Court Proceedings

Yesterday my wife and I were in court regarding our appeal on the Adjudicators ruling that resulted in HNZ not having to pay for repairs we had done to the house, causing damage to our property and in our view misleading the adjudicator.

Given that HNZ have laid criminal charges against us we felt that as there is evidence that would be beneficial to us in the criminal matter rather than bringing this information to light in the civil matter we would vacate these proceedings and deal with it at a later date once the criminal matters are resolved.

The Judged hit us for $300.00 costs and had we known that we would be liable for costs we would not have done this however as we have tried to get legal assistance and to date not been able to we were none the wiser.

However while waiting out side the court rooms our ex tenancy manager meet with another person who I believe to be a tenancy manager from another region. They proceeded to discuss the cases they were working on including various matters that were completely unrelated to this appearance such as what my wife and I believe was information about our criminal case. Keep in mind that this discussion is going on within a public area and at one stage was taken out side in the courtyard.

From their conversation I was able to ascertain that the other tenancy manager was there for one of her tenants. I later managed to catch up with this tenant and had a discussion with them about their case. I found there to be quite a number of similarities in the way our cases had been handled and the attitude of HNZ to run in guns blazing as I feel they have done in our case with little regard for the facts or the procedure that has been set down for them to follow.

Unfortunately the lady we meet with has not been able to get legal representation to assist her and has also been evicted from her house. I do not know the full story behind her case and have my own problems to deal with but there was enough there to reinforce the view I currently hold of HNZ and their so called procedure.

I have spoken to the office of the Privacy Commissioner and have confirmed with them that the conversation that took place outside of the court rooms may be another breach in the privacy act but given that HNZ has not been held accountable for their previous breach I wonder if its even worth wasting my time and making another complaint.

Privacey Matters

Finally HNZ have released some of the information under the privacy act regarding our tenancy and I say some as there is a lot of information that has been withheld, the fact that some of the information provided actually refers to other information that has not been provided makes it pretty clear that Housing New Zealand is not playing by the rules.

We allready have a complaint in with the Privacy Commissioner and they are investigating this matter along with Housing New Zealands claims that they do not have to provide this information under the criminal disclosure act.

Fact is that disclosure is disclosure and I'm pretty sure this act is not a mechanism to be abused by government organisation so as to allow them to refuse to make available information that could paint them in a bad light. Such actions are really just an abuse of power and process.

Also keep in mind that the criminal matters are based on our alleged failure to provide HNZ with our earnings details and as such according to HNZ obtained  lower rent based on the rental assessment. This matter has nothing to do with out tenancy and HNZ's investigations team have reiterated this fact several times so there for information regarding our tenancy should be available.

When discussing the matter with the office of the privacy commissioner I asked them how would they know if HNZ was with holding information and they informed me they rely on HNZ's honesty.

Damage to your home - paying for repairs

On the 20^th December 2010 we received a letter from Housing New Zealand claiming we had damaged the property and informing us that we had to pay $1430.29 by the 24^th December. Clearly this is an early Christmas present from the government department to cap off the other vexatious actions they are taking.

When we moved in to the house some 10 years ago the house was not exactly in tiptop condition and, given our circumstances, was our only option so we accepted it. We had a reasonable relationship with our tenancy manager and over time some problems were resolved. As would be the case with any tenancy or landlord we liaised with him and sought his permission before doing anything to or in the house.

Housing New Zealand however has continued with their relentless persecution of our family in what appears to be a common practice to extort money from those in need. There seems to be a great lack of checks and balances to ensure fairness and equality and little interest in sticking to their charter and customer promise let alone the enactments of government put in place to protect tenants.

At this stage I am hesitant to comment on a completely itemised list of what they are claiming and as to the evidence we have that rebuts their claim due to the fact we have not decided as to what action we need to take to deal with this albeit via the tenancy tribunal, district court or government ombudsman and if criminal charges will be laid against them.

I am also mindful that Housing New Zealand as we have seen are a large government sanctioned organisation and that they have an endless budget and resources to throw at people as they have been doing to us to make people’s lives a living hell.

To give you an idea as to the pettiness of the matter in, Bucklands Beach we use recycle bins and these are collected every 2^nd Thursday. We moved out a week prior to the collection, and all that was required was on the Thursday after the next, the bin needed to be put on the side of the road for collection.  HNZ charged us for the removal of this as well as the removal of bricks and other things that were at the property when we moved in.

These actions pretty clearly support my claims that Housing New Zealand have been using their position to victimise our family and relentlessly cause us as much grief as they can and regardless of the fact that we were forced to move out due to Housing New Zealand not adhering to the work order set by the tenancy tribunal and purposely misleading the courts and the tribunal.

And what does the government have to say about this? Well at present the only thing we have been told is that this is an operational matter with Housing New Zealand.

Due Process

Over the weekend we were going over some of the information HNZ have provided and the information provided is definitely not full disclosure, but then this really comes as no surprise.

But while going over these details I re-read our legal aid application and it struck me that the system is clearly broken.

HNZ have a full time investigations team working to rake up any and all information and prepare a case that is then handed over to the crown. This investigative process, as we have been told, is extremely thorough and leaves no stone unturned, and has the backing of legislation so as to ensure all information is available to it.
The costs involved in running such a team must be huge and having a dedicated investigator work on a specific case for several months would not be cheap.

Then the report is prepared and HNZ have a meeting with the crown prosecutors office who seem to have an unlimited budget and can afford to call whatever experts they choose in to give opinion as well as continue the investigative process to prove your guilt.

Now someone who is on a low income such as us really only have Legal Aid to assist us and unlike the crown these guys draw a line in the sand only allocating a specific amount of hours to the lawyer to work on the case and only providing a certain amount of money to lodge a defense.

So you have a machine with an endless budget and unlimited funds going up against someone who has very limited resources, and people expect that person to be able to prove their innocence as this definitely seems to be the case these days because, without proving their case, HNZ have invoiced us for what they believe is the shortfall in rent, revoked our rental assessment and evicted us.

In addition to this the Prosecution seems to be able to pick and choose what it supplies as evidence and not have to hand up the details, warts and all. In a way I would say this is customizing the evidence to meet the allegation's.

Acceptable by Housing New Zealand Standards

Yesterday I drove past the old place and spotted from the street that the wall paper has now been stripped from the walls. This is the same wallpaper that HNZ stated that was acceptable by HNZ standards.

Speaking with our next door neighbor he said that some woman from HNZ had been over and asked them to keep an eye on the place over Christmas as it was likely they would not be able to get anyone in there until the new year.
She further stated that if any vehicle was seen on the property he was to immediately call the police.

Handed over the keys

We handed the keys to John Heaton who is the HNZ tenancy manager assigned by HNZ to work with us on the handover. While there he was taking photos of pretty much every scratch spot and pinprick so i suspect that although we had moved in the house some 10 years ago and the house was not in great condition when we moved in with windows broken, wall paper torn and other issues we aer going to get blamed for these issues.

But its great to finally be in a house that does not have these problems and is not so full of mould it causes health problems.

While we were doing the walk around I did capture some video of John opening the cupboards that were not repaired correctly and fell off after HNZ replaced them. as well as a few interesting comments regarding the state of the mould and paint that was flaking off the ceiling and other issues such as the rotten window frames that the tenancy tribunal stated should have been repaired in their order to HNZ.

A visit from David Collings

Tonight I meet with David Collings at our old Bucklands Beach Road residence as we will be handing the keys over to Housing New Zealand tomorrow at 2PM and will no longer have access to the place.

I contacted Mr Collings as we felt that its all very well having Photos of the mould and various problems within the house that we have been living with for the 10 years we have been there but these do not describe dampness and smell in the house caused by the mould.

Mr Collings has agreed to be witness to the smell and other problems encountered and his testimony will only go to further solidify our claims that we were being forced to live in a sub standard house with little regard for our health and the safety of our children.

It is clear the Housing New Zealand believe that this house is according to them acceptable however I can guarantee that they will completely revamp it before it is given to any one else.

I am still very concerned as to what the long term exposure to the mould spores and the toxins in the house are going to be on both myself and my family and given that I was suffering from nose bleeds every morning however after having left have not had one instance its pretty clear that something nasty has been going on.

I am still finding myself short of breath but hope that over time this will get better.

Mould is Mould

I think it is pretty clear that the HNZ house we have been living in has quite a bit of mould that has been caused by the flooding under the house creating a damp environment. The mould is not just on the walls and ceiling but is also in the new underfloor insulation recently installed.

Now I was under the impression that i only had to worry if the mould was Stachybotrys but it turns out that this is not the case and that I had been feed a bit of a red hearing. Mould is Mould and although Stachybotrys produce toxic compounds all moulds should be treated the same according to OSH, and from the CDC's website in the US its pretty clear that any mould can pose a health risk.

http://www.level.org.nz/health-and-safety/mould/
http://www.cdc.gov/mold/stachy.htm#Q7

While living in this house every morning I would wake with a blood nose, problems breathing and quite often it would feel like I was breathing with a plastic bag over my head and something sitting on my chest. I would often after waking be pretty lethargic and my motivation over the last 3 years had pretty much vanished. In addition to all this I was diagnosed with a Petty high level of depression.

Now according to Housing New Zealand this house is acceptable to them.

Its only been a week in the new place we have moved to and I have not had one blood nose other than the first night here and not had one headache. I am hoping that breathing gets a little better and some of the other issues sort themselves out in the near future.

I will be sure to take some recent photos of the mould and publish these before we hand over the house.

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.