Apartment owners in a luxury, marina-side complex in Whitianga have succeeded in having the building's code of compliance certificate revoked.
Eleven owners complained to the Department of Building and Housing last July about defects in the First Light complex, built by Marina Holdings.
They are understood to have
signed up to pay between $600,000 and $1.2 million for the apartments, putting down deposits ranging from $5000 to $160,000.
The department this week confirmed the reversal of the building's compliance certificate issued by the Thames-Coromandel District Council in April last year.
The council and the company say they will not appeal against the decision, opening the way for the owners to get out of their sale agreements and recover their deposits.
The decision follows a draft report in October which listed 29 defects in the building.
Marina Holdings and the council contested the report and a hearing was held in February.
In the final determination, the number of defects has been reduced to 13 and they are described as being of a relatively minor nature.
But determinations manager John Gardiner says the building did not comply with the Building Code at the time the code of compliance was issued and this should have been apparent to the council.
He also says the building work differed in several significant respects from the documents submitted for the building consent.
The council's environmental services group manager, Sam Napia, said the council would immediately issue Marina Holdings with a comprehensive "notice to fix" the building.
Once the defects were fixed to the council's satisfaction, it would issue a new compliance certificate.
Mr Napia said changes had been made to the inspection of multi-storey buildings and the council was also addressing the finding that some elements of the building did not match the approved plans for the building.
The lawyer for the apartment owners, Caron Cato, said they felt vindicated by the decision and were applying for costs from the council.
Marina Holdings' lawyer Rod Thomas said the decision established a more robust test for the revoking of a code of compliance.
He said the company was addressing the issues raised in the determination and looking for purchasers to deal with the building.
