Anyone considering buying an apartment needs to watch the 3-part documentary series A Living Hell: Apartment Disasters on Sky Open (formally Prime) from Sunday 4 February at 8.30pm.
It follows the top rating 2021 expose which is repeated Sunday 28 January. Although apartments are often an affordable way to get on the property ladder, hidden defects can later cause enormous financial and emotional stress for owners.
Sadly many of these apartment blocks are in Ponsonby and the Auckland CBD. In 'Living Hell 2', leaky home experts John Gray and Roger Levie uncover heartbreaking stories of unsuspecting owners whose lives have been ruined by skyrocketing repair bills and dysfunctional bodycorps.
It is estimated that over half the apartments in New Zealand are defective and John and Roger point out numerous faulty buildings within a ten-minute drive of their Ponsonby Rd office. John and Roger set up the consumer organization Hobanz twenty years ago after dealing with problems in their own apartment buildings.
“The stress, anxiety and health issues we see owners suffer in these situations and the waste and destruction of wealth is simply unacceptable,” says John Gray.
They point to a building in Hargreaves St just off College Hill. Originally an office block badly converted to apartments, owners had to vacate when remediation began. The remediation ran into problems and the block now sits as an empty shell while owners continue to pay mortgages on unlivable apartments.
When defects surface, all owners as part of a body corporate are responsible for repairs, with costs often running into millions. Many owners cannot afford repairs and are forced to sell to investors who let the building deteriorate, as seen in another inner city apartment block.
The documentary producer Rachel Stace also has firsthand experience of apartment problems.
When balcony leak issues surfaced five years ago, due to lack of maintenance in her solid 80’s-built Freemans Bay apartment complex, costs escalated to the point owners have just had to sell the whole block to a developer, losing their homes and millions in equity.
John and Roger discover the problem is not confined to Auckland. They also find disturbing evidence that defective apartments are still being built today, even by our most respected construction companies.
These problems will affect future owners as well as rate payers who end up bearing the burden when councils are sued.
“Despite our efforts over the last twenty years, in which time we have helped thousands of owners, the problems are ongoing,” says John Gray. “We remain committed to seeking change in the industry and improving the legislation that should be providing much greater protection to New Zealanders.”
In the final episode of “Living Hell”, John and Roger find some promising solutions from other countries plagued by defective apartments. They hope that by exposing New Zealand’s issues, it will lead to improvements in our building industry.
“We want the housing future for our children and every New Zealander to be safe, sound and secure,” says John.
#ponsonbynews #iloveponsonby #ponsonby #auckland #aucklandshippestrip #onlyponsonby #ponsonbyroad #Greylynn #freemansbay #westmere #ponsonby #hernebay #stmarysbay #archhill #coxsbay #livinghelldocumentary #leakyhomes #apartmentdisasters
Published: February 2024