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KEY POINTS:
Miranda Patrick was a happily married, high-flying management consultant when she and her husband built a "big, expensive dream house".
Constructed with then-fashionable monolithic cladding, the home in Strathmore Park, Wellington, had a registered valuation of more than $1.2 million when completed in 1994.
Within months, said Patrick, the house had started to leak around the windows and woodburner and through the cladding.
Its failure to get a Code of Compliance Certificate was just the start of her "hellish" experience.
She and her husband tried to get the house fixed, but nothing worked for long. Years of disputes with the builders and costly repairs followed.
"By the third time I had paid to fix a specific leak, I said: 'What the hell is going on here, this is insane'. It was like being in quicksand."
Patrick's marriage broke up. She and son Cameron moved out. She tried to rent the house but tenants complained about the leaks.
The house was transferred to a family trust. At one point, the trust's executors described it as "untenantable". One quote for repairs put the cost at $525,000.
Worse still, Miranda and Cameron became sick, she with cancer of the tongue and throat and he with unexplained illnesses that saw him hospitalised four times.
They were told just before Christmas 2006 that the house contained dangerous mould and they had to get out immediately.
At one point, they were living in a friend's garage.
"No one goes from a 325sq m house to a garage without good reason," Patrick says.
Last February, after mediation failed, she went to the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service to seek compensation from Wellington City Council, the builder and the window provider.
The case was deemed out of time and Patrick was ordered to pay $160,000 costs.
She appealed to the High Court, but, three weeks ago, heard the figure would be reduced by only $30,000. It was the last straw.
After a 14-year battle, she has accepted the house will probably be sold by the family trust to recoup some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.
"It's time to throw in the towel," she says. "This year's Christmas present is that we will lose the house as well."
Nobody knows exactly how many leaky buildings are in New Zealand. One of the leading experts on the crisis, Homeowners and Buyers Association president John Gray, reckons at least 80,000 homes could be affected.
He describes it as a "national disaster" and says there are no winners, except the lawyers.
The Sienna Terraces owners' committee is also employing law firm Grimshaw & Co - which had such a good 2008 it shouted staff a trip to Fiji - in its joint action against the council for signing off the development.
Patrick says a "no fault" solution is needed desperately. The "wasteful" Weathertight Homes Resolution Service set up by the last Government should be scrapped and the money spent on repairing shoddy homes.
The Government has said it favours that approach, but firm proposals have yet to emerge.
Building and Housing Department officials announced a "full evaluation" of the service when they briefed the new minister, Maurice Williamson, in December.
They said the service's objective of working to ensure the early repair of affected homes "is not being substantially achieved".
The results of the review are expected early this year, but that's likely to be too late for Patrick and others in her situation.
"I am really stressed, I can't sleep, I am expecting to lose this place," says Biddle. "This has been a nightmare for three years. I have even thought of stopping the mortgage, locking the door and disappearing."
Angry and disillusioned, Patrick is unable to work and contemplating leaving the country.
"I have gone from being rich to being unemployed. And for what? I built a house - that was the worst thing I did."
