KEY POINTS:
The new government will consider dumping the "ineffectual" Weathertight Homes Resolution Service and look at other ways of solving the leaky building crisis.
National regards the service as a failure _ even though it has had almost $80 million from the Labour Government to resolve problems affecting more than 80,000 homes.
"It's not been effective in resolving the problem," Nick Smith, the party's building and construction spokesman, said before the election.
"We will work with leaky homeowners' organisations on a more effective solution."
He said this could involve redirecting funding into fixing homes but no commitment could be made until a "comprehensive analysis" had determined the scale of the problem.
"The figure is anything from $500m to $5 billion. With the current very serious financial crisis it would be irresponsible of National to make commitments to councils like Auckland and Wellington without having a handle on those figures."
The mayors of those cities met National before the election to discuss dividing the cost between the Government, councils and homeowners.
At the time Smith said National was "open-minded" to that proposal.
But John Gray, president of the Home Owners and Buyers Association, opposes making homeowners foot any part of the bill, saying councils are to blame for signing off consents for leaky homes.
Bill Duval, from the Stop Leaky Building Group, expected homeowners would still have to pay. The intention of the Weathertight Homes Resolutions Service and its tribunal, which has resolved around 3190 cases since it started last year, was good, but it wasn't effective, he said.
"We need something like the Environment Court or the Employment Court with adjudicators trained in that particular field."
