of five out of 22 units said those repairs are outside the body corporate's powers.

Only targeted repairs to some units are necessary, the five owners claimed, going to the Supreme Court to stop work going ahead.

But the court rejected the application and ordered the five owners to pay the body corporate's costs of $2500.

The Court of Appeal has also rejected the five owners' case and gave more background, saying how the wedding-cake style block was built in 2003.

"For some years prior to 2013 there were concerns about the weathertightness of the level four apartments because of leaks into some level three apartments," the appeal court said.

The Supreme Court noted how the appeal court had rejected the owners' case in its decision of June this year.

"The Court of Appeal dealt with six grounds of appeal from the High Court
decision. It found against the applicants on all of them," the Supreme Court said.

The appeal court said costs originally estimated at $1.7m in 2013 had climbed to about $3m.