A toxic home and a toxic experience trying to get compensation
This is a copy of an article from the New Zealand Herald of 12 April 2010,
written by Andrew Laxton, about a family and their experience with the
Watertight Homes Resolution Service.
Family's nine-year ordeal in toxic home
Joseph Chee came to New Zealand from Malaysia with his wife and children
looking forward to a new start. Mr and Mrs Chee bought the new two-storey home
in Bucklands Beach Rd for $387,500 in November 2001, a month after emigrating
to New Zealand. They discovered the house leaked two years later and in 2007
filed a claim with the Government's Weathertight Homes Resolution Service,
which claims to offer a fast, cheap and independent alternative to the courts.
Nine years later, the family are still living with the nightmare of a leaky
home infected by toxic mould.
The leaks began with water seeping from an upstairs balcony into the living
room below and spread to other parts of the two-storey monolithic-clad house in
BucklandsBeach. Mr Chee said the garage, living room and master bedroom areas
now contained stachybotrys, a dangerous mould found in damp areas and linked to
respiratory illnesses and infant deaths.
The 56-year-old watch salesman told the Herald that his family had been through
extreme stress, anxiety and countless sleepless nights. He was on medication
for high blood pressure. "It is no wonder some victims have committed or
attempted suicide."
Mr Chee felt victimised and terribly let down by the Government-run
Weathertight Homes Tribunal, which awarded only $141,800 for limited
"target repairs", when he had claimed $443,115 for a full reclad.
The High Court has ordered the tribunal to rehear the case because of a series
of legal errors and failure to observe natural justice but Mr Chee said he had
lost all confidence in the tribunal and the adjudicator, Christopher Ruthe. Mr
Chee had spent about $30,000 on expert advice and the High Court hearing. He
did not know how he would deal with the cost of a repeat hearing. "I'm at
a loss. I'm still considering."
More about what the Weathertight Homes tribunal procedure can be like and
how it fails those already penalised with a leaky home, as in the Chee case,
can be found in this backgrounder.