Homeowners who fought Stanley Group call for policing of builders

Marc Collins and his neighbours in the idyllic Auckland waterfront street of Provence Esplanade are calling for politicians to protect ordinary people from incompetent, error-prone builders who hike prices during construction.

That includes creating a national register of licensed building practitioners (LBPs) on which councils record the number of failed inspections on homes they've work on.

Collins' home, and those of nine others of his neighbours with views from the Te Atatu Peninsula over to Point Chevalier and Auckland's CBD have been fully reclad in modern weatherboard.

But the pain of getting to that point is illustrated by the 14 failed Auckland Council building inspections, and 4 partial fails, on his home during the reclad during the remediations done by now-bust building company Stanley Ecobuild, which is part of the Stanley Group of companies which was put into liquidation in September.

That number of failed inspections is dwarfed by the record on his neighbour Stan Baron's house, which had 22 fails, and 7 partial fails on his homes' journey to weathertightness.

Once properly fixed with trusted materials like weatherboard, a former leaky home suffers no price stigma, so the homeowners of Provence Esplanade have the confidence to speak out in hopes of sparking national change.


Read the full article on stuff.co.nz here


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