Apartment owner turfed out for repairs

The Sacramento complex, the country's largest leaky building, is now being repaired after expensive court battles. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A South Auckland apartment owner refused to budge so the country's largest leaky building could be repaired - so his neighbours turfed him out.

Nicklaus Barnett, who lived in the 153-unit Sacramento complex at 2 Armoy Drive, put his foot down after it was revealed the building would cost $18 million to fix.

He baulked at paying huge body corporate levies and declined to leave his unit for repairs.

So the body corporate, comprising all his neighbours, fought for his removal in the High Court at Auckland - and won.

Craig Leishman of Boutique Body Corporates said Mr Barnett's unit was tenanted and the defendant had made no appearance when the matter was heard.

The body corporate won costs and the unit was cleared out so repairs were able to begin, but only after expensive legal proceedings, Mr Leishman said.

The 18-month job to fix the country's biggest leaking multi-unit housing complex is now well under way. "We looked at demolition and did an analysis on the costs and we got close to 30 per cent higher for demolition compared to fixing. It's taken a long time to get to this stage," he said.

Repair work would cost "close to $18 million", he said, but residents had won $11 million from various parties in 2008 after lawyer Paul Grimshaw, of Grimshaw & Co, represented the owners.

Two years ago, the Sacramento case was due to go to court with owners seeking $15 million, but an eleventh-hour settlement resulted in that action being shelved and owners settling for the $11 million.

At the time of the settlement, residents praised senior management of cladding manufacturer James Hardie NZ, Wattyl NZ and insurers who supplied professional indemnity to a long list of defendants. Before that, Body Corporate 200200 had named 31 defendants in documents filed at the High Court, including some companies in liquidation. Mr Leishman said this week that James Hardie NZ's Harditex cladding was now being ripped off the Sacramento units and replaced with a weatherboard-type product.

All decks and stairs will be taken off the units and new fixtures built. All rotten timber found behind the claddings will be stripped out and replaced with treated timber.

On January 11, contractor Canam Construction began repairs to the first of nine blocks of the estate. Scaffolding is up and walls are being taken apart.