Saturday, November 27, 2010
Albert is dead, long live Vernon!
We have a new house, 9 Vernon Terrace! Its an even better spot than Albert but without the bubbling brook. Stunning views of the southern alps from the living area and a plum, orange, grapefruit, feijoa, apple and lemon tree in the garden! So we will have a venue to have a BBQ after our wedding after all! Move in on 5th Jan.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
We're free
Latest news is Harcourts have confirmed they will be returning all of the remainder of our deposit. Their policy following the earthquake has been to return all commission money if the property is deemed untenantable which is very generous of them. So sweet. Now we can go house hunting all over again! and quickly before we get kicked out of our rental.
Never thought we'd be so happy to be out of the sale agreement.
So the lesson here is use Harcourts there very amenable after all!
Love
The A Team.
Never thought we'd be so happy to be out of the sale agreement.
So the lesson here is use Harcourts there very amenable after all!
Love
The A Team.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
MARK where are you?
Well. It looks like we will avoid court. We've just received news from the Vendors Solicitor saying they accept the Letting Agent statements that the property is untenantable and therefore that the contract between us is cancelled as per our original notice.
Thats the good bit. The bad bit is they will only be returning half of our deposit because Harcourts have already taken out their commission which is unfair but, amazingly, LEGAL!
Ergo through no fault of our own we are a lot of money out of pocket. Bring on Fair Go and Mark Sainsbury!
Thats the good bit. The bad bit is they will only be returning half of our deposit because Harcourts have already taken out their commission which is unfair but, amazingly, LEGAL!
Ergo through no fault of our own we are a lot of money out of pocket. Bring on Fair Go and Mark Sainsbury!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
I need to write. Stress stress stress Wow. Nothing like a good legal drama to get the blood pumping. We were thinking all we need now is to uncover a government conspiracy and a few murders and we have all the ingredients for a true life high court Grisham drama.
We spent three hours this afternoon on the phone to various commercial litigators from the best law firms in Christchurch and got a good dose of reality. For a start it would go to the High Court, could take 2 years and 60-80k worth of fees to resolve and at $370 per hour billable rates its easy to see why! But despite this they all say our case is good, but that nothing is certain in court.
To the credit of most of the lawyers we spoke to they have all been extremely helpful giving us free advice and trying to help us get enough 'untenantability' testimonials together to avoid court. However Harcouts the Real Estate agents have also entered the arena with their own big hitting lawyer and have taken their 17k commission out of our deposit and will not be refunding this, which is well within their legal right. But in lawyer speak its not worth going to court over something as small as this! F$#*!
The settlement notice expires on 10th November so we should know whether the vendors will take court proceedings, extend the notice or walk away with a big loss.
Alex
We spent three hours this afternoon on the phone to various commercial litigators from the best law firms in Christchurch and got a good dose of reality. For a start it would go to the High Court, could take 2 years and 60-80k worth of fees to resolve and at $370 per hour billable rates its easy to see why! But despite this they all say our case is good, but that nothing is certain in court.
To the credit of most of the lawyers we spoke to they have all been extremely helpful giving us free advice and trying to help us get enough 'untenantability' testimonials together to avoid court. However Harcouts the Real Estate agents have also entered the arena with their own big hitting lawyer and have taken their 17k commission out of our deposit and will not be refunding this, which is well within their legal right. But in lawyer speak its not worth going to court over something as small as this! F$#*!
The settlement notice expires on 10th November so we should know whether the vendors will take court proceedings, extend the notice or walk away with a big loss.
Alex
Friday, October 22, 2010
Munted
munted (ˈmʌntɪd)
— adj
1. (of an object) destroyed or ruined
2. (of a person) abnormal or peculiar
3. informal drunk or intoxicated
Collins English Dictionary
The kiwis really have invented one of my favourite words to date. Munted seems to sum it up. Here is a not so brief update on what has been going on at Albert.
The vendor agreed to the new settlement date of 21st October however several issues seem to have conspired over the last month to stop our house purchase from being completed.
1. -
The Earthquake commission has outsourced all the project management of the earthquake residential repair process to a building contractor, Fletcher. Christchurch City Council has in turn made the short term decision NOT to require earthquake related building repairs to meet current building code, thus allowing a brick veneer wall to be reconstructed without upgrading structural bracing capacity or insulation levels to current building code. This obviously means that houses will get repaired quicker(less building work per house) however misses the opportunity to upgrade 40% of christchurch's building stock to a good energy efficient standard at minimal cost and time penalty. The appointment of Fletcher has also removed control of the repair / construction process from building owners, which means we no longer have the opportunity to use the earthquake as an advantage to appoint our own builder and upgrade the wall with bracing, insulation and building paper. In fact even if the owner requests the wall be upgraded and pays the extra sum towards the cost of the upgrade it is likely that this will be denied as it will 'unneccessarily' tie up the builders and lengthen the repair process. What hope has the world when this short term view is still prevalent in the 'developed' world.
2.
A structural engineers report and subsequent laser survey of the foundations revealed that the perimeter foundations of albert were 130mm out of level. The corners next to the stream were the lowest levels and this was consistent with the idea of the site subsiding laterally towards the waterway which was consistent with the damage to the waterway retaining wall along the house edge. We therefore made the difficult decision to attempt to withdraw from the sale and purchase agreement as rectifying and relevelling the house would open pandoras box and expose us to a huge amount of risk. Replacing brick veneer and insulating is one thing, jacking up the house is a whole different proposition and not one that we want to take on. We now find ourselves trying to extract from the unconditional auction sale and purchase agreement.
3.
Meanwhile in suit land the insurance companies are still applying a blanket policy on home insurance. No matter what the media states the reality is that any house with ANY (even plasterboard cracks) earthquake damage cannot be insured. We thought we were getting somewhere with IAG when we sent through the engineers report and asked them to highlight which items they would need repaired before considering insuring us. The report was returned via email, every sentence in the report highlighted! This brings the real estate industry to its knees but in iteslf is not a reason for us to break the sale and purchase contract as there is no clause in the contract to allow such withdrawl on these grounds. Perhaps if anyone has any leverage with the Law society they could lobby for change in the poor 'standard forms of contract' that currently don't really make allowance for any 'acts of god'.
So bearing in mind the above our Solictor wrote to confirm our termination of contract under the one term the contract does allow for termination, 'untenantability'. With the evidence for this withdrawal the engineers report that states "A builder shall take down all the damaged veneer to make safe and
remove the falling hazard. Until such time we recommend the house
is not used. Take care around the exterior of the house."
Unfortunately the term 'untenantability' has not been defined by any case law and as such is up for expensive (lawyer) debate. The vendors, possibly smelling this, responded in kind with a notice of settlement, which in lay terms means we have 12 days to settle or face losing our 30k plus deposit and face legal proceedings, based on the fact they do not believe the property is 'untenantable'. Oh and if we lose, not an option hopefully, we could face interest charges that amount to $125 per day! I wish I could invest with this bank!
Meanwhile Alex is trying to concentrate at work issuing full Tender documentation on his New Plymouth Hospital Project and Amms write some proposal. Needless to say the job suffered a little this month!
So status of play as of tonight, 22nd October, is we take it to court and if we win might get 40% of our lawyer fees back, or if we lose, lose our 30k deposit, have to pay 20k lawyers fees and possibly be forced to settle on a property that is probably now only worth half what we offered! My only belief is in the common law Duty of Care and that it would have to be a very brave judge indeed to say that we must live in a property that a structural engineer has recommended be left unused.
Maybe Chch is trying to tell us something. I think we will stick to renting from now on!
We are meanwhile bracing ourself for the third challenge as things always come in threes. So far 2010 has been quite an exciting year. 1 -XPD spider bite, 2. 7.1 earthquake, 3.- who knows, but we'll warn chch before we make an offer on our next house.
love the a team.
— adj
1. (of an object) destroyed or ruined
2. (of a person) abnormal or peculiar
3. informal drunk or intoxicated
Collins English Dictionary
The kiwis really have invented one of my favourite words to date. Munted seems to sum it up. Here is a not so brief update on what has been going on at Albert.
The vendor agreed to the new settlement date of 21st October however several issues seem to have conspired over the last month to stop our house purchase from being completed.
1. -
The Earthquake commission has outsourced all the project management of the earthquake residential repair process to a building contractor, Fletcher. Christchurch City Council has in turn made the short term decision NOT to require earthquake related building repairs to meet current building code, thus allowing a brick veneer wall to be reconstructed without upgrading structural bracing capacity or insulation levels to current building code. This obviously means that houses will get repaired quicker(less building work per house) however misses the opportunity to upgrade 40% of christchurch's building stock to a good energy efficient standard at minimal cost and time penalty. The appointment of Fletcher has also removed control of the repair / construction process from building owners, which means we no longer have the opportunity to use the earthquake as an advantage to appoint our own builder and upgrade the wall with bracing, insulation and building paper. In fact even if the owner requests the wall be upgraded and pays the extra sum towards the cost of the upgrade it is likely that this will be denied as it will 'unneccessarily' tie up the builders and lengthen the repair process. What hope has the world when this short term view is still prevalent in the 'developed' world.
2.
A structural engineers report and subsequent laser survey of the foundations revealed that the perimeter foundations of albert were 130mm out of level. The corners next to the stream were the lowest levels and this was consistent with the idea of the site subsiding laterally towards the waterway which was consistent with the damage to the waterway retaining wall along the house edge. We therefore made the difficult decision to attempt to withdraw from the sale and purchase agreement as rectifying and relevelling the house would open pandoras box and expose us to a huge amount of risk. Replacing brick veneer and insulating is one thing, jacking up the house is a whole different proposition and not one that we want to take on. We now find ourselves trying to extract from the unconditional auction sale and purchase agreement.
3.
Meanwhile in suit land the insurance companies are still applying a blanket policy on home insurance. No matter what the media states the reality is that any house with ANY (even plasterboard cracks) earthquake damage cannot be insured. We thought we were getting somewhere with IAG when we sent through the engineers report and asked them to highlight which items they would need repaired before considering insuring us. The report was returned via email, every sentence in the report highlighted! This brings the real estate industry to its knees but in iteslf is not a reason for us to break the sale and purchase contract as there is no clause in the contract to allow such withdrawl on these grounds. Perhaps if anyone has any leverage with the Law society they could lobby for change in the poor 'standard forms of contract' that currently don't really make allowance for any 'acts of god'.
So bearing in mind the above our Solictor wrote to confirm our termination of contract under the one term the contract does allow for termination, 'untenantability'. With the evidence for this withdrawal the engineers report that states "A builder shall take down all the damaged veneer to make safe and
remove the falling hazard. Until such time we recommend the house
is not used. Take care around the exterior of the house."
Unfortunately the term 'untenantability' has not been defined by any case law and as such is up for expensive (lawyer) debate. The vendors, possibly smelling this, responded in kind with a notice of settlement, which in lay terms means we have 12 days to settle or face losing our 30k plus deposit and face legal proceedings, based on the fact they do not believe the property is 'untenantable'. Oh and if we lose, not an option hopefully, we could face interest charges that amount to $125 per day! I wish I could invest with this bank!
Meanwhile Alex is trying to concentrate at work issuing full Tender documentation on his New Plymouth Hospital Project and Amms write some proposal. Needless to say the job suffered a little this month!
So status of play as of tonight, 22nd October, is we take it to court and if we win might get 40% of our lawyer fees back, or if we lose, lose our 30k deposit, have to pay 20k lawyers fees and possibly be forced to settle on a property that is probably now only worth half what we offered! My only belief is in the common law Duty of Care and that it would have to be a very brave judge indeed to say that we must live in a property that a structural engineer has recommended be left unused.
Maybe Chch is trying to tell us something. I think we will stick to renting from now on!
We are meanwhile bracing ourself for the third challenge as things always come in threes. So far 2010 has been quite an exciting year. 1 -XPD spider bite, 2. 7.1 earthquake, 3.- who knows, but we'll warn chch before we make an offer on our next house.
love the a team.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Quick update
In discussions with the vendor we extended our settlement day to 21 October but that day is coming up fast and we are still no where near getting an EQC assessor or insurance for the house. So we are still pretty much in 'No Mans Land' waiting for the aftershocks to stop (I think we're up to at least 1300 now) and for the insurance companies and EQC to sort themselves out.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
OMG buying a first house is so damn complicated!
We have spent the past two weeks trying to work out the process. Here is a little explanation of the Christchurch Earthquake merry-go-round.....
We won at auction, which mean't our offer had to be unconditional. The earthquake damage occured before the settlement date (date of exchange of title) so the vendors are responsible for the cost of the repairs and damage. The vendors have therefore lodged a claim with the Earthquake Commision (EQC) and their insurers. We must now wait for the EQC assessor (who typically has no building or quantity surveying background) to visit the property to then decide the dollar payout to fix the damages. However building prices are escalating and the loss adjuster is not a Quantity Surveyor or a Builder so is just guessing. We in the meantime are going out to the market to try to get fixed price builders quotes to give some certainty to the cost of the repairs to then use as leverage in case the loss adjuster comes through and values the repairs at less than market value. We are then organising a structural engineer to inspect and write a report on the structural condition of the house. To complicate it further the settlement date is in 6days time. We can't settle because we need a mortgage. The bank won't lend the money unless you have home insurance. The insurance companies (those little weak men who make lots of money) have implemented a policy of not insuring ANY damaged homes. Therefore ALL house buyers looking to borrow money from a bank to settle on a house with some earthquake damage can not settle until a.) the insurance companies change their policy or b.)the buyers save up enough money to buy the property without the need for a mortgage!!!....We meanwhile are trying to delay the settlement date by 4 weeks as this should give us enough extra time to save the extra 100k we need to avoid a mortgage! NOT.....
And this is without entering the discussion about the definition of the term 'untenentable' and the absence of case law that surrounds this term. Unfortunately this is the only way we can get out of the contract we signed but could turn nasty if we end up being the first bit of case law for New Zealand courts!
Wow, who thought buying a house could be so much fun.
So some new pics below. We lost a wall in aftershock number 142 of about 300 so far ;(
We won at auction, which mean't our offer had to be unconditional. The earthquake damage occured before the settlement date (date of exchange of title) so the vendors are responsible for the cost of the repairs and damage. The vendors have therefore lodged a claim with the Earthquake Commision (EQC) and their insurers. We must now wait for the EQC assessor (who typically has no building or quantity surveying background) to visit the property to then decide the dollar payout to fix the damages. However building prices are escalating and the loss adjuster is not a Quantity Surveyor or a Builder so is just guessing. We in the meantime are going out to the market to try to get fixed price builders quotes to give some certainty to the cost of the repairs to then use as leverage in case the loss adjuster comes through and values the repairs at less than market value. We are then organising a structural engineer to inspect and write a report on the structural condition of the house. To complicate it further the settlement date is in 6days time. We can't settle because we need a mortgage. The bank won't lend the money unless you have home insurance. The insurance companies (those little weak men who make lots of money) have implemented a policy of not insuring ANY damaged homes. Therefore ALL house buyers looking to borrow money from a bank to settle on a house with some earthquake damage can not settle until a.) the insurance companies change their policy or b.)the buyers save up enough money to buy the property without the need for a mortgage!!!....We meanwhile are trying to delay the settlement date by 4 weeks as this should give us enough extra time to save the extra 100k we need to avoid a mortgage! NOT.....
And this is without entering the discussion about the definition of the term 'untenentable' and the absence of case law that surrounds this term. Unfortunately this is the only way we can get out of the contract we signed but could turn nasty if we end up being the first bit of case law for New Zealand courts!
Wow, who thought buying a house could be so much fun.
So some new pics below. We lost a wall in aftershock number 142 of about 300 so far ;(
Friday, September 3, 2010
Quake!!
Well its certainly been an exciting few weeks.
This morning at 4.30am we woke to a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that shook the house for several minutes. Pictures were rearranged on the walls, our computer desk fell over and glasses and ornaments fell of the shelves.
After taking stock we then rode through town on our bikes to see the huge fissures that had opened up. Lots of road junctions were covered in silty sand which had shook itself up through the cracks a process known as liquifaction- seriously cool
Unfortunately Albert took a beating. The chimney fell off and brickwork will need replacing at the corners where 2cm cracks have sheared straight through the summerhill stone cladding. Luckily we have not taken settlement yet so the responsibility for fixing the house lies with the Vendor.
Not even the adult entertainment stores were spared!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sold!!!
Sold in a flash! So quickly that when we visited the house this afternoon, two cars came to see the 'open home' that was supposed to be on. Too late suckers!
We might be eating our words in a month or to when we're in the middle of reno hell! Amms still has the romantic notion of renovations like on Grand Designs... Oh and it has a stream running through it - named Victory Stream.
We might be eating our words in a month or to when we're in the middle of reno hell! Amms still has the romantic notion of renovations like on Grand Designs... Oh and it has a stream running through it - named Victory Stream.
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