Protecting home-buyers from chemical nightmare

By TONY GEE

Home buyers in Northland might soon be able to learn from council records whether properties have been used as labs to make illegal drugs.

The information would be recorded in a Land Information Memorandum (LIM) report following notification by police to councils of previous drug-making activity on properties.

The Far North District Council is looking to set up a formal notification process involving the council, police and Northland Health about drug raids on properties.

The Far North action follows an arrangement In Waitakere City under which police tell the council of a P lab bust on a property. The owner of the property is then required to clean it up. A note is recorded on the property's LIM report - but only if the site is contaminated.

A couple who rented an Oratia property last year won compensation from the Tenancy Tribunal when it found they did not know the house had been formerly used as a P lab when they moved in.

They suffered eye irritation and sore throats from chemical residues for several months because the property had not been decontaminated by the landlords after it was vacated.

Under the planned Northland system, an entry would be made on property files indicating that a property had been used for methamphetamine manufacture or as a P lab.

The record would also alert council field staff making routine checks or inspections on a property that it was likely to have contained dangerous chemicals, or may still be contaminated.

Council spokesman Rick McCall said staff had already had informal discussions on the plan with police and Northland Health representatives.

There had been "strong support" from all parties for a notification system to be established. A meeting to discuss the issue in detail will be held next month.

"There's an intent by the council to get an agreed notification system in place that results in something going on to a property file in cases of P manufacture," Mr McCall said.

Far North Mayor Yvonne Sharp said the council had been concerned for some time about long-term environmental contamination resulting from methamphetamine manufacture.

Waste products and chemicals from the manufacturing process were toxic and were dumped or flushed into drains, streams, stormwater or sewerage systems, Mrs Sharp said.

Northland drug squad chief Detective Sergeant Grant Smith said that when P labs were identified, police were now required to advise Clan Lab, a specialist unit set up in Auckland to deal with illegal drug manufacture involving dangerous chemicals.

Clan Lab had set up protocols and was the notifying agency for councils and health authorities.

Mr Smith said tenants in a Whangarei house which had been used for manufacturing methamphetamine - and had subsequently been commercially cleaned - developed ailments that could have been caused by chemical residues left after drug making had finished.

Twenty-four methamphetamine labs were busted in Northland last year. In the Far North, there have been seven P lab busts during the last 12 months, six of which were on residential properties, Kaitaia CIB Detective Sergeant Mark Robertson said.

A Far North real estate agent, who did not want to be named, agreed there could be a problem when someone bought a property not knowing of its drug lab history and later found it to be uninhabitable.

But there was also a danger of wrong information going on to LIM reports, he said.

"They don't always get everything right and our experience is that Northland LIMs are sometimes not very good.

"Some things like erosion or slippage are widely applied even though they're not accurate and don't apply to a particular area or road.

"A solicitor in Auckland can see this on a LIM, advise his clients not to buy and stop the sale."

Real Estate Institute Northland district president Sue Glen believed an entry on LIM reports relating to drug manufacture or contamination was a good idea because of the danger posed to people's health.

"I wouldn't like to be responsible to someone who has moved into a contaminated property when they haven't known about it. If people are buying, they should be entitled to know," she said.

Whangarei District Council spokeswoman Ann Midson said her council was "looking into its obligations" and seeking advice from its lawyers.