'Pitiful' award in leaky-home case

Wilna White and her daughter, Shani, 11, survey the rotting deck where a friend almost fell through. Photo / Dean Purcell

A leaky-home victim is devastated after getting less than half the money she had claimed.

Wilna White and her husband, Paul, of Whangaparaoa, claimed $475,000 in a Weathertight Homes Tribunal case but they got $173,000.

Mrs White said the award was pitiful, the tribunal had made many mistakes in its decision and she had found the process deeply humiliating and hurtful.

Her Army Bay house had such severe defects that a young girl fell part-way through a rotten deck.

Mrs White appeared in the Herald in January saying she was looking forward to getting justice after a seven-year battle.

The tribunal awarded the Whites $121,000 from Lorelle Kerkin as the sole trustee of an estate that sold them the house at 6 Castaway Place, and $52,000 from Rodney District Council, which signed it off.

Construction started in 1993 and the house had a code compliance certificate saying it was built legally. In late 2001, the Kerkin estate sold the house to the Whites, migrants who had owned two houses in Britain.

A building inspection found significant water-ingress worries but the sale was not conditional on getting a good report.

The Whites were aware of problems and the need for repairs and maintenance.

But the tribunal said their only action was to bar access to a northern deck and attempt to cover it from the weather.

Said Mrs White: "This was despite it having the full history of our attempts to carry out repairs and five years of our attempts to obtain private resolution and avoid the expense of legal action as building costs spiralled up."

Professional estimates put the cost of repairs at $365,000 to $401,000.

The Whites claimed against the council for negligently issuing building consent and against the Kerkin estate for negligently carrying out its roles as "the developer, head contractor and project manager of the developer". They also claimed the Kerkins had breached their contractual obligations in the sale-and-purchase agreement.

Alternative accommodation expenses, storage costs, repairs and general damages resulted in the Whites lodging the claim for $475,758.64.

Mrs White said the three-day tribunal hearing was deeply humiliating.

"I went through three days of watching council and respondent lawyers laugh and joke happily with each other, while our lawyers work through their breaks and into the night; three days of listening to people imply that I am a total moron and imbecile, liar and lazybones because we bought a leaky home with a full code compliance certificate, found out we had problems and couldn't find a builder to take an interest in fixing it during the boom building years 2002-2003; three days of looking around at people for whom timetables mean nothing, whose legal documents should have been handed in months ago but who don't even bother getting them signed until just before witnesses go on the stand."

The entire process was also slow. "The speedy process that should take 60 working days took 289 working days and another year out of the life of my family."