Dream home turned into a nightmare
A couple say they are $200,000 out of pocket and have been left with an unfinished house they can’t live in after substandard building work on their Westport property.
Jamie and Philipa Paul are taking the Buller District Council and builder Steven Diskin to court after they won against Diskin at the Building Practitioners Board.
Coast to Coast Kitset Ltd director and registered builder Diskin was found to have breached the Building Act after a Building Practitioners Board hearing in May.
Diskin’s company is still selling kitset homes from a new showroom in Westport and online through Trade Me. The homes are for sale on the Trade Me account, c2chomes, for $199,997 and advertised as able to be transported anywhere in New Zealand.
The board decision says Diskin carried out or supervised building work in a negligent or incompetent manner, carried out or supervised building work that did not comply with a building consent, and failed to provide a record of work.
The Pauls said the house was not correctly positioned and Diskin had changed the plans to accommodate drainage without consulting them.
The board found the slab cuts were not in line with the building consent and one in the garage was missing, the roofing cladding was different to what was consented, and sewage and waste pipes were installed underfloor without the Pauls’ consent. There was no roof edge flashing as per the consented plans and the roofing material was not turned down into the guttering.
A board technical assessor inspected the property and found the cladding, windows and eaves were not installed properly.
Diskin told the board he accepted he made an error with the way the excavation was set out, but any changes from what was consented was an oversight.
The board determined the building work started before the building consent was issued. It said moving the location of a house on a property is a major change and should be well recorded and signed off, but it was not. The roof cladding and drainage change should have been covered by an amendment to the building consent and work on those parts of the build should have been stopped until the amendment was issued.
‘‘It was claimed by the respondent that some of these were discussed and approved on site by a council inspector, but the board saw no evidence of this on the council files . . . The comment was made that this informal approach to handling amendments on site was ‘‘the West Coast way’’. The board does not accept this,’’ the decision said.
It fined Diskin $4500 and ordered him to pay $2500 in costs.
The Buller District Council has been approached for comment. Diskin declined to comment.
Philipa Paul said the couple had paid about $160,000 to Diskin and spent $60,000 more on unnecessary rent, rates and insurance, plus legal bills and expert reports to prove Diskin’s work had been substandard.
The couple had used the life insurance money she received after being diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in early 2017.
‘‘It has been a battle of survival since. When I got sick I cashed in my crisis cover and decided I needed to have a house for the kids and Jamie for my own peace of mind,’’ she said.
‘‘We are now in a long and costly battle to get our money back. We have nothing left, our money is gone, we have no home to live in, the rental we live in now has been sold and we have 20 days to be out. We have nowhere else to go, there are no rentals available in Westport.
‘‘We’re still left in limbo. What was supposed to be our dream home has turned into a nightmare.’’