The Goodiers' house has been red-stickered and they are renting one nearby.
Mr Goodier said a slip had taken out the footings of his garage and there was a bit of subsidence in his house. EQC has said there was no damage to the house and was offering $113,000 - the value of a wrecked retaining wall combined with the value of the land affected.
It has estimated those repairs will cost $210,000.
Its policy is only to pay for repairs to land either underneath or within eight metres of a house, outbuilding or accessway. It will pay only for either the value of the land affected or the value of the repairs - whichever is less.
In most Wanganui cases, the value of the land is less, because Wanganui land is low in value compared with places like Auckland.
Mr Goodier said there were others in the same situation.
"They're all on the same theme - that there's a huge difference between the EQC payout and the actual cost of the repair, and that's all due to the land prices in Wanganui. It's a flaw in the EQC process that doesn't take land values into account."
He added that EQC's estimates of repair costs were "notoriously low" - 20 to 70 per cent below actual costs. And he queried the amount EQC spends on engineering firm Tonkin + Taylor's property assessments, which property owners are not allowed to use to do repair work.
"It's a waste of resources. Tonkin + Taylor must be making lots of money and their reports don't have to stand up to scrutiny."
His impression is that both EQC and insurance companies systematically pay out as little as possible.
"EQC hides behind legislation and the insurance companies just tuck in nicely behind that, because they're not liable for anything until EQC have settled.
"On top of that there has to be more than $100,000 damage to your house before your home insurance has to kick in."
The Goodiers are stuck because EQC has said there is no damage to their house, yet their home insurance loss adjuster said there was clearly damage to it. To dispute the EQC assessment they would have to pay for their own engineering report, and would only be reimbursed if EQC agreed it had made a mistake. Mr Goodier doesn't trust the commission's judgment on that and said an engineer's report could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
EQC is funded by a percentage of payments to insurance companies. Mr Goodier said the result was unfair. "The issue is that we pay the insurance companies and we're still in a situation where we're not covered for repair, and that can't be right."
He's hoping advocate Bryan Staples can help.