Owners dig deep to stay dry

By ANNE GIBSON




Owners of two large inner-city Auckland apartment blocks are spending $1.3 million to fix leaky building problems before winter.

People who bought units in the eight-level 34-unit Nautilus at 18 Hobson St have budgeted $900,000 for repairs, and body corporate chairman Ian Hastings said work which had been going on for months was almost completed, ready for winter.

And owners in the 39-unit Beaumont block, near Victoria Park, are paying $400,000 to have three walls rebuilt.

Mr Hastings said the main problem at Nautilus was water leaking through a flat roof.

As well, rain came in around windows and ranchsliders.

All the owners had agreed to pay, but some had problems raising the $26,400 being levied from each for the repairs because of banks' reluctance to lend on buildings such as the Nautilus.

One apartment owner had problems getting money, so this unit would be sold in a mortgagee sale.

Nautilus owners hope to recoup their losses through a lawsuit against the Auckland City Council and others.

They are being represented by Paul Grimshaw, of Cairns Slane, who is also trying to recover $9 million for the owners of the leaky 85-unit Greenwich Park between Spaghetti Junction and the Southern Motorway.

Mr Hastings said some Nautilus units had to be vacated for the repairs, which included the removal of windows and doors.

Because many units were rented, some owners had lost income.

"People are not keen on renting when there's scaffolding on the outside of the building," he said.

Owners who sold units had suffered losses, Mr Hastings said, but he was confident the repairs would bring the building back up to scratch.

A new cladding is being applied to the Nautilus block over the top of the existing exterior walls, and a cavity is being created between the two walls.

"I'm very positive about this,"said Mr Hastings, a retired detective superintendent who owns two units on level five.

Nautilus has a history of defects, and a city council report said water seeping into the building had left walls rotting and covered in mildew.

The Nautilus in Hobson St has no connection with the new Nautilus apartment development in Orewa.

Opposite Victoria Park, owners of the 39-unit Beaumont in Victoria St West are paying $400,000 to have windows removed and exterior walls rebuilt to stop water coming in.


Jean Holt, from Beaumont body corporate secretary Crocker Strata Management, said the main problem was on the eastern side of the front entrance. A Beaumont apartment owner and member of the body corporate building maintenance committee, Dave Sharples, said water poured into two units at floor level on the first and fourth level of the block.

Three of eight exterior walls were being reclad with a batten system to create a new cavity wall.

Link Construction, now in liquidation, built the block in 1998 and the body corporate had negotiatedfor it to undertake some minor repairs before it went under late last year.

Mr Sharples said the possibility of legal action against the Auckland City Council for issuing Beaumont's code compliance certificate was being examined.