KEY POINTS:
Leaky home owners now have the ability to sue for general damages enshrined in law, after Parliament yesterday passed new laws covering water-damaged homes.
Politicians and lawyers had always assumed existing laws covering leaky buildings allowed people to sue for general damages to cover mental distress, but a High Court ruling in March that no legal right existed for such damages saw the laws rushed through just months later.
"The bill puts Parliament's and the Government's intention beyond doubt, so that leaky homes claimants can get on with settling their claims," Building Minister Clayton Cosgrove said.
The new law was drafted after Auckland couple David and Fleur Hartley found they could not claim general damages for their leaky Eastern Beach home. The Hartleys, whose home featured in yesterday's Herald, have called the weathertight homes mediation service "a complete joke" and said they wished they had taken their case straight to the High Court. Mr Cosgrove said the Hartleys, as well as other claimants, had every right to take their case to the courts. However, since the Hartleys' case the service had undergone a major revamp and was now more effective and efficient.
The new Weathertight Homes Tribunal, in operation since April 2007, has resolved 11 claims so far - nine through mediation and two by tribunal order. It has had 67 claims lodged with it.
The tribunal has held 46 preliminary conferences, which identify key issues to be addressed in the claim, and have scheduled another 19 preliminary conferences to be completed before the end of September.
About 200 claims remain to be heard under the old weathertight homes resolution procedures. Of those, 50 were expected to remain and settle their case there, while the rest would transfer to the tribunal or abandon their claim.
Mr Cosgrove said the average weathertight adjudication award had been $137,000, with the largest being $273,000.
