Homeowners seek $25,000
The 19 Bella Vista homeowners who are taking legal action against Tauranga City Council will be seeking more than $25,000 each for “stress or emotional damages”.
The group’s lawyer, Tauranga barrister Nathan Smith, said yesterday the homeowners would be making a claim for general damages, also known as stress damages compensation.
“The standard figure that is essentially sort of a precedent is $25,000 for a leaky home. This situation is worse, as far as I see it,” Smith said.
He said leaky homeowners were not forced out of their houses with a day or less notice, “essentially evicted”.
The residents were evacuated from the Bella Vista homes by the council in March for safety reasons, ahead of a predicted cyclone.
Bella Vista Homes went into liquidation on November 30 last year, leaving a number of houses unfinished.
“They [leaky homeowners] don’t get a notice a day or so before Christmas saying that if they don’t fix these defects, then they’re liable for whatever thousand dollar fine it was that they [Bella Vista homeowners] got told they were,” Smith said.
“So I think this is worse. So I think they’ll be asking for more than $25,000.”
He said the legal proceedings had not yet been filed “but I would expect it would be reasonably shortly”.
Smith said on top of the damages claim, the homeowners wanted market value for their houses — to be put in the same position “as if the homes didn’t have the defects that they do have”.
“That then allows them to buy a similar house in the same area and not be worse off than they were.”