Building owners ‘over’ backtracking

A building owner who was part of a council backtrack for missing building information says he is ‘‘over it’’.

Owner of eight Invercargill buildings, Brent Richardson, believes the Invercargill City Council is the hardest to deal with in New Zealand.

To fill historic omissions in the council’s warrant of fitness information, the council issues $500 fines for owners who did not supply the information within a week. A month before warrant expiry, the council would send a reminder. If incomplete infor- mation was supplied, it would send a letter requesting specifics within seven days. If information was not received, the council sent a notice to fix, carrying a $500 penalty, with a further seven-day timeframe.

Owner of eight Invercargill properties Brent Richardson said the information backtrack was the tip of the iceberg when it came to council’s relationship with building owners.

The council had ‘‘changed the goal posts’’ by requesting information that had not been requested before, Richardson said.

A building warrant of fitness is a document displayed in a building.

The council’s building services manager, Brendan Monaghan, said many building owners supplied information correctly the first time. ‘‘They don’t feel that it’s heavy-handed.’’

All the council asked for was information that should have been provided in the first place, Monaghan said.

The council sought clarification from the ministry. ‘‘We are working in the boundaries of what they’ve asked us to do,’’ he said.

More than 100 notices to fix in relation to the building warrant of fitness had been issued, he said. ‘‘And a lot of them are being sent in, within the time frame.’’

Richardson said many other Invercargill building owners were concerned by the council’s handling of the issue. Its initial requirement to have information returned by seven days was not realistic, he said.

‘‘I am over it. We are damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.’’

Cr Lindsay Thomas said it was an important issue that deserved to be investigated further. The council was pulled up on the issue by the ministry, he said. ‘‘We weren’t doing it right ... it’s not the building owners’ problem at all.’’

Thomas said since the issue was raised at the meeting last week, more building owners had come forward. ‘‘There’s some real concerns, and they have to be addressed.’’