Housing New Zealands Customer Promise

Last week we received a glossy printed 12 page news letter from HNZ called Close To Home, this was Issue 27 September 2010. On page 7 I found two articles that were somewhat related to our situation the first being information about their Customer Promise.

The document is and Information Copyright Housing New Zealand Corporation 2010 and I have included the relevant extracts as reference material.

It is all very well HNZ making a customer promise but when this promise is breached who is held accountable. In our situation it is clear that this promise has been breached by Housing New Zealand on not just one account but all of them.

• be honest fair and objective.Clearly this is not the case in relation to our requests for repairs of the retaliatory nature of the events after we were forced to take action via Tenancy Services. Further by their own statements they have used the GROSS TURNOVER of the business and assessed that as by income not taking in to account the operational expenses and have at no stage provided us with either any reports or fulfilled their obligations under the privacy act.
• have the right skills and knowledge.This applies to more than one issue and the fact that we have for 7 years been trying to get HNZ to repair various house related problems and that there is the continuous growth of rot and black mold in the house shows that the skill set required to resolve these problems are not there. Further the contractors who were to repair the issues have taken shortcuts or not been able to complete the repairs due to their lack of skills.
• do what we say we will do.
  In court HNZ stated that all exterior walls in the bedrooms were going to be relined and insulation was going to be inserted, they have since decided not to do this. Further for 7 years we have been informed that the repair work of the flooding under the house was a priority and it still has not been repaired. Granted they did finally replace the cupboards in the kitchen but the fact that they are falling off the hinges and have not fixed them only goes to further show the lack of skill involved with their contractors.
• listen and understand your individual circumstances.We have had several meeting with HNZ and highlighted the fact that the community wireless network is struggling after any hope of funding was pulled and that the income only just coves the expenses. The fact the network is still in place is only because I do not have the heart to pull the plug on the only form of broadband in the area and send them all back to dial up.
  If we were bringing in the money that is being claimed I can tell you now that my wife would not be working insane hours for minimum wage.
  Further they did not seem to care about the dangers of their repairs or damage that was caused by their contractors to our car.
  
  When we moved in to the house there was ample storage under the house but were told to move our stuff our from under the house so the flooding could be repaired and not given any alternative for storage. The attempt to repair the flooding was done from outside the house not under it.
• provide you with the right information at the right time.Only 2 to 3 years ago we were investigated by HNZ and i provided information to HNZ's investigator regarding the network and our situation. Surely if there was an issue or a perceived issue this would have been up to the investigator to inform us. Our circumstance have not really changed since then.
• make it easy for you to communicate with us.Communications are a two way street, We have contacted HNZ many times and been promised that they would call us back with a resolution but we never received a call back and the matter just got ignored. I even have recorded conversations with the Panmure manager stating he would call me back over the damage and theft of property by their contractors but he failed to call back with a resolution.

I do understand that we have responsibilities as well and so as to be fair I will also publish these regardless of the fact that HNZ have laid criminal complaints against us.

• provide us with the right information at the right time.We have always provided relevant information to HNZ and contrary to their claims have informed them about the business. When the fence was damaged by us accidentally reversing in to it we provided the relevant insurance details however HNZ chose to ignore this and demand that we pay for this ourselves.
• keep any agreement with us.We have allowed access whenever it was requested and contrary to their claims have never denied access for anting that was pre arranged. Recently HNZ claimed we had done so (again) but it turns out that our tenancy manager sent us a letter with the wrong date listed. An earlier claim was refuted by the builder who was supposed to have been denied access.
• tell us if your situation changes.HNZ have allways known that the network existed and it was with their blessing that part of the business was situated here. Allthough slightly out of my field I had helped a previous tennancey manager with his computer problems.
• treat us like you like to be treated.We have always treated and welcomed HNZ however as observed by independent witnesses during some interaction with both our tenancy manager and her boss it was stated by the independents on two separate occasions that they seem to have it in for us. I suffer from chronic depression and their actions have only ever been confrontational and abusive.

On the same page as this there is also an article about 114 needy families housed claiming there are over 100 cases of tenant dishonesty before the courts. I will post about this in my next blog as its OK for a large government organisation with an unlimited budget to make claims against people who are just trying to make ends meet but the fact is that in their investigations HNZ seem to be ignoring their own responsibility and victimising people.

Information Obtained by HNZ

We have fully fully co-operated with the HNZ investigator Ricardo Fyn as he seemed to want to ascertain a clear position on our elegability status and even seemed to be able to get backdated information out of our banks that even we are still unable to extract ourselves as the account holder (the power of a government department eh) may have something to do with him wearing a New Zealand Police Lanyard (holding his HNZ ID) around his neck in full view.

During the stress of the last four years we have neglected to keep good accounting records to table for his audit of income accessment hence NOT be able to refute their claims. We have been trying to get the bank details going back 4 years for our accountant to complete an audit of the books to provide HNZ.

We don’t mind being under the microscope but now the accessed $$ value of our alleged income over the last 3years since the last Audit is becoming  a major issue as how the heck can we pay the incorrectly accessed $81,000 in arrears let alone correct some of what must be very erroneous information he has come up with based upon $$ amounts of a bank statement without allocation to the costs of the business verses the pittance in drawings we have taken out.

Questions being:

-          Co-operation is a 2 way street, seems the only time we get to correct / refute incorrect information is during prosecution now.

-          How can every unallocated withdrawl from my business account or wifes bank account be ever be used as Personnal Drawings thus accessed as 100% Income.  

Hardly audited books but this enables HNZ to Labeled us as Fraud.

-          How and when can we get the same information for our accountant

-          The best government motivation is to Slap a big fine and then you refute it seems to be the norm BUT HNZ takes this one step further through intimidation of Sign our accessment and just pay us the money over time makes HNZ judge jury and persector in the same agency without providing the information. Power of the government.

Flooding under the house

If the water under the house were any deeper Council would require a fence around it.

But seriously we have been battling with this one for some 7 years and I'm sure this is the cause of many of the other problems. We have had contractor after contractor looking at the problem and still the problem has not been resolved.

On Monday a contractor from Spotless turned up with a builder stating that the way to resolve the problem was to put a drain in the front of the house and divert the water flow, this is pretty much the same conclusion as was given by the expert we hired prior to going to the Tenancy Tribunal.

However Housing New Zealand seem insistent on just filing up the hole, It seems to be the way they opperate and instead of fixing the issue they just hide it. These problems don't just go away if you cover them up.

Then today the person who came over from Spotless arrived to examine the window sill and was also asked to look at under the house. His comments intrigued me as he was of the view that Housing New Zealand wanted to just fill the hole up and concrete over the top. I don't have a problem with that and in all honesty gives me more storage space BUT the issue of flooding is not likely to be resolved by doing this.

Cement that has such a heavy flow of water under it is likely to be compromised as the water will wash away the sediment under it, in addition the cement unless sealed will just absorb the water and although you may not see the ponding the water will still evaporate much like water in a sponge.

Here are a few photos of the flooding we have been living with under the house.
The last image is of the underfloor insulation that was installed only around 6 months ago and is already showing signs of mold growth as well as rusty staples.