Full Show Podcast: 13 July 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter Wolfcamp
from US talk said by Squeaky door or Squeaky floor.
Get the right advice from Peter wolf Camp, the Resident
Builder on us talk.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Seat by the house Sizzoro, even when it's.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Dark, even when the grass is overgrown.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
In the yard, and even when the dog is too
old to barn, and when you're sitting at the table
trying not to stop scissor hole, even when we are banne,
even when you're therellone house sizzle hole, even when those goes,

(01:05):
even when you go around from the ones you love,
your moms.

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Screams, broken pans.

Speaker 5 (01:12):
Being in fund.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Locals vesper when they're gone, leaving them, even when wilbra Ben,
even when you're in airlone.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Well, a very good morning and welcome along to the show.
My name is Pick wolf Camp, the Resident Builder, and
this is the Resident Builder on Sunday, an opportunity to
talk all things building and construction. Anything that you might
have sort of encountered during the week, a dilemma, a dispute,
an insight perhaps that you'd like to generate, if you'd

(02:00):
like to talk about building and construction, Well, this is
exactly the right place to be. Let's put some CRC
on that to microphone stand rdio. Look, I have to say, folks,
it's been a week of fixing stuff ups and well,
actually one small success which I can share with you
a little bit later on. But after a couple of
hours trying to dig out old fence posts on Monday,

(02:24):
which I alluded to I think at the end of
last Sunday show, and realizing that for the lack of
insight or knowledge or best practice on the part of
the person that might have put those fence posts in
however many years ago, and we're probably talking somewhere around
forty years ago, maybe I have too high an expectation

(02:49):
of how long a fence should last. But anyway, the
three fence posts that had literally just rotted at the connection,
let's say, at the point where the post goes into
the concrete into the ground. And as I had plenty
of time, myself actually and my son had plenty of
time to contemplate these things. After a couple of hours

(03:10):
with a spade of sort of fosking around the edge
of it, trying to break a bit of concrete out,
trying to wiggle out what looked like an old rotten
tooth out of the remaining piece of concrete before eventually
getting it all out, cleaning the hole out, and being
able to put new concrete in. And the one thing
that I did differently to the person that had done
this job before was to ensure that the concrete came

(03:31):
up to at least ground level, and that when I
did use a little bit of timber to sort of
trawl it off around the edge, I made sure that
the concrete sloped away from the post rather than effectively
creating a little dish which allowed the water to sit
there at the bottom of the post. Hence three posts
had kind of rotted through to the point where the

(03:53):
fence panels were holding the post up, but they were
on an awkward lean. Anyway. That was Monday, Tuesday, sort
it out, and then one of those phone calls that
you never will text messages these days you never really
want to get. There's no dom dum, dum dum. Anyway,
we'll tell you a bit more about that later on.
So I trust that you've had a slightly more progressive

(04:13):
or at least a week where you just feel you're
not fixing things that maybe didn't need to be fixed.
But then the nature of owning property, the nature of
being in property, is that often we do end up
fixing stuff, and sometimes it's just because it's reached the
end of its natural life sort of thing. There's a
lifespan to some things in terms of building, and other

(04:33):
times it's just well, if it hadn't been done better
in the first place, I wouldn't be here with my
favorite spade digging away on a Monday morning RDIO. Welcome
along to the show. My name's Pete wolf Camp. This
is an opportunity for you to talk about building, to
talk about construction, to talk about rules and regulations, and

(04:55):
very excited about this. To be fair, Ben Thompson is
a lawyer. He's from Pigeon Judge. I think he's one
of the directors there, and that he is an expert,
very much an expert on cross leases. And we had
them on the show a couple of months ago possibly
to talk just generally about cross leases. How did they
come about, what does it mean? What are some of

(05:17):
the common pitfalls? What's a what do they call it
a defective title or a defective cross lease when it
comes to titles. Anyway, we had a great conversation, lots
and lots of questions, and then I said to him,
how about you come back to the show at some
stage in the future and we'll invite you callers listeners

(05:38):
to text in some questions. So if you've got a
specific question about a cross lease, and you can summarize
it basically into a text message, which I know is
when we're talking about complex issues, that can be a
bit challenging, but it does help you refine your thinking
becomes very concise. So if you've got a question about
cross leases, Ben Thompson will join me just after eight

(06:01):
o'clock and we will run through your questions, still playing
that depressing song to start the show. Hey, after the
week that I've had, absolutely houses are home, no matter
what's going on, things falling down, things breaking, hot water,
Califonts giving up the ghost at nine o'clock on a

(06:24):
Thursday night where it's pouring with rain, how do you
find a trades person to come and fix it? Well,
see that's where relationships matter. I'll tell you all about
my mate Phil a bit later on Oh eight hundred
eighty ten eighty. Welcome along, Good to have your company
this morning. Thirteenth of July. Let's get amongst it. Eight
hundred eighty ten eighty is that number to call? Tom

(06:46):
are very good morning to you.

Speaker 6 (06:49):
Thank you Peter pleasure taking my call. First off, Sarah,
I like to say that I really enjoy your show.
I think it's surry and lightning.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Well, thank you.

Speaker 6 (06:59):
My question are mate. I've just bought a two bedroom
brick and toole unit.

Speaker 7 (07:04):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (07:05):
And I've got a build a report. The guy said
to clear a few wheepholes in the bricks.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
Great good.

Speaker 6 (07:15):
And there's no damp course under the house in the
in the little garage area yep. So the first question
is it may sound a bit simple, but I assume
I have to when I clear the wheepholes, I've got
to go right through to create airflow.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah. So when the the weepholes that the building inspector
pre purchased inspector picked up on, are they the weepholes
the little vertical purpose what we call purpse or penetrations
on the last course of the bricks.

Speaker 6 (07:52):
So where the brick last course i'd assume would be
the bottom.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
Yeah, the bottom course or the sorry, the first course effective.

Speaker 8 (08:01):
But I'll go around and do and create the whole lot.

Speaker 4 (08:04):
So when they've how have they come clogged or were
they never cleaned out in the first place.

Speaker 6 (08:09):
Well, I don't know, it's the how the little unit's
over thirty years old.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
Yeah, okay, I tell you what a nice simple way
of doing it is, either with an old drill bit
that you don't care about anymore, or with a small
masonry bit like about an eight mil one into a
drill and you can just drill in there and break
all of that mortar up that way, and then with
a again you can butcher an old screwdriver or an
old chisel or something like that, you just scrape it out.

(08:37):
If you happen to have like a wet and dry
vacuum cleaner, you could actually sort of suck it out
that way as well.

Speaker 8 (08:44):
All right, thank you?

Speaker 4 (08:45):
No true. And in terms of the vapor barrier, it's
accessible underneath in the subfloor space.

Speaker 6 (08:53):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I could almost stand up in the
back corner.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Oh wow, I mean yeah. See, I've always excuse me,
I've always had the opinion that over a certain height, right,
having a vapor barrier doesn't have as many advantages because
in that volume, you've probably got a reasonable amount of

(09:19):
air flow, right, that will move that still are around.
But so the foundation for your place, if it's a
brick and tile, chances are it's a masonry ring foundation.
And then it's got those little square grills, those concrete
grills that are set into the blockwork, and that's that's
where your airflow is coming from. Okay, you want to

(09:40):
make sure that they're cleaned out as well. But look
there's no harm to doing vapor barrier. So if you
want to make it a bit. Is the underfloor insulated.

Speaker 8 (09:50):
Yes, it is great. Yes, Okay, Look.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
I think making sure that you've got good airflow in
the subfloor space is really important. Those wheepholes or vents
at the bottom of the brickwork, they are really important
because they allow a little bit of ventilation which helps
with drying. So yeah, good on the building inspect or,
pre purchase inspector packing up on those things. That's really useful.

(10:15):
All right, thank you very much for trouble Tom. You
take care. Actually, just on that I was reading it
was in the Herald this week a judgment from a
from the courts, from a judge saying that someone who
had purchased a property and I think was about twenty
twenty one in an apartment or a sort of multi

(10:38):
unit development in only Hunger purchased the property, ask the
vendor and the I guess the real estate agent as well,
whether there were any weather tightness issues with it. In
the judgment, quoting just from memory, the judge said that
the vendors had been deliberately deceptive in the in the

(11:00):
comments that they'd made because they should have or they
were aware that the building did leak or did have
weather type issues, and so the person who purchased it
ended up not being fully informed or being misled by
the vendors, and that the judge had awarded the now
owner of this Lekua five hundred thousand dollars. But I'm

(11:24):
always curious about these things as to whether or not
anyone actually ever gets any money out of them. And
the reason also that I mentioned it is that the
building had had a pre purchase inspection done by the
new owner of the property, which is sensible, that's them
doing their due diligence. But the report had come back
there's nothing, there's no concerns here, So they had obviously

(11:47):
sued the pre purchase inspector as well, or their company
and won a judgment or a settlement of seventy five
thousand dollars I think, which is probably quite a good
win on their part. And I'd be interesting to know
whether the company or the individual who did the pre
purchase inspection paid it out of their own pocket, or

(12:08):
whether or not they went to their insurer and was
able to get funds from there insurer. For the report
to be fair, just looking at the photographs, you'd look
at it and go you'd have to be super cautious
about that building, you know, if you saw that, you
want to talk about those sorts of things. We can
do that as well on the show. Right now, the
lines are open and the number is eight hundred eighty

(12:30):
ten eighty. You can text as well nine to nine
two which is EDBZB from your mobile phone, and if
you'd like to email me you are more than welcome.
It's Pete at newstalksb dot co dot nz so p
e t E at newstalksib dot co dot Z coming
up nineteen minutes after six. If you've got a question,
call us right now. Remember from eight to eight thirty.

(12:53):
Ben Thompson, lawyer specialist in cross leases, is going to
be available, so we'll have a bit of a chat.
But if you've got a question, a specific question about
cross leases, text and through to me now anytime between
now and eight o'clock and then we can put those
The whole point of this sort of session with Ben
is that it's answering your question, so fire them through Rightio.

(13:17):
Time for your calls. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty,
we've got a spare line right now. Call us now, looking.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Forward to talking with you, helping you get those DIY
projects done right the resident builder with Peter Wolfcat call
eight US Talk ZB.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
We're getting some great calls or some great text messages
for Ben Thompson, who will join us after eight o'clock.
So I'm really hoping we're going to get through all
of the text questions, so I might I might ease
off on that question about noisy tenants, which is a

(13:53):
little bit of a challenging one, Lynette, Thanks for texting
it through. I wonder whether tenancy services might be good
for you to talk to. This is an issue where
basically the property the adjoining property is owned by a

(14:13):
property company. They've got a tenant who is operating what
they call it an legal sound studio. So from midnight
till seven every night for the last two years, there's
noise and activity next door, so they're obviously using a
residential property for a commercial purpose. Really hard to get you,
either councilor noise control or the police to engage with

(14:36):
that sort of thing. There's no body corp and then
there is some tension between the person that has text
and the tenants from next door, and a bit of
verbal abuse and that sort of thing. So I'm actually
wondering whether you could go to tenancy services and that

(14:57):
would be a good place to start. Tendancy services or
the dispute Tribunal Tendency services operate like a dispute service
as well, and they might be able to help you
with that as well. Just following on from my comment
obviously about that it's a news article. You can find
it on the Herald website really quickly if you want
to at the moment about someone who has been awarded

(15:17):
a five hundred thousand dollar judgment after having bought a
property that turned out to have with the tightness issues,
which to be fairs. Not uncommon, but not as common
perhaps as it was ten fifteen years ago. But the
judge was very clear in saying that they considered the

(15:39):
person had withheld information that they clearly knew about and
were deliberately misleading and deceptive in the manner in which
they presented the property, hence making the judgment. And someone
stepped through, Hey, look, I'm helping my sister buy a
house in Wellington. What sort of repairs are needed for
monolithic cladding with moisture issues? Is there a typical cost

(16:01):
or rate for this work? Look, I think in this
instance you really want to get very detailed specialist advice
before you purchase that. If people are describing the property
as having moisture issues, it's a little bit of a
how long is a piece of string?

Speaker 8 (16:18):
You know?

Speaker 4 (16:18):
Are there minor issues that could be repaired with targeted
repairs or are you talking about a basically a reclad
in which case I remember even ten years ago the
rate for reclads was running at about one thousand dollars
a square meter, and it's probably considerably more than that today.
So please don't underestimate the cost of the repairs. I

(16:44):
think often well, I was going to say, these properties
often just their land value in the house is actually
just a liability as often the summary of these sorts
of situations. Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the
number to call. Brian A very good morning to you.

Speaker 5 (16:59):
Good morning Peter. Look, I've got aluminium windows that I'm
just about to get double glazed yep, and stuck around
the inside magnets where they had perspects. How do I
get the magnet that are stuck on off?

Speaker 4 (17:22):
And there was the perspects there for some sort of
like secondary glazing or yes, to make it opaque or
something like that, and obviously the magnet is bonded. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, look, we've got to be really careful. Yeah,

(17:44):
in terms of just it's like I've seen systems like
this being called double glazing when they're not. The technical
term for them is secondary glazing. So this is like
you know, PVC or glad wrap or a bit of
plastic or another sheet of glass or something like that.
But in terms of trying to get that off the aluminium,

(18:04):
I presume that it's the magnet was like almost like
a double sided tape, so it'll have an adhesive on
one side. You can use that to bond it to
the aluminium, and then they then put their frame against that.
Have you tried, I suppose the challenges if you try

(18:26):
to peel it off, will it take off the powder coating?
And then if you're trying to dissolve it in some way,
does you know that that's probably going to be quite
a powerful solvent. Do you risk you know, damaging the
inside of the aluminium frame and doing that as well?
What have you tried so far?

Speaker 5 (18:49):
I haven't tried anything so far. I've just sort of
one of the strip magnets came off, yeah, is it?
And when I pulled it, it just pulled right off,
But all the others appeared to be really stuck on type.
It looked as though the the glue had crystallized and

(19:16):
it was easy to come off, but the others appear
to have been maybe reglued at some stage. And yeah,
I looked it up on the net and they said
you could use a heat heat gun or hear drive
loosen the glue and try and get it off that way. Well, yeah,

(19:43):
I'm to give you a year.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, And I think that's I mean, with these sorts
of things, when you're sort of effectively testing something, right,
I kind of with the gress respect to doctors take
a sort of hypocratic oath approach, right, which is first,
do no harm, so you know, take the least aggressive
approach first, and you know, using a heat gun or

(20:06):
using a hair dryer and trying to sort of loosen
up the adhesive so that you can start to peel
it away. And then once you can peel it away,
you could possibly cut along the back of the magnetic strip.
So don't run the knife down on the minium extrusion,
run it close to the magnetic strip, you know, sort
of pull that away, and then you're left with a

(20:27):
residue which you might be able to clean up, might
be myths, might be turps, might be an isopropyl alcohol,
those sorts of things, and be able to clean it
off that way. So that's not a bad approach. And
then if that doesn't the hard thing is if it
doesn't work, you know, look, your fallback position, right is

(20:49):
going to be, let's say you try and get it
off it damages the powder coating. Is that you can
have the powder coating restored by some professionals, so someone
like Nano clear. It's a an clear, so Nano clear.
You know, in the event, let's say that that unfortunately

(21:11):
you damage the actual paint surface. They'll be able to
fix it. They'll be able to color match it and
fix it. Yeah, okay, so I mean, look good on
you for going for the retrofit. I'm almost hesitant to
mention this. It was really interesting. I was inside a

(21:32):
property on Friday, the same one where the Califont failed.
And you know, Friday in Auckland was pretty miserable. I know,
Friday around the country was disastrous, right if you're a
top of the South Island, that sort of thing. And
here's a classic example of a property that because I
did the work. There's insulation in the walls, we had

(21:55):
good quality double glazing, and it had some aluminium jowinery
that's six years old, and there was still condensation on
the inside of the joinery because of course standard aluminium
joint is not thermly efficient, and so you know, for
all of the effort that we put into this particular project,

(22:15):
still to see some condensation on the inside with the
double glazing, and you know, there was a fixed form
of heating. The house was nice and warm on the inside,
wasn't leaking joineries, fine claddings, fine insulation in the walls,
and then the weak spot turned out to be the
aluminum joinery in this instance, and then I was starting
to think shivers. Maybe if I had have gone for

(22:38):
something like uPVC, I wouldn't have had that issue. But anyway,
that's that's the secondary thing. But look, putting the double
glazing and will make a world of difference to your place.

Speaker 5 (22:47):
Okay, thanks very much, good.

Speaker 4 (22:49):
Luck and just you know, take a cautious approaches. I'm
sure you will. Yeah, all the best, take care your
new stalks. B and this on the Sunday morning, we're
talking all things building and construction. So if you've got
a question, oh eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is
that number to call for those of you who are
trades who might be listening, particularly if you're in the

(23:11):
building field like carpentry and so on. Building Z is
on this week. I'm quite looking forward to that Tuesday Wednesday,
so ten o'clock through to five o'clock, with a whole
bunch of presentations, lots and lots of suppliers obviously who
are there to show you all of the cool new
stuff that they've got. And I think Chris Pink, the

(23:35):
Minister is speaking, there's a whole bunch of architects and
innovators that are speaking at a series of seminars, So
I'm actually quite looking forward to that. I w eight
hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call. I'll
be if you do happen to be going, And it
is a trade only event, so you need to register
and get along to it, but it is worthwhile or
potentially if you're looking at building at some stage in

(23:57):
the future. There's some good stuff there. And if you
do happen to see me, please say hello. I'll be
there Tuesday Wednesday as well. I eight hundred eighty ten
eighty is the number to call if you've got a
question of a building nature. We should, we can talk.
I can help you with your questions. Oh, eight hundred
eighty ten eighty. I'll tell you about the old dead Caliphont.

(24:19):
Dead Caliphont that was installed, purchased in on the first
of November twenty nineteen and installed probably early twenty twenty.
Dead as a doornail. Not happy, not happy. Didn't last
very long at all.

Speaker 5 (24:35):
Did it.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
Oh eight hundred eighty ten eighty give me a call
me twice?

Speaker 1 (24:40):
God was but maybe call Pete first video Wolfcab the
resident builder.

Speaker 4 (24:44):
News Talk said, be fascinating text, Morning Pete. How much
commercial work can a tradee do at their own residential
property prefabricating things for an upcoming job, for example. I
guess the answer is none, but lots of people must
do bits and pieces at home. I built an entire
ten square meter cabin on the front lawn, so basically

(25:06):
pre cut, pre nailed the entire thing. It was for
a job not far away, And rather than build it there,
which meant sort of dragging materials up and gear up
onto the site, I mocked up a foundation, framed up
the whole thing at home, cut all my jframe studs

(25:30):
and rafters. Built it in such a way that I
could take it apart obviously, so carry four walls. And
I made the entire roof It was only four meters
by two point five roughly, so ten square meters. And
did the roof put the pearlins on, yeah, I think

(25:50):
I did. No, just framed up the roof, just did
the rafters and locked it all together. Did it in
such a way that I could lift the entire roof
off cut all. I used a rigid air barrier, so
I cut all of those sheets and then you know,
on the appointed day basically got two other chippies that

(26:11):
who were helping me out to come with a decent
sized trailer, unscrewed it all, laid it on the trailer,
drove round to the corners of the job, and just
carried the panels, essentially five panels up there. I guess
the question is more that you know you wouldn't want
to be doing it outside of ours and would you
want to be doing it all of the time? Probably not,

(26:32):
But look I was in the shed not yesterday. Actually,
will I be in the shed today making stuff?

Speaker 9 (26:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (26:39):
I probably will later on this afternoon. Got a little
job that I want to get finished. I think it's
a courtesy thing, isn't it. I wight one hundred eighty
ten eighty is the number to call Colin. Good morning
to you, Good morning tea. How very nice to talk
to you, Colin. How are you good?

Speaker 5 (26:59):
Peter?

Speaker 8 (26:59):
I bang patre out my roost.

Speaker 4 (27:02):
Yes.

Speaker 10 (27:03):
And I'm just wondering roughly if I when I do
the inulation, roughly, what would what would that costs? Say,
if you want to put new bets for item?

Speaker 4 (27:20):
It depends well, it depends on so many things that
it's actually really really difficult to give you a generic
fray or costs. So when you say I want to
put insulation, and are you putting it into the ceiling,
into the subfloor, into the exterior walls.

Speaker 10 (27:38):
It's just it's just into the ceilings teeter yep.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
And is there already insulation there or is it empty?

Speaker 10 (27:49):
Well, it's got the original intulation there. Yes, this place
is what this place is built in the early seventies.
It's telling you two bit and place on you and
of you already had a heat punting neck putton. But

(28:09):
I thought, after having the roof done, I've still got
to do my ceiling. Yeah, absolutely, I thought that, don't
don'ts and back to something just in the ceiling to
have the dentness and.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
That, Yes, I think that's a really wise idea. Look,
you know, you're probably looking at somewhere around eighteen hundred
two thousand dollars, maybe a bit less if it's a
smaller place. So and the other way of looking at
it is somewhere between eighteen and about twenty five bucks
a square meter, and some of that will depend on
like they obviously, because you've already got insulation there. You

(28:45):
can leave that insulation there and you can lay a
new layer of insulation. So ideally rolls of insulation, so
rather than individual pads, if you can go for rolls
and roll that out at ninety degrees to the direction
of your trusses so that it laps over the top
of what we call the bottom cord of the trust,

(29:07):
and that'll provide you with really really good insulation. Do
you have down lights? What type of lighting do you
have in the ceiling?

Speaker 10 (29:18):
There were some light pottin but just small ones that
were yeah, but just small.

Speaker 8 (29:27):
Ones, Peter, Yeah.

Speaker 10 (29:30):
Covers you can actually pull down so you can around
the thing to do the ceilings all right.

Speaker 4 (29:38):
The reason I ask is that you know, particularly houses
nineteen eighties ninety nineties, we went through and blasted on
hundred mile holes in the ceiling and popped in these
old fashioned incandescent fittings, right, So a conventional sort of
light bulb that we're familiar with and a fitting, and
then you had to make sure that there was a
gap around that, right, you couldn't bring the insulation up

(29:59):
to it. And what that did for most of our
ceilings is just provided little chimneys little vents for all
of the warmth of you've built up just to go through,
and it drops the performance of the ceiling insulation massively, right,
you know, fifteen to twenty percent less effective because we've
got those particular types of light. So I'm always encouraging

(30:22):
people if you're going to upgrade your ceiling insulation, look
at the type of light fittings. It's a great opportunity
to take out those old fashioned ones, put in some
LED fixtures and then if you get the right LED
light fixture, you can also then a butt or enclose
your insulation so you can bring the insulation right up

(30:43):
to the side of the fitting, or in some cases
you can actually bring the insulation up to it and
then another piece over the top. I always recommend putting
the driver for the LEDs up on top of the
insulation so it doesn't overheat. But you know, being able
to reduce the amount of heat loss through those penetrations

(31:04):
makes a big difference. So you know, to have a
look at the lighting that you've got and if you
can afford it, go through and change that as well.
It'd be worth doing. Colin so and look and the
other rule of thumb with tradespeople, if you're not familiar
with it, if you're not working with people that you know.
Is I think over three quotes and then don't be

(31:26):
like the person that I heard of years ago who
got I think eleven quotes for a building job. Right,
it was a you know, one hundred hundred and fifty
thousand dollars building job. They got eleven quotes. They took
the lowest quote and then wondered why it went wrong.
So don't be like that person. Colin, all the very best, you,
thank you very much for your call. O W eight
hundred eighty ten eighty is the number. Call before the break.

(31:48):
We'll take this text if you'd like to call. Now's
a great time. We got some spare lines. Oh, eight
hundred eighty ten eighty is the number. Hello, Pete. We're
buying a home with five years of a and then
it's a group home builder. I'll leave their name out
of it for a little bit. So five years of
a building guarantee to run on a ten year term.
Is there any formal process to go through to have

(32:10):
this guarantee transferred into our name? What if the current
owner never had the guarantee put into their name this
aspect is unclear. Thank you for your help. I would
suggest that you go back to and you obviously know
the name of the group home builder that built the house,
and follow it through from there. Some of these sort

(32:34):
of warranty insurance policies are not transferable, others are, but
there shouldn't be anything unclear about this. It's going to
be a yes or no. So I would suggest that
if you know if the house is basically must be
five years old, if it's five years into a ten

(32:54):
year term, then all of that paperwork will exist. And
I did see one the other day. It was attached
actually as a sale and purchase agreement that the essentially
the warranty form. So it was a ten year warranty
on the house that was over and above what you
get through statutory requirements so Consumer Guarantees Act, the Building Act,

(33:18):
and so on. This was a specific building warranty taken
out for that property and that was able to be transferred.
But my understanding is not always all of them are
able to be transferred. In a quick text as well
before the break. Hopefully that helps Julie. I'd just go
back to the original builders, get them to give you

(33:40):
a straight answer about that, Pete, Are you legally allowed
to put an external PowerPoint on an exterior wall wired
into a PowerPoint inside yourself? I wouldn't I put it
that way. I wouldn't. I would get an electrician to
come and do that. I think that it's right on

(34:03):
the edge of what you might actually be permissible to do.
And I think even there used to be rules around
that you could do as a homeowner. You could do
a certain amount of electrical work. You couldn't go back
to the board. That's definitely still the case, but I
actually think that the scope of what you're allowed to

(34:24):
do has been reduced. So I would recommend in this instance,
particularly because you're dealing with exterior penetrations and so on,
I would get a registered electrician to.

Speaker 8 (34:35):
Do that work.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
It is coming up fourteen minutes away from seven room.
We've got news sport and we're the top of the
hour at seven. But we'll take your calls. We'll talk
to Glennis straight after.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
The break doing other house sorting the garden asked Pete
for a hand's a resident builder with Peter Wolfcap Call
eighty eighty.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
News talks'd be your news talks that'd be the lines
are open. The number to call, Oh, eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty is that number? Glennis? Hello there?

Speaker 8 (35:01):
Oh, how are you so?

Speaker 11 (35:02):
My voice is scoring a bit. The house is a
bit damp and.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
Col right, which is exactly what we're hoping to solve
the home standard, isn't it.

Speaker 11 (35:11):
I'm actually coughing up everything just about like respiratory.

Speaker 12 (35:14):
You know.

Speaker 13 (35:15):
Now.

Speaker 11 (35:16):
The ceiling they put in was fluff, installed in the
first of January two thousand and nine and inspected in
twenty and twenty. Now that's fifteen years, isn't it. From
the first to January to the sixteenth to January two
thousand and the thickness is two point nine Is that
sick enough?

Speaker 6 (35:34):
Pete?

Speaker 4 (35:36):
I think we're aiming for about the way in which
the Healthy Homes Legislation describes it as you need about
one hundred and twenty millimeters of thickness, right.

Speaker 11 (35:46):
Ah, So they've made the big mistake. And then the
floor is polyest nylons. That's one point three.

Speaker 4 (35:55):
Yeah, that's well.

Speaker 12 (35:56):
On the floor.

Speaker 11 (35:57):
But the ceiling, I think is because there's not enough
thickness up there. Because when they put when they put
it in, I think they just blew it in like
balls of cotton ball, you know, do not? So basically
what what's what in my eyes before I go? Is
another thickness on top or underneath? What's up there already? Maybe?

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Certainly it's it's quite common to you know, add insulation
where old insulation has essentially it's compressed, right, and it
happens with pad type insulation. It certainly happens with some
of the blowing in insulation. So over time they compress
and offer.

Speaker 11 (36:39):
It's a long time fifteen years, isn't it, from the
first to January to to inspect it on the sixteenth
of January twenty twenty.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
Yeah, but I mean, look, you know, insulation's fairly well true. True,
it's dormant, right, I have.

Speaker 11 (36:53):
A case or anything about the household?

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Do I?

Speaker 13 (36:56):
Well?

Speaker 4 (36:56):
I think first you'd have to like if you could
get someone either you could go up or you get someone.

Speaker 10 (37:02):
To go up.

Speaker 11 (37:03):
I'm not allowed to go up. But it's a housing corporate.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
Oh in that case, you know housing Actually I saw
or kind of order said that ninety eight point five
percent of their properties now comply with the Healthy Homes legislation,
So yours should comply. I think what we're starting to
You know now that this has been a discussion for

(37:26):
six or seven years, right, so from the introduction of
the legislation through to now where as of the first
of July, so you know, thirteen days ago, there are
no more excuses. If you've got a residential tendancy and
you're the owner of it or the landlord or the
property manager of it, they must comply. There's no more exemptions,

(37:48):
there's no more basically excuses, right So, I think what
we're starting to find is that lots and lots of
people are looking critically at their rental properties, going well, look,
I'm not sure that the report is true and an
honest reflection of the condition of the building, or my
landlord has delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, and now there is

(38:10):
no more time. Right So, but in terms for your property,
the requirement is because not everyone knows exactly what type
of insulation when in there.

Speaker 7 (38:22):
Right.

Speaker 4 (38:23):
So, the current practice, and it's a really good one,
is that the insulation installers will literally cut the label
off the bag of insulation and they'll staple that to
the rafters or to the joists, right, And it's and
typically around the access hatch. That's a really good practice,
so that you could open the hatch, pop your head
in there, look for the label from the product. It's

(38:45):
staple to the rafter. It's right there, and you go,
oh great, they've put in two point nine or three
point six or four point two whatever it's going to be.
But if it's older insulation, what the requirement is is
that if it's one hundred and twenty mili thick, it's
deemed to comply. And I'm saying that they've made a
very conscious decision around that because a lot of insulation

(39:08):
and I can remember installing it. Let's say in the
early nineteen nineties, sealing insulation was one hundred mil thick
right or thereabouts. Now if that's gone and that won't comply,
it needs to be one hundred and twenty millimeters. Okay,
all the very best. I take care, and again, you

(39:28):
know if you're a Actually I was, funnily enough, I
was listening to a podcast yesterday with a group of
sort of property investors landlords discussing the healthy home standards,
and obviously they were coming from a landlord's perspective, so
they were talking about tenants who perhaps now will have
waited until the first of July before making a claim

(39:53):
to the Tendency Services for a breach of the Healthy
Home standards. So if the draft proofing isn't right, the
extraction's not right, the insulation's not right, the heating requirement
that's not right. Now take a claim to tendancy services.
Apparently Tendency Services three quarters of the claims are now

(40:14):
around healthy homes. And look, is it fair to say
that in some cases it's a motivation not around the
actual quality of the house, but around the potential for
financial recompense. So, landlown, I'm reading this from the Tendency
Services website. Landlords who do not meet their obligations under

(40:35):
the Healthy Home Standards are in breach of the Residential
Tendencies Act nine in eighty six and may face consequences
like financial penalties up to seven two hundred dollars. So
if you're a landlord and you haven't got your act together,
I mean you've had your head in the sand for
the last gosh, I don't know, five years. Also times up,

(40:57):
it's as simple as that. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten
eighty will come back and talk more about building construction
and the wonderful world of just getting stuff done. And
that was kind of my week, actually fixing stuff that
I wish I didn't have to fix, but I did anyway. Oh,
eight hundred and eighty teen eight because the car, we'll
get things set up. We'll talk to you straight after news,
sport and weather.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing the fence, or wondering
how to fix that hole in the wall. Give Peter
wolf Cap call on eight eighty, the resident builder on
news talks b.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Chucker Jack Chack, chucker Jack check Once upon the tone
of the railroad.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
I have to say, folks, it's been high on my
list of rotate on the music that's Hadestown. By the way,
I haven't seen it, but I might have to fix
that in the next couple of months. Oh, eight hundred
and eighty ten eighty. Let's talk all things building and construction. Chris,
thank you for your insights. So just to be clear, well,

(42:27):
I don't know that the caller did think that two
point nine was a measurement, but either way, let's be
really clear. The requirements of the Healthy Home standards right
now are that if you don't know exactly what the
insulation is and that's why it's really useful when insulation installers,

(42:47):
and it's been reasonably common practice, probably for the last
ten years or so, is you just take a label
from the bag that the insulation came in, and you
staple that to the rafters or to the joys, depending
on whether it's in the ceiling or on the underfloor,
and that then indicates and shows people exactly what type
of insulation has been installed. And sometimes they write the

(43:08):
date on it as well, which is super useful for
properties that had insulation installed before that was common practice.
The requirements for the Healthy Home standards is that it
has one hundred and twenty milimeters of insulation. That's the loft,
so from the bottom of the insulation to the top
should be one hundred and twenty millimeters. And because you

(43:31):
might not be able to determine what the original insallation,
what the r value the resistance value of that insulation
was in the first place, So if you can't, if
you don't know, there's no evidence for it, then the
fallback position is it's got to be one hundred and
twenty mili thick. Ideally it should be more than that.
That's only that's a very minimal level of insulation, and

(43:53):
if it is only one hundred and twenty milimeters, there's
probably there is definitely an advantage to increasing that as well.
But those are the requirements as per the Healthy Home Standards,
as per the guides.

Speaker 13 (44:06):
It does.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
It does raise. This is an interesting thing as well
in terms of for something that we've talked about for
quite a long time, so it's had quite a long
leading you know, so for landlords in terms of getting
properties to Healthy home standard, it's not like this is
new information. We've known about this. It's got to be
the better part of six years. So all of those

(44:29):
deadlines for you know, you've got this exemption or that
exemption pretty much are past. All properties should now comply
with the Healthy Home standards, and the guidance for that
is on the tenancy website. And then one of the
requirements is that you provide a healthy Homes assessment to
the tenant, either upon request, I'm pretty sure, or certainly

(44:50):
when a new tenancy is signed. The healthy Homes assessment
needs to be attached to the tenancy agreement. And then
it gets on too And I've had this conversation with
a whole bunch of people recently, you know who does
them and who gets to see them. And right now,
while there are some qualifications around people who could undertake them,

(45:12):
there is no requirement to have a qualified person undertake
the healthy homes assessment. So some landlords possibly are doing
their own and then it becomes a question of what
can you challenge it or what happens if you find
a discrepancy between them? Clear as mud, says Chris.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
Look, it does get on, it does it get confusing.
It sort of is, but it sort of isn't either.
But look, you know, I mentioned this last week on
the show. I have been sort of engaged with a dispute,
an investigation, let's say, and that's probably a bit a
grandizing of me to call it an investigation, but a

(45:53):
situation where a property had a healthy Homes assessment, they
did the heating calculation and they came up with a
number in terms of what the heating requirement was, and
setting aside, where we got to in the end, two
healthy homes assessments on exactly the same property came up
with numbers that were twenty five percent different from each other,

(46:16):
so one got a heating requirement or more than twenty
five percent. Actually one got a heating requirement of about
four point four killerbo. That was the requirement. Someone else
did an assessment of exactly the same property, nothing had changed,
and their requirement was three. So it does. It's an

(46:40):
imperfect system. It's still better than not having one in
my opinion, but it is definitely still an imperfect system.
I do wonder, at the risk of introducing more rules
and regulations, whether or not the person who presents the
healthy Homes assessment must prove some sort of qualification to

(47:03):
do them, to undertake them. I mean, there's a couple
of as I understand that I'd be interested in talking
to someone who might have done it. There are a
couple of I think two day courses which have NZQA
qualification for these types of things. Or obviously, if you're
already a building surveyor charted surveyor something like that you've

(47:29):
got it, would being an LBP be a suitable qualification
for being able to undertake it? You know, just because
you've got a calculator and tape measure, does that make
you the right person to issue a healthy home statement
and do the heating assessment? Take some calls on that
if you wish, oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is

(47:49):
the number to call now. Just a quick reminder too,
but we've already we literally have been swamped with Texas.
Can be a very popular segment of the show in
the next hour, So after the eight o'clock news, Ben
Thompson his director at Pigeon Judge Lawyers. He is a
specialist in Crossley. I've invited them back on the show.
I'm going to try and basically do nothing but read

(48:11):
out your text. So if you've got a specific text
question about cross Leases, feel free to send them through
to nine to ninety two and we'll do that with
Ben straight after the news at eleven o'clock at eight
o'clock rather right now, we are taking your call. So
if you've got a question of a building nature, eight
hundred eighty ten eighty is exactly that number to call.

(48:33):
A couple of other texts that have come through, a
lot of them are now I mentioned something, well, someone
text through and said, can I do if I've got
an indoor PowerPoint and I want to put an outdoor
PowerPoint within a close proximity of it. So literally what
I'm guessing is you're going to just drill through the
wall from the back of the existing PowerPoint out through

(48:55):
the outside and put an external PowerPoint on. Can I
do that, Haye Pete says someone. No, they can't run
you wiring even five hundred millimeters enliven it as a
non license person. They could set it up and then
pay a Sparky to live in it and test the
circuit and issue a coc Any new outlet must be
RCD protected, so may as well get an electrician in

(49:18):
the first case. That's from Tony, Thank you very much, Tony.
And so the important thing is about the RCD, so
adding actually that's maybe what would have triggered as well.
Obviously the outside PowerPoint needs to be RCD protected, but
also from it's been this for a number of years now,
adding a new PowerPoint to an existing circuit. If your

(49:39):
existing board does not have RCDs on it, then an
electrician must install an RCD to protect that line. So
there you go, there's a simple answer. No, you need
to get a sparky to do that. Asking for a friend,
if I've got a light switch that's stopped working properly,

(50:03):
can I replace that with exactly the same light switch
myself asking for a friend. Of course, oh, eight hundred
and eighty ten minutes on my job list. As it happens,
it is fifteen minutes after seven the other thing, just
while we were waiting for these calls to get lined up.
I've been fascinated by a story that I kind of
stumbled upon out of the UK. Where in the UK,

(50:27):
I think anywhere in the world we have it. We
as in trades people have a tremendous problem with people
nicking our stuff right, nicking our tools. I've had a
mate recently work van was broken into power tools gone,
hand tools gone. I've had stuff stolen out of the
back of the ute, out of the trailer I had.

(50:49):
I remember years ago loading gear onto the back of
the truck walking back to the house and when I
walked back, someone had pinched a ram set gun, Senco
nailer and one other tool. It was like fifteen hundred
bucks in a matter of minutes. So tall theft is
a real issue. So the story that I stumbled upon

(51:13):
in the States, well in the UK, was a group
that wants to advocate for stronger penalties for people that
steal somebody else's work. Tools, so you know there's there's
obviously theft, and then theft of tools will get a
higher penalty. Got to say quite like that. Oh, eight

(51:33):
hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call Terry,
Good morning.

Speaker 7 (51:37):
Hello, I bringing I've bought a house that was built
in nineteen fifty, the brick house, and at the front
of the house it has this large deck. Now, the
deck used to be a tank well when I got here,
and so I decommissioned, had to do the tank decommission.

Speaker 4 (51:59):
Yes, and it has a tile a tile.

Speaker 7 (52:02):
Serve that like it's been tiled, but the tiles are
extremely spongey. They've all leached water from the cullar and
everything has all gone. And I thought I could just
tile the deck again. Now this is only the start
of my journey. So so I've been told by the
plummer that apparently you're not allowed to membrane under tiles now,

(52:26):
and so I'm not sure whether I can retile it
or what we're supposed to use these days. Okay, so
we need to get it so it doesn't get water logged.

Speaker 4 (52:39):
Yeah, So the deck that you want to retile is
that over a habitable space, like, is there a room
below it.

Speaker 7 (52:48):
No, thank goodness, there's no room above it or below it.
But it's at the front of the house.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
Yes. The person that you're talking to is right in
the sense that if that deck was a membrane deck
over a habitable space, best practice now is that you
don't directly adhere tiles to it because it's they fail, right,
and have failed quite a lot. But if in this

(53:15):
instance the deck is not over a habitable space, it's
low risk.

Speaker 8 (53:22):
Right.

Speaker 4 (53:22):
If it failed, the worst thing that would happen is
the ground underneath it gets wet.

Speaker 13 (53:27):
Yes, that's correct, in which case it's actually a block
is a block tank? Yes, and you know, and you
can go in underneath the house and look at the
sides of it, and you can see where there's been
water leaching through the side of the concrete. So the
concrete's quite damn Yes.

Speaker 4 (53:44):
So the where the tiles are at the front of
the house or is on a concrete lid on that
tank or is it a timber lid on the tank.

Speaker 7 (53:54):
No, it's all concrete.

Speaker 4 (53:55):
It's all concrete.

Speaker 7 (53:55):
Okay, Well, where do you actually get here? The cover
is considering getting into the tank. But we've just been
waiting for the weas ap purpose, and but it's terracotta
tiles on the top, and so everything looks as it's
been done perfectly, but it's just a long way down
the track and needs to be corrected.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
I wouldn't have any hesitation about ripping those tiles off,
rewaterproofing the substrate, and tiling back onto it, because you're
tiling over the top of a water tank and it's
already concrete anyway, So I wouldn't have a problem doing that.

Speaker 7 (54:33):
Oh look, thank you so much. I've always listened to
your program and think I get so many good tips
from it, and I thought, well, I need to ask
the question. So thanks so much.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
I mean, I understand and I appreciate the concern from
you know, the person that gave you that advice, but
they're kind of conflating to separate issues, right. So in
this instance here, the idea is to protect the habitable space.
It's not a habitable space below, it's already a concrete
water tank. Tiles have probably just reached the end of
their life and the waterproofing underneath it. Strip the tiles off,

(55:05):
redo the water proofing, lay the tiles down. Job done.

Speaker 7 (55:09):
Fantastic. In the other thing, the other question right like
to ask, is that they had initially said that tiles
now have to be on some sort of little you know,
you can't actually a tile to a membrane. You actually
have to have these little sort of foundations under the tiles.

Speaker 11 (55:26):
Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (55:28):
No, Again, that's that's kind of conflating two things. So
standard practice, let's say, for a let's say it's a
timber deck over a habitable space below right, and what
we would typically do today is we would waterproof that
deck and then instead of directly adhering tiles down to it,

(55:49):
you use a different type of tile which is much thicker,
and we put them on little stands like boos on jacks,
and then you can lay it there and that allows
the water to percolate through the tiles, hit the waterproofing
and run away. It also means that if there's a
problem with the waterproofing, you can lift the tiles out.
You can do it with a timber man as well,
and it allows you to maintain the waterproofing and get

(56:11):
access to it. Whereas and I've been involved in the
one that I built years and years ago, it was
when you could still direct fixed down and the surface
tension of the tile heating up, pulled the adhesive, pulled
the lap open and allowed water to get in there.
And so that's why we don't direct fix anymore, so

(56:32):
that I would still have to do that on a
different situation. Yes, yeah, yeah, Okay, nice to talk to you.
You have a great day. Take here, Terry all by
then Hey Ron, ok morning Pete.

Speaker 12 (56:47):
A question for you. We have a rental property, waterfront
property which has flooded under the house judas storm over
the last forty years about two or three times. Yes,
Now I'm concerned about putting a man brain over the

(57:08):
ground there and it not drying out.

Speaker 8 (57:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (57:11):
If you do that, you know the consequences of it.
It gets a good air circulation underneath and it is
perfectly dry underneath. What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 4 (57:24):
I suppose what you have to then try and do.
And it's a little bit unclear to be fair, is
could you in terms of the healthy homes assessment?

Speaker 7 (57:34):
Right?

Speaker 4 (57:34):
So you know to a large degree it's a tick
box process. So is there extraction? Tick is there? Installation?
Tick is there? You know, draft proofing, tick, stormwater mitigation, tick,
vapor barrier, you're going to put a cross there, right,
And so then you would need to make an argument

(57:56):
to say that in this particular instance, I've considered all
of the issues and I've decided that it's better actually
for the health of the property to not install that.
But then you'd also have to provide some evidence as
to you know, why you might think that it's better,
but it still might even if you've got issues with

(58:18):
groundwater migrating underneath the house.

Speaker 12 (58:20):
No, we don't. And it's over one hundred year old
house and it's as dry as a bone underneath there,
and it's nothing runs underneath it. And I'm just concerned
that like or six or seven years ago, we had
a massive meter rise and wow, but it dries out

(58:44):
and it's got good wind circulation underneath it. We've got
insulation top and bottom, yep, on the house. Everything else complies.
But that is one concern that I have. I don't
mind spending the money or doing it, but it could
end up a disaster area.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
Yeah, although can I put this point to you that
let's say there's a concern that there might be some
floody at some time in the future. Right, So in
the that's an unlikely event, or it's hopefully a very
rare event. So very rare that happened because you have
to take the joints of the polythene vapor barrier. But

(59:20):
you know, let's say you had some flooding and then
you know you were concerned about that drying out. You
could just lift the vapor barrier for a couple of
weeks and then put it back down again, couldn't you So,
And in the meantime, the vapor barrier is still doing
what vapor barriers do, which has stop moisture that's in

(59:40):
the ground from migrating up and making that space damp.
So I would still put the vapor barrier down, and
then if there's a flood, you could deal with that then,
but you'll get the advantage of the vapor barrier for
the rest of the time.

Speaker 12 (59:57):
Is hard to do with all the jack stupe.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
Yeah, it takes a little bit of time, but it
does make a difference, and that it makes a difference.

Speaker 12 (01:00:09):
If I did, I'll get somebody else to give me
an opinion on it, which I wouldn't mind doing, and
you know, see what to do from there. But I
possibly could on the healthy homes, but say that I
consider that this would be a health hazard doing it,

(01:00:30):
because you know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
You didn't have to provide some evidence, right, So then
you've got to find a building survey or a building
scientist or a heating consultant who would provide you with
evidence for that. And I'm not no, no, because my
advice would be put the vapor barrier down.

Speaker 12 (01:00:49):
Okay, I'm going to leave it there.

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
Ro Thank you very much for your call mate, all
the very best you. Oh eight hundred and eighty ten
eighty is that number to call. We'll talk to Lisa
straight after the break.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Squeaky door or squeaky floor, get the right advice from
Peter Wolfcare, the resident builder.

Speaker 4 (01:01:06):
News Talk said, b yeah, when you talk said the
eight hundred and eighty ten eighties the number to call
and Lisa are very good morning to you. Hello, Lisa.

Speaker 14 (01:01:18):
Oh it's Leslie.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
Oh Leslie. Sorry, Oh that's cool. I can't read.

Speaker 14 (01:01:25):
That's all right. It's ringing about the healthy home.

Speaker 5 (01:01:30):
Got a daughter.

Speaker 14 (01:01:30):
He's in a student flat that in the house has
got a flat roof. Now that landlord is dead. That
it's part insulated, but there's an area that's inaccessible.

Speaker 8 (01:01:42):
Yes, is that it's acceptable.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
That is acceptable. So the requirement is that roof spaces
and underfloor areas need to be insulated if they're accessible.
So something like a skillion roof, you know, where there's rafters,
there's lining on one side on the inside, and there's
roofing iron on the top, there's no requirement that's inaccessible, right,
So there's no requirement to insulate that. So the I

(01:02:08):
guess what it is is the law, the legislation stops
at anything that requires reconstruction. So that's probably also why
there's no requirement to insulate exterior walls because we know
that you know, basically anything before nineteen seventy eight had
little to no insulation in it. So you know, look,

(01:02:30):
maybe it'll come in the future. I don't know, but yes,
right now, that's a legal exemption to the insulation requirements
if it's inaccessible.

Speaker 14 (01:02:40):
Okay, so sorry, I'm not not a builder. But when
you say the rafters are exposed.

Speaker 4 (01:02:46):
No, no, no, what it would be. Let's say if
it's a lean to extension or a bit of a
flat roof, right, so typically you've got your rafters, then
you would put plaster board on the underside, you'll have
the roofing iron on top. There's no way to get
in there apart from taking the roof off or pulling
the ceiling down, So that's considered an excess.

Speaker 7 (01:03:07):
Okay, Oh it's good to know.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
Yeah, I mean, look, it's it's it's a challenge because
a lot of those spaces have got either no insulation
or poor insulation. And you know what, how insulation works
best is when everything is insulated because in the end,
heat that can't escape one way, we'll look for the
next week spot. So while it's good to insulate ceilings,

(01:03:33):
obviously it is better to insulate everything to slow down
heat transfer. But yeah, we live in the real world,
not the I wish it was world. Yeah, nice to
talk to you.

Speaker 15 (01:03:46):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
Take care bother then, Dave, what's up? Well, what's not
up yet? But you'd like to put it up more
to the.

Speaker 15 (01:03:55):
Point, oh not quite as early as you get up.
But anyway, got we're in a new place with the
silly design with no feats and.

Speaker 8 (01:04:13):
Stuff like that.

Speaker 15 (01:04:15):
So our ranch slider is when we open them, the
rain comes in. Because if it's just a straight walk
just looking at putting a well a roof for goal.
So I don't know whether you'd call that a veranda
or what you'd call it. Technically, it was like a
clear roof on it, but we've only got about two

(01:04:41):
and a half meters to the boundary, and as far
as I could sort of find out, looked like you
could go maybe as close as a meter to the boundary,
but I'm not one hundred percent sure on that. So
I just wanted to clarify how close and how high
you can go to the boundary. It's on the eastern boundary. Yeah,

(01:05:03):
there was going to be a freestanding sort of a thing, Okay,
I don't want to attack it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
Yeah, good, good thinking.

Speaker 15 (01:05:11):
Ten year warranty. So yeah, I'm a builder myself, but
I'm yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
Look, there's actually a really quite useful tool that works
most of the time that MB have created, and it's
called can I build it? Dot gov dot NZ And
essentially it takes you through a checklist, a yes snow
type thing, so you type in purglar and then so

(01:05:40):
how I've always understood it is that often you could
build purgolars without requiring a consent, but as soon as
you put a roof on it, then it triggers the
requirement for building consent, but that's changed a little bit
with the extension to Schedule one of the Act, where
the size of that has increased. But I think that
if you're looking at possibly a system and they've come

(01:06:02):
down dramatically in terms of the kid set ones, you know,
four posts, a frame and adjustable lovers. Right, so when
it's open, it's open. It's not a roof, But in
summer time, when you want the shading, you could close
the roof. It catches the rain water. You've got to
direct that away. But if you got the right size one,

(01:06:23):
and I think again, if you were a little bit
courteous by not going closer than a meter to the boundary,
and it's not overpowering the neighbor, and it's not attached
to the house, then I would probably say be practical,
put up, Put that up and get the benefit of
the shading. Which you're absolutely right. And I had a

(01:06:45):
long conversation with a building surveyor earlier this week about
you know, the poor design and the lack of foresight
that a lot of kind of modern townhouses have where
often they'll put in large, you know, sections of glazing
that tend to overheat the house, and that sounds like
exactly the sue that you've got.

Speaker 15 (01:07:08):
Yeah, we've got one on the front and one on
the side, and we knew that it was a stupid
design when we bought it, but with like the house
and it's new, so.

Speaker 4 (01:07:18):
You know, shading in some instances is relatively straightforward. Right,
So I think you've probably in your mind got a
really sensible solution to it, particularly if you use something
that's adjustable, because you know, in winter you might want
that soul again, right, you don't mind that you're getting
a bit of heat into the house because it helps
warm the house up, but comes summertime when you don't

(01:07:40):
want that space overheat. If you've got something that's adjustable
that you can block out the heat and do it
on the outside of the building, that's fantastic.

Speaker 15 (01:07:48):
Well what was that side again? So I can I
build a dot G O V T.

Speaker 4 (01:07:53):
Wasn't that that's the one? Yeah, it's it's pretty good.
It you know, it's it's not one hundred percent, but
I've I've found it quite useful in terms of you
literally it just takes you through a flow chart. Right,
this is what I want to build, is it how big?
Is it doesn't have a roof? Da da da da
da da da da da, And it will It'll take
you through and say whether or not you need to

(01:08:14):
get a consent or not. It's not one hundred percent perfect,
it's pretty good.

Speaker 15 (01:08:19):
The main thing is we're just trying to keep the
rain out when we so we can let the dog
in and out and have it.

Speaker 6 (01:08:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:08:26):
Yeah, and again you know, we think about older and
you'll be familiar with them, you know, villas and bungalows
and that sort of thing, often with verandahs with a
covered space. I've been doing some work on a nineteen
seventies house, nice, big, six hundred mili eves. You know,
apart from driving rain that the top of the windows
never even get water on them, right, So all of

(01:08:49):
those critical weak points are protected. But suddenly, you know,
I think it's fair to say we've got real concerns
about what might be a two or three story facade
that's almost sheer vertical with very little protection at the top.
It's a lot of wind and rain that's going to
dry against that facad every single time we have bad weather,

(01:09:10):
right or in clement weather. So the building has to
work so much harder whereas and I understand why because
I guess that the safite is considered part of the
footprint of the house, right and so suddenly you'd have
to build three hundred million or six hundred mil further
in to allow the roof to sit out six hundred mil.
But the protection that the safites in the eaves give

(01:09:32):
our buildings shouldn't be underestimated and potentially shading as well.

Speaker 15 (01:09:36):
So can I just ask one though, we.

Speaker 8 (01:09:42):
Are there any.

Speaker 15 (01:09:46):
Set companies that you like, any diy ones that you
can buy yourself the components and make it yourself that
you know of.

Speaker 4 (01:09:54):
Look, I don't know that. I don't think I've ever
bought from them, but people like Trade Tested and trade
Depot in those sorts of places that jumps to mine. Yeah, okay,
now look yourself out mate. All the best.

Speaker 15 (01:10:09):
Okay, it's a great, great show. You've got an amazing
amount of information and.

Speaker 4 (01:10:14):
Yes, and the old Morgan, I'm amazed that it stays
there sometimes. Hey, Dave, thanks very much, but all the best,
Take care, all the best.

Speaker 8 (01:10:23):
By way.

Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
Quick text from Andy can a tenant request proof a
document that states the health meet the house meets the
Healthy Home standard. Thanks from Andy. Yes, I would imagine
you could. I think for the last couple of years,
a Healthy Homes assessment needs to be attached to the
tenancy agreement. So let's say you're one of these tenants
where you've been in the house ten or fifteen years.

(01:10:46):
So way before the introduction of the Healthy Home standards,
there was for a long time one of the exemptions
was if you had a sitting tenant, you didn't need
to comply with the Healthy Home standard until a new
tenancy started, and lots of people rent for a long
time with the same property, so they were exempt. But

(01:11:07):
all of those exemptions are over now. So if you
happen to be a sitting tenant, and I was talking
to someone yesterday who's exactly in this position, they've rented
the same property for thirteen fourteen years, and broadly it complies,
but I think there's probably a few things where the
landlord doesn't realize that their property doesn't comply anymore with

(01:11:29):
Healthy Home standards. Long term tenant, Yes, they can go back,
I think and ask for a copy of the Healthy
Homes assessment. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty the number
to call. We'll talk to Ian straight after this break.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Helping you get those DIY projects done right The resident
Filder with Peter WOLFCAF call OH eight hundred eight youth
Talk ZB.

Speaker 4 (01:11:53):
I've done a little bit of a search as well,
so I use that online tool can I build it
dot gov, dot m Z and typed in pergola. Came
up with one result and then the next question is
does it have a roof? Yes, it does building consent,
which to be fair, wasn't what I was expecting. But anyway,
then I've had a little bit of an extra search

(01:12:14):
and had a look at, in this case the Auckland
Council website. So Dave, they have a tool that allows
you to put in a bit more information where you're located,
et cetera, et cetera, and takes about ten minutes to complete.
So have a look at that. Just search on the
Auckland Council dot gov, dot nz website and you might

(01:12:36):
be able to find out a little bit more sort
of it's a bit more nuanced, it's a bit more
involved to try and figure out whether or not you
need a consent for that particular project.

Speaker 9 (01:12:44):
Ian, good morning, Good morning, Petter, thank you for your time, pleasure.
We've got a two hundred and fifty square meter home
brick and tile, and we're selling it the insulation and
it is the original installation from two thousand and nine.

(01:13:04):
Am I going to have to upbraid?

Speaker 13 (01:13:06):
No?

Speaker 4 (01:13:08):
No, So it's a really short answer because the only
requirement around the insulation is for healthy homes. Right, So
if you are selling a private house, you're selling it
basically as as we're as right, it complied with a
building code at the time. I presume that if it's
two thousand and nine, you've had the final inspection, you've

(01:13:30):
got a certificate of code compliance. Then that's it. Now,
to slightly complicate things, if, for example, the person who
was buying your property is a property investor and intends
to rent the property out, they would need to ensure

(01:13:51):
that it complies with a healthy home standard. And just
because it passed the final inspection and has a CCC
does not mean that it necessarily complies with a healthy
home standard. But that's not your problem, that's their problem.

Speaker 9 (01:14:06):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:14:07):
Yeah, so no, there's no requirement for you to upgrade
your property in order to sell it.

Speaker 9 (01:14:14):
So it's got a tile roof, but there's no membrane
between the rafters and the tiles.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
Correct.

Speaker 9 (01:14:23):
Should that be a worry?

Speaker 4 (01:14:25):
No, that's common practice and it's still common practice today.
So I think it's fifteen degrees. So if you've got
a roof that is more than fifteen degrees with the
concrete tiles on them, there's no requirement for a roofing underlay.
It's only required, and it's very uncommon to see tiles
on a roof that's less than fifteen degrees. It would

(01:14:46):
be required there, but no, it's not required even today
in the code.

Speaker 9 (01:14:50):
Okay, if we're buying a home that was built in
two thousand and nine, should I be worried about the
copper in it? Two thousand and nine, Sorry, two thousand time.

Speaker 4 (01:15:06):
Why would you think there's copper because even in two
thousand and five, this is in terms of hot water
reticulation or just water reticulation in general.

Speaker 9 (01:15:18):
We had a building report done and the guy has
come back saying, you need your plumber to look at
it because there's a repair that's been done to copper pipe.

Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
Okay, I mean the there was a cave or there
were several cases a few years ago and when I
say a few years ago, it could be like five
to fifteen years ago where there was a batch of
copper that came into the country that turned out to
have the wall was thinner than required, right, and so

(01:15:55):
there were a number of leaks from that. Then if
you go back to the nineties, there was Duck's Quest plumbing,
which has even to fail a lot. So if it's
a black plastic piping with a sort of copper elbow
on it Duck's Quest, that is genuinely a problem. And

(01:16:17):
if it hasn't been replaced, you know eventually it'll fail somewhere.
But copper, that's unlikely. Look, if the building, the pre
purchase inspector has picked up something that you think is
you know, a genuine concern, then yeah, by all means
get a plumber to have a look at it. But
you know, again, the plumber who did the work, they

(01:16:39):
are self certifying, right, so they should have done the
work in accordance with best practice, and so you'd like
to be reasonably confident that the repair will be of
a professional standard. Okay, yeah, right, no trouble at all. No,
they're great questions, really appreciate and good luck with the process.
Thank you all the best to you and take care.

(01:17:01):
Now remember in the next hour we're going to change
gear a little bit. But Ben Thompson, who is a lawyer,
a lawyer who specializes in cross lease, is going to
be on the phone with us after eight o'clock. I've
already got a bunch of texts that I might have
room for a couple more, but please don't be offended
if I don't get to your text The whole point

(01:17:22):
he joined us a couple of months ago on the
show to get him back is to answer texts. So
if you've got a specific, hopefully concise question around a
cross lease issue, Ben will have a crack at answering that.
And I can't think of a more qualified person to
talk to than him, So really looking forward to that.

(01:17:42):
That's in the next half hour of the show, after
the news at eight o'clock, and thereafter, of course we're
into the garden with the red client passed. From eight
point thirty, we'll come back and have a chat with
Joy in just a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
God was but maybe call Pete first. Vida Wolfcaf the
resident builder. News Talk said, b.

Speaker 4 (01:18:00):
Write your own news Talk said, be you remember New
Sport and weare the top of the are at eight o'clock.
But before then, joy, very good morning to you.

Speaker 16 (01:18:08):
Hell okay, I've got a for mic a bench that's
that's about twenty years old. It's a dark stone type lock,
but around the stunt bench it's lost its glossed and
it's sort of gone a bit white.

Speaker 8 (01:18:22):
Yep.

Speaker 16 (01:18:23):
Is there a product that can go on that to
bring that back to life and match the rest of it?

Speaker 4 (01:18:29):
I wouldn't think so, because essentially what's happened is, you know,
four Mica has got a veneer on it, right, so
it's probably the actual veneer that's worn away rather than
just kind of being dulled, it's actually literally worn away.
And you know you can imagine right next to the
sink is a high use area. So after that amount

(01:18:52):
of time, what you could I was going to say,
I mean, is the bench installed in such a way
that it's could be dismounted like taken out.

Speaker 16 (01:19:08):
It could do, but it's got it's quite a long
bench because.

Speaker 4 (01:19:10):
It's yea and is there a splashback that comes down
onto it and all that sort of thing? Well side panels? Okay,
in terms of restoring it No, I don't think there's
anything could you see? And the concern is always if

(01:19:30):
you try and like paint it or resurface it, it's
whether or not at bonds and is as durable as
four micro and for Micah generally as durable. Look, I
think the short answer is probably it's reached the end
of its serviceable life. You could take it in and
have it resurfaced, as in a new layer of four
micro over the top. But I don't know many for

(01:19:52):
Micah bench top people that would be happy doing that
to a substrate that they haven't prepared themselves. Yeah, I
think it just might be at the end of its life.
Thank you, Things get worn out. Sorry to be the
bear a bad tidings. All right, all the best you
join you take care. I mean I've had for micro

(01:20:14):
adhead to substrates like thick ploid benches and that sort
of thing. Yes, so it could be resurfaced. Quick story
before we go to the news. So on Thursday or evening,
about eight thirty nine o'clock, I get a phone call
from a person that manages a property that I look
after going there is no hot water. Thursday night was

(01:20:38):
a pretty miserable night. Friday was even worse, and Auckland
that was much worse around the rest of the country.
So anyway, we went there on Thursday night, met the
people who are in the house, apologized for the fact
that they had no hot water. Rang one of my
plumbers who said, yeah, I can be there later in
the afternoon. Rang another plumber that I know and said,
because he's a gas specialist, Hey, this is the issue.

(01:21:00):
I'm under pressure. Can you help me out? Yep, I'll
send Levi round. He'll be there at about nine o'clock morning.
Had a look at the cylinder. Cylinder. You know, it's
Califhont right, so an external water heater, gas water heater.
I've got the receipt for it. It's I bought it
in twenty nineteen, November twenty nineteen, so not that old anyway.

(01:21:21):
Dead dead is a doornail. Nothing you can do to
fix it, right, What am I going to do? Well,
we can put a new one in great, Can you
do it today? Yep. I'll phone film a boss and
we'll get something sorted out. Phil hops in the truck
goes down, buys a brand new RINAI twenty six liter
gas Califont turns up, makes the adjustments, gets it fitted

(01:21:42):
sorted out. So Phil read from Gas Serve. Thank you, mate,
You've saved my bacon on a number of occasions, but
on particular coming out on a miserable grotty day during
school holidays, dragging your son with you. I did bribe
them with coffee and slices of chocolate brownie, which seemed
to go quite well given it was a miserable old

(01:22:04):
day on Friday. But again, Phil Reid, who I've known.
He was an apprentice working for a local plumber when
I first met him thirty odd years ago. Probably fantastic guy.
So gas Serve dot co dot Nz. If you need
underfloor heating and reticated gas central heating, he's the man
to talk to. That's Gas Serve. Look him up online.

(01:22:26):
Thanks PHILP really appreciate it. My hero for the day. Radio.
We're back with Ben Thompson straight after the news at
eight o'clock. We're talking cross.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Leases, doing up the house, sorting the guard and asked
Pete for ahead the resident builder with Peter Wolfcap Call.

Speaker 4 (01:22:49):
News Talks. Isaiah, my producer has found by list of
paper songs and eventually will work through them to be
like a bit of added ender. Well, a very good morning,
welcome along to the show. It is six minutes after

(01:23:12):
eight here at News Talk Set B. At eight thirty
we're going to jump into the garden with red climb pass.
But right now an opportunity to invite back a previous
guest who joined us a little while ago to talk
about cross leases. A very good morning, Ben, Hi be
good morning, So Ben Thompson, you're with Pigeon Judge. And

(01:23:33):
when I first rang you, I said, do you know
much about cross leases? And your comment was, well, look,
I've just presented to the Law Society and I thought, right,
nuff set, let's crack into this. You're an expert on this.
And when we spoke last time, just kind of a
general background. What is cross leases? Where did they come from?
What's a defective title? These sorts of things. We got

(01:23:54):
a truckload of text messages, so if it's okay with you,
I'm going to try and not do anything but read
out text messages from callers who in Texters who have
been texting in since just after six this morning, and
we're going to go rapid fire responses to this. Bearing

(01:24:15):
in mind, what's the standard disclaimer from lawyers that appear
on the radio. You know, this shouldn't be seen as
specific legal advice to your lawyer, et cetera.

Speaker 8 (01:24:23):
That's right, it's obviously generic.

Speaker 4 (01:24:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:24:26):
No, no one cross lease is going to be the
same in terms of each individual least potentially going to
be different. But you're happy to help with the general
inquiries that are coming in brilliant.

Speaker 4 (01:24:36):
In fact, I went to look at a property on
Friday in the pouring rain and it was a cross
lease one and attached to the property file was the
cross leaf. So what you're saying is that each individual
agreement can slightly differ from one to the other.

Speaker 8 (01:24:52):
Yeah. Absolutely, so cross leases, the relevant cross lease for
that particular property potentially is entirely unique. I mean they're
based on most cases, they're based on a standard precedent. Yes,
And of that precedent, there's maybe five or six iterations
that came out of various periods since cross lease has
started to come into play. We're currently on one that
came out, you know, several years ago. But yeah, first,

(01:25:15):
so firstly you've got to ask them which version of
which cross lease that you're on, and then potentially the
lawyer that registers it, you know, often will have deleted clause,
has added things in that right, particularly you're nique to
your cross lease. So whilst some of this stuff is
general and applies across the board, you always need to
go back and look specifically at the cross lease of
the property that you're dealing with.

Speaker 4 (01:25:36):
Which if you're purchasing a property that is cross lease,
you you would want to make sure that someone takes
the time to read through that very keirefully.

Speaker 8 (01:25:45):
Absolutely, Yeah. But what's what I've seen quite often is
people will assume perhaps that they're the garden area their
exclusive use areas. Then you set up correctly, but it's certainly,
maybe not common, but certainly something we've seen quite a
bit that that hasn't been the case. And so someone
thinks they've got their private, fenced off garden area and

(01:26:05):
that's their exclusive use, but the way that the cross
lease had created actually means that that isn't the case,
and it's technically common property and there would be nothing
stopping the neighbor coming in there. I've also seen situations
where they've sort of mislabeled, so they've they've tried to
create it exclusively, but they've labeled one A and one
bing have got it the wrong way around. So one
hundred percent when you're buying, you do need to get

(01:26:25):
the proper adviias to review and look into these things
to make sure it's all all okay before you push
go right.

Speaker 4 (01:26:34):
That's awesome, all right, let's rip into these ticks simple
one hopefully to start with. Should cross lease units have
separate water meters?

Speaker 8 (01:26:44):
Well, in the perfect world, yes, but if you bear
in mind what they're effectively a form of evading subdivision
walls prior to the Resource Management Act in ninety one yep.
So as part of that, the way they would develop
means that often the utilities is shared between the cross
leash units, so they were still considered one property originally
even though they had the separate you know, unit leases

(01:27:07):
within them, and so the situation might often be that
these utilities are shared and communal. Going forward, if someone
wanted to create a cross lease now it's termed the
form of subdivision council, would require separate utilities. Likewise, if
you wanted to convert to THEE simple, which would be
recommended for a lot of people, especially standalone houses, you

(01:27:28):
have to get those separate water meters and utilities put in.
But yeah, historically there's probably quite a few situations where
that's not case and they are shared. But with the
consent of your cross lease neighbor, you could approach them
and say, we want to do this. But obviously it's
going to be cost to that. But it would obviously
just step in the right direction because if you do
do that, then it's going to make it easier to

(01:27:49):
separate out into fee simple down the track, which is
obviously a desirable thing to do as well.

Speaker 4 (01:27:54):
Now that raises actually the next question, which has a
questioned for being can you change a cross lease title
to a free hold title in approximately what are the
costs involved?

Speaker 8 (01:28:07):
Yeah, so yes, you can certain trust these properties are
going to be better suited than others because bear in
minds a lot of cross this as people are thinking
about as probably like those two or three separate houses
that are on the same driveway, separate buildings, all of
those situations going to be simple with a right of
ways and over the driveway would be perfect. But there

(01:28:28):
are cross leases that are more like apartment buildings. They
might even be multi layered apartment buildings. I'm not advising
one not too long ago over a narrow neck. I
think it was sixteen units and it was sort of
two stories high, and I didn't have one in Commaramo
about four story side. So those ones are never likely
to be good be simple because of they're all sharing
the same buildings, so they would be better to convert
to unit titles or a body corporate. But coming back

(01:28:51):
to the sort of more you know, the straightforward conversion,
then yes, you can do it unanimously by consent, So
if all of the owners agree, you can do it.
If they don't agree, it becomes more difficult, and ultimately,
if you really really wanted to do it, you can
make an application for the court under the Property Law
Act for separation, but that's got a clear bit of

(01:29:12):
expense and delay and the stress of litigation. If everyone's
agreeable and you're just wanting to do it, you know,
in the sort of conventional way. The legal costs to
separate the title aren't actually a significant as people might imagine,
because really you're just surrendering the existing leases, applying for
new titles, discharging the mortgages, and reregistering them. So I

(01:29:33):
think generally for a two or three unit costs lease
there might be no more than about five thousand dollars
plus GST and any fees, but the greater expense will
be the surveying and the council content fees. So we
need to get like the input of a surveyor to
sort of confirm exactly what you know drawing up the
new title plan. Would be how much council would charge
because they have to sign off on it as well.

(01:29:56):
But in my experience, again that is greater than legal fees,
maybe ten to fifteen. So all up, there's someone budgets
around twenty thousand plus GSC. It's fairly realistic, and like
I said, it's splitting up between three or four units
five six thousand dollars each. It's actually quite quite a
good value add to the property, I would say, because

(01:30:16):
when people are looking the purchase property, if it's a
fee simple no cross lease, they're normally willing to pay
a bit more than if it was a cross this property.

Speaker 4 (01:30:23):
Yeah, I'm with you, great, Marina Pete. Can a new
neighbor put up a fence on the boundary of a
cross lease section without first getting consent from each owner
of the crossley sections?

Speaker 12 (01:30:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:30:37):
Not normally. So most cross leases have a clause that
says you're not allowed to make any structural alterations to
the property. But that clause in most cross leases also
refers to fences as well, and so it requires you
to get the consent of the cross lease neighbors. And
there's normally a qualification that says that consent can't be
unreasonably would held or delayed. So yeah, and the most

(01:31:01):
cross lease wordings, they would be required to get the consent.
But then if you turn it on balls on the
other foot, it's like, can the neighbor with whole consent? Well,
if it's just a normal fence, like you know, the
co compliant not too high sort of for the relevant
area it's in. So I think you probably know better
than IP is about one point eight meters.

Speaker 4 (01:31:18):
It's pretty standard, pretty standard in.

Speaker 8 (01:31:20):
A sort of urban environment. If someone's proposing a normal
one point eight fence on the boundary within the cross lease,
it would be pretty difficult to withhold your consent reasonably,
if you know. But if they're looking to put something
in there that possibly is a bit too big or
you know, has some kind of design feature that's impacting
the neighbor. Then fair enough, they might need to negotiate.
But so the answer to the question is yes, they

(01:31:41):
should have got consent.

Speaker 4 (01:31:42):
I think from a from a practical point of view,
how do you enforce reasonableness?

Speaker 8 (01:31:48):
Yeah, well that's the lawyers make their money. Unfortunately, there's
a bit of case law available to us, and most
cross these disputes are decided by arbitrations. That's a private
dispute resolution mechanism, so we don't get to see all
the judge. But in the last few years there have
been quite a few major cases that have gone through

(01:32:10):
the courts which have given us a bit of a
steer on what is reason or not reasonable. Prior to
these cases, which only came out in the last two years,
there was a test coming from the early nineties and
it said anything more than a trifling detriment you could
reasonably hold your consent. Now the words trifling detriment they don't.
That really is a very low threshold. I mean, you know,

(01:32:33):
if someone was to do something with their property to
cause you a trifling effect, it's quite minor. But fortunately
the test has kind of moved on in these recent
cases and it sort of has to be certainly more
significant with like a sort of material impact on the neighbor,
and then that's where we find the reasonableness. Now, So
things that, for example, at a practical level, if they're

(01:32:54):
going to impact someone's privacy or their sunlight or their
view in like a material way, then that would be
something you could reasonably withhold your consent. But if the
works that are being proposed are really having a fairly
much yeah, they have an impact, but it's fairly minor,
it's not really trading one of those problems, then I
don't think it's sustainable to withhold your fullcent anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:33:16):
Okay, the quick one before the break. This person is
on a cross lease title with an adjoined unit. There
is only two on the on the property. When we
brought the property, we understood that there was an issue
with the title around common ground shared ground if you will,
And just wondering if we go to sell because there's

(01:33:38):
no exclusive use zones on the property, do we need
to get that sorted and what would be the best
way to do that. So again, is this not uncommon
that there's no exclusive use and how would you make
something exclusive use?

Speaker 8 (01:33:54):
Like I said, yeah, not entirely In common I've plastic
quite a lot, and I've had someone in this exact
situation where they're thinking of selling and they were aware
of it and they wanted to resolve it. Yes, yeah,
the recommend speak to you, a realistic agent, do the
recommendation would be to resolve it, because ultimately you're going
to be ruling out a lot of buyers if you
don't resolve it, because most people are getting due diligent
advice before they commit to purchase, and any confident lawyer

(01:34:17):
is going to pick that up and tell them, oh,
you do realize that it's not quite you know, okay
in terms of the common property. So that's going to
maybe rule that person out of the auction or the
bidding process, or certainly reduce the amount they'd be willing
to pay for it. And if there was first home buyer,
it's requiring heavily on bank lending. It may even rule
that altogether because the bank may not lend on a property,
but it's got that issue. So the way the way

(01:34:38):
to fix it though is ideally by consent. So approaching
across these neighbors and say, look they're aware of it
as well. Look it's in both of our interests to
get this tidied up. It's actually not that complicated for
us to tide it up as long as we sort
of act in unison. And then yeah, you vary the
cross lease effectively, so you would you would say in

(01:35:00):
one of the clauses creating the exclusive with you theory
referring to the development part of the plan to posit
that with land information New Zealand, and then you're good
to go. Did you need the consent of any bank mortgages?
But that's normally just a formality because well, if it's
explained to them in a letter, they understand it's a
benefit for them, it's better for their security. So the

(01:35:21):
banks may just charge a couple hundred dollars to give consent,
you know, the legal fees again, a couple of thousand
dollars probably to do that. It's not like I say,
it's not so so complicated. It's just more that if
the if the neighbors aren't all in agreements, then you've
potentially got a bit of an issue because it becomes
more complex then. But if if everyone's on the same page,

(01:35:41):
and what I've seen as well is one neighbor may
offer to pay for it because they're the ones that
are wanting to Yeah, so this is like say you've
got one of the neighbors that's sort of not that motivated,
a bit apathetic, but you know they're not opposed to
it either, they just don't want to pay. So the
one that's selling might say, look, we'll pay for it
as long as you're happy, and and that often works
and then everyone gets the sort of title sorded. It's

(01:36:03):
a good option.

Speaker 4 (01:36:04):
It's fantastic. We need to take a short break if
you could just stay with us. Ben Thompson from Pigeon
Judge is with us. We're talking cross leases back in
a moment.

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morning on the program we have been Thompson from Pidgeon
Judge Law. We're talking about cross lease. Is we only

(01:37:31):
a couple of minutes left? I'm going to rush straight
into this one. This is a person. It seems like
there are two properties on the cross least there is
a long driveway that requires repair, says the text. We've previously,
We've asked previously for the flat b owner to go
halves in a roof wash. They declined, Is there a
way to get them to go halves on the cost

(01:37:53):
to repair the driveway, and how can we enforce this
through the least document.

Speaker 8 (01:37:59):
Then yes, again specifically the relevant lease, but most leases
will have a requirement that the cost lessels that's the
name used to refer to them jointly together have to
repair and maintain the common property and things like the driveway.
So that's a requirement under the lease. Now, making a
proposal to them to go fifty to fifty is pretty
fear and consistent of that. If they're refusing, then that's

(01:38:22):
something like basically a breach of the lease, or they're
refusing to perform their obligations on the belief, you can
try and get a lawyer to sort of politely remind
them of their rights and ask them to comply. If
after that point they're still unwilling, then unfortunately you would
have to go through the speed resolution provision under the lease,
which almost all cases is arbitration. So you know, you'd

(01:38:47):
appoint an arbitrator and then you'd seek to get an
award requiring them to pay their heart and comply the lease.
On the example that's given, it's almost certain that you'd
be successful. And then you'd also be entitled to your
legal costs as well, but you'd have to go through
those motions and incur that initial cost before you've got
them back to get there. So it is a little
bit tedious and it would take several months. But yeah,

(01:39:08):
so you do have the remedy is just you have
to actively enforce that right Unfortunately, Yeah, that's one of
the lease would require.

Speaker 4 (01:39:16):
It doesn't make for good neighborly relations either, does it.
Back to point of view, you know, that's right.

Speaker 8 (01:39:22):
People sort of approach me when this is happening, and
we they tried in a plight way, and I sort
of just try and be a little bit more term
and in the end we normally get it resolved without
having to go to arbitration. Yeah, but you do have
to spend that time, spending a few sort of more
you know, direct and then and then after that then

(01:39:47):
normally there's a solution.

Speaker 4 (01:39:49):
Yeah, fantastic. Now this text says I live in I
own and live in a cross lease property for the
last three years, the neighboring property is occupied by renters. Recently,
I've hit to replace the boundary fences it was falling apart.
Before replacing it. I spoke to the property manager of
the neighboring property and they said that the owner would
be happy to share the costs after replacing the fence.

(01:40:11):
I passed on the invoice eighteen hundred dollars to the
property manager multiple times, no response. What are my next steps?
Is this more a thing than a well?

Speaker 8 (01:40:23):
Yeah, and the cross list because it comes back to
you it's the same appliers as the previous example in
the way because they've already covenanted. Mean that means you
know the clause in it that says they have to
contribute to this sort of communal things and they're refusing
to do that. But in this situation, they've also agreed
to that work before it was done. So you've almost

(01:40:43):
formed like a separate contract. And there's a debt you
were knowing a rising out of that. So it's potentially
even within the remit of the dispute tribunal, which would
be handy for that person because that's quick and easy
and you don't need lawyers and only costs, you know,
not very much money.

Speaker 5 (01:40:59):
To get there.

Speaker 8 (01:41:00):
Cross Lee's discute normally can't be dealt with in the
dispute tribunal because of the arbitration cause requiring disputes. But
here potentially they've formed a separate agreement if if certain,
if there was an email or some kind of evidence
to say, yep, we're agreed to split half fence that way,
and then then they've reneged on that. After the event,
you can potentially seek to enforce that does If that's

(01:41:22):
not the case and you're just relying on the lease,
then yet again arbitration, like the previous example, is what
you'd have to use. But again you'd be successful because
it appears this person is just unwilling to perform their obligations.
And so if you have a sort of friendly lawyer,
you might again instruct him to sort of write the
property manager and the owner setting out these things and
what will happen if they don't fall into line, and

(01:41:44):
hopefully that brings brings out an outcome.

Speaker 4 (01:41:47):
Right, Someone else has talked about converting a cross least
to freehold title, and they mentioned to Tangi, the question
is how much you know is it reasonable to expect
that the value of a house might increase another sort
of outside your remit. But in general too people do
it because they do find that it's slightly more attractive

(01:42:08):
in terms of sale and pictures.

Speaker 8 (01:42:11):
Yeah, based on my experience, I think so. I mean
there's ultimately a question for a valuer or a real
estate age, but from a legal side, when we're instructors
to look at properties for clients that want to buy
under due diligence, if we notice this across lease, well, firstly,
our fees are going to be slightly higher because there's
more things that we've got to look at, but also
the level of information that we're providing them and the

(01:42:32):
potential limitations of their use of the land and server
development and improvements really undermine the value. So most I
think it is fair to say that most people would
be willing to pay a bit more for a fee
simple than they would across lease just because you've got
you know, more freedom, there are less rules of restrictions
and how you can use your property. If you do

(01:42:53):
a fee simple subdivision in a cross these setting, there
probably is going to be a requirement to put some
limitations in because often say because there's a lot of
them out in sort of St. Helier's Camarramer Way, and
there's views out over the over the gulf, and so
clearly people aren't going to willingly give up their cross
lease which prevents the person in front from building up.

(01:43:14):
So in that situation, you can still de all of
that and you can just put a height covenant and say, look, yeah,
we'll go fee simple. We'll have a right away for
the easement for the driveway, but we just want to
limit you going above certain number of meters. And that
still adds value because it still means that you can
use your flat in a way that's independent, so you
can have dogs, and you might be able to do

(01:43:34):
work from home from a home office, because most cross
leaders are for residential use only, so there's various other
freedoms you're can get. You're just not gonna be able
to put an extra two stories on or something like that.
So yeah, I think it's fair to say in most
situations it will add value to the property.

Speaker 4 (01:43:48):
Fantastic. It's been fast and furious. I really appreciate you
sort of getting stuck, and we've worked through a bunch
of ticks, and to be feared, we've had a lot
of really positive feedback. People have really enjoyed your insights.
So I might re chick out again at some stage,
and when we'll do it all again.

Speaker 8 (01:44:07):
Thanks Pete. That sounds good.

Speaker 4 (01:44:08):
Pleasure, jeez, really appreciate it. Take care then. See then,
a couple of people have asked how to contact Ben
go through the firm that he works with. It's Pigeon
Judge Lawyers, so it's pretty simple. You'll find them online.
So Pigeon Judge Judd Lawyers, you'll find them online and
Ben's email and mobile number are there. Again, my thanks

(01:44:30):
to Ben for his time this morning. Right, let's jump
into the garden. Rid Claiming Past is standing by if
you've got a question for Rudd about the wonderful world
of bugs or the wonderful world of gardens. Eight hundred
and eighty ten eighty is the number to call good
Squeaky Door or Squeaky floor.

Speaker 1 (01:44:47):
Get the right advice from Peter Wolfcaf, The Resident Builder
on News Talks HEADB. For more from the Resident Builder
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