Is your house more than 60 metres from a public road? No EQC cover for couple's driveway highlights concerns

Land slipped in last August's west Auckland floods. Photo / supplied

A landslip at a Waitakere property has highlighted risks to driveways.

The Earthquake Commission only covers ground damage to a driveway within 60m from a home. After the 60m mark, there is no land cover.

Jim Rafferty and Linda Storey's plight raised the spectre of damage to coverage for thousands of other driveways as well as bridges on farms, in towns and cities.

"Our house is around 330m from the road, so we're not covered either?" asked one worried St Heliers homeowner after the Herald reported how the couple could no longer drive to their home.

Rafferty and Storey appeared on Fair Go this week, complaining that they could get no compensation to reinstate the driveway on their neighbour's place which they have the right to use.

An EQC spokesman confirmed that only land 60m from a house was covered under the law.

Land further away than that was not covered, he stressed.

"Land within 60m of the house which forms the main access way is covered. Any artificial surface like asphalt or concrete is not covered," EQC says.

Yet Rafferty and Storey's house is like many on rural-style properties: 450m from Wairere Rd.

So EQC won't cover the 75m-long washed-out section of their driveway which runs through a neighbour's place, the Vinsens.

The slip is about 240m from the Rafferty/Storey home in west Auckland.

"EQ cover for land is limited to land that is within your property boundary and includes the land under your home and outbuildings, e.g. shed or garage, the land within 8m of your home and outbuildings, the land under or supporting your main accessway, up to 60 metres from your home but not the driveway surfacing," EQC says

Insurer FMG paid Rafferty and Storey $60,000 but Rafferty said full repairs are estimated at around $600,000 because extensive stabilisation is needed to reinstate the driveway.

"They said they'd cover the driveway so that means the land under it as well as the sealed strip," Linda Storey said yesterday. "You can't hang the seal in the air."

Farmer and farmhands moving stock at a Woodhill farm near Kumeu after flooding last year. Photo / Brett Phibbs

So the argument partly concerns the definition of a driveway: is it just the seal or is it the seal plus the land underneath it?

Storey thinks the latter but FMG indicates it's the former.

FMG says the couple's policy does not cover land. No private insurer in New Zealand covers land — there is nothing unique about this, FMG stressed.

Another major glitch with the policy is that the slip isn't on the Rafferty/Storey property, it's at their neighbours. The couple only had an easement allowing them the right to access the driveway.

Can policyholders expect insurers to pay for repairs to land they don't cover?

The Waitakere couple certainly expects that because they have an easement to drive on the driveway so they consider it part of their property and therefore covered.

FMG doesn't agree.

"Land under their driveway, and on their neighbour's property, is not insured under FMG's house policy. Given this, there is no cover to reinstate the land, even if it needs repairing to rebuild the drive," the insurer said in a prepared statement about the situation.

Then, there's the situation with the council which Rafferty said had "red-carded" their property. That was the case, but the situation was de-escalated soon afterwards.

Auckland Council says a red placard means that re-entry is prohibited because it is no longer habitable or has suffered significant structural compromise and is unsafe due to safety concerns. A red placard means further investigation and remedial work is required before the property is safe to occupy.

Jeff Fahrensohn, Auckland Council's surveying field manager, said a red placard was placed on the property, based on the driveway access, following a rapid building assessment a few days after the storm event.

A letter last September confirmed the downgrading of danger assessments to white which decreases importance.

Land drops about 15m from the top of the slip, Jim Rafferty estimated. Photo / supplied

The order of events last year:

September 3: Rapid building assessment team assessed driveway access and issued a red placard, displayed at the entrance to the driveway of the couple's home;

September 10: Compliance team member revisited site to confirm if dangerous building notice was required to be issued as part of the return to business as usual process;

September 13: Compliance team member spoke to owners' engineer regarding a plan to address the slip and explained how to apply for work to be done under urgency. That means it could potentially bypass the building consent stage;

September 14: Request to approve works under urgency received for review;

September 22: White placard issued, downgrading the status. This means the property may have minor damage, but it has been deemed to be sufficiently safe and inhabitable and that no council follow-up is required;

October 14-November 9: Correspondence with owner requesting and gathering further information;

November 9: Letter issued to the owners confirming the council agreed that work could be carried out without a building consent being required under section 41 of the Building Act.

Rafferty said yesterday it had not been made clear to him that the property's status had been downgraded by the council.

Storey said today: "We were unaware it had been downgraded and thought they had made an error with the placard and were certainly unaware of the visit on September 10 last year.

"If they spoke to anyone on any of these visits it would have been the owners of 366 Wairere Rd who own the land that slipped because we have never met with any of the compliance team onsite," she said.