Ratepayers cough up in confidential settlement of 8-year 'rusty apartments' case
Sunday, 23 August 2020
It’s settled.
Thirteen years after they were built and eight years since the owners launched legal action against Napier City Council and others, the dispute over the West Quay apartments has been settled, removing the need for what was to have been a 10-week-trial in the High Court.
But ratepayers, who will bear much of the cost of settlement, will never know how much it has cost them due to a confidentiality agreement.
The council would only say “the matter has been settled by negotiation between the parties in a manner which is satisfactory to all parties”.
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* Apartment owners increase claim against Napier City Council and others to $30million
* Napier City Council paid $590,000 to fight leaky-building claim before reaching settlement
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The body corporate that took the legal action has been contacted for comment.
The West Quay apartments, completed in 2007, have been the subject of a legal dispute since 2012.
Owners were concerned about weathertightness, structural integrity and fire-related issues among other things.
Investigations of the building’s 108 apartments in 2014 found corrosion stains at deck/wall junctions which led to concerns about the corrosion of concealed structural steel.
Last December a court ruling revealed the body corporate was seeking more than $30 million.
It claimed the council was “negligent from the start to the finish of the construction process, including the issue of the building consents and the issue of the code of compliance certificate”.
Previously the body’s statement of claim had sought remedy for costs of more than $22m.
The new, higher sum, included costs to remedy plus other “intangible losses” such as stress, anxiety and other costs.
The case, which involved more than 20,000 documents, was to have been the subject of a trial in May but was adjourned due to various issues.
In 2017 the body corporate’s engineers applied to the council for building consent to undertake invasive investigation and reinstatement work on the apartments.
The council refused the application because it had concerns about the engineer’s producer statements, and was not satisfied the work would comply with the Building Code.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment reversed the council’s decision and ordered it to make a new decision on whether to grant the consent.
Last year the council reached a confidential settlement for another large leaky building claim involving the Humber St apartments.
The apartment owners in that case launched legal action in 2013 against the council and 10 other parties involved in the construction of the apartments.
The cost of the settlement was unknown, though the cost of remedial work was known to be more than $9.3m.