Presented with the unpalatable decision

Last week our lawyer's had a conference with the judge and the crown prosecution. We have now been provided with what the crown has interpreted as all of the evidence however due to the format and the nature of this information it is not a quick and easy process sorting it. The judge at this stage has refused our request to postpone the hearing so we can have time to look at it.

We have also received an indication from the crown that if I plead guilty to all charges from 2007 onward they will drop all charges against my wife.

Doing so will result in me loosing my job as well as accepting a conviction for something I strongly believe we did not do. on the other side of the coin if my wife and I are found guilty we will both loose our jobs.

given that we really don't have the resources and have not been afforded the same time as the crown to prepare and challenge the information with expert advice this puts us on the back foot.

This decision seems to be also causing some family issues and a rift is forming between my wife and I not for the fact that either one of us have done wrong but the fact that this would release us from a burden that has been hanging over our heads for well over a year now.

I guess we have to be thankful we are not in the shoes of Mr dotcom.

Victimised

Late last week we received a letter from HNZ claiming an income related rent debit of around $81k, it is quite clear that this is contestable and is directly related to the criminal matter before the courts at the moment however HNZ have made a demand for this money and haev further thretend legal action and state that this will impact on our credit rating.

The letter was sent to our new address after being forced in to having to release thiese details to HNZ by the tennancey tribunal when a previous adjudicator had supressed these details due to our concern for reprisal.

This weeken and allmost imediatly after receiving the letter some thugs smashed up our mail box in the middle of the night, I chased them up the road but it appears they had a car waiting for them. I should not be surprised by this as it is prety clear that our old tennancey manager has it in for us given the statements that we have read in the HNZ documentation and the lies that have been told by her in court.

Some may say that Im just being paraniod and this could be the case but on the entire street our letter box was the only one smashed and the fact a car seemed to be waiting up the road seems to me to be very strange.

It also was not an attack on the previous residence of this place as they were hear for quite a number of years and as luck would have it after moving in we found out we found out that I knew them for years before the move via another associate.

Letter from Director of Government Relations Housing New Zealand

I will comment in line on these matters as that way it will keep things to the point and clearly categorised.

27 January 2011
Dear Mr Hooper

Thank you for your email of31 December2010toDrLesleyMcTurk,Chief Executive of

Housing New Zealand Corporation, about issues relating to the termination of your

tenancy at 353 Bucklands Beach Road, Bucklands Beach. Dr McTurk has asked me to

reply to your email, and I have looked into the matters that you raise.

In your email you say that Corporation staff have lied under oath, and that your tenancy

was terminated on the basis of incorrect information. However, I have looked into your

allegations and have found no evidence to support them. The Corporation made the

decision to end your tenancy and commence criminal proceedings after an investigation

found that you had failed to declare the true extent of your income while claiming an

 

You claim to have investigated however you have not contacted our accountants to ascertain what the correct figures were, You have not contacted witnesses who will testify that the damage you claim was done to the house existed prior to us moving in and you have not contacted us to ascertain what parts of the court transcripts show that your staff lied. It seems to me that looking in to the matter was nothing more than asking your own staff internally so therefore it could hardly be seen as unbias and fair.

In New Zealand we follow the Napoleonic Code and more importantly the Code of Criminal Instruction to which a person is presumed innocent until found guilty by a court of law however it appears that not just in our case but others Housing New Zealand feels they have the power to be Judge Jury and Executioner based on whatever information they feel like and without ensuring the correctness of that information.

In your email you also say that Corporation staff have breached the Privacy Act by

refusing to supply you with information that you requested about your tenancy. I

understand that you were provided with this information on 20 January 2011. It may be

helpful if I explain that your original request of 3 November 2010 was understood to be a

request for disclosure under the Criminal Disclosure Act, and was met on 9 November

This to me sounds more like an excuse than anything else, regardless of what we were asking for there is no reason HNZ had to withhold our tenancy information and even to this day they have failed to provide all of this information. Again this is not an isolated incident and we are well aware of others being refused their information.

You also say that the Corporation has charged you for the cost of repairing damage and removing rubbish that you are not responsible for. I can confirm, however, that the charges of $1,430.29 relate only to the cost of repairing damage and removing rubbish relating to the period of your tenancy. This work was required to bring the property to an acceptable standard for re-Ietting. Corporation records show that the property was tidy and in good condition before your tenancy commenced in November 2000. If these records you claim show the property was tidy and in good condition when it was let are in existence then why have they not been supplied to us as per the request for information under the privacy act? further it is quite clear that the windows you have replaced were all broken when we moved in as I had to repair them myself and covered them over with lexan. This was brought up with our tenancy manager when we first moved in.

Finally, you say in your email that the Corporation has not resolved the problem with water ponding under the house, and has not repaired the remaining defects in the window frames. You may be interested to know that this work has been completed. This may be the case now but given that while we were in the house the problems were not resolved and given that the photos we have are clearly dated as well as independent witnesses viewed the flooding after the work was completed brings in to question your organisations integrity.

I trust that this information is helpful to you. If you have any further concerns, I invite you to contact Peter Lauina, Housing Services Manager at the Otahuhu Neighbourhood Unit, on (09) 261 5502.

I think any contact would be a waste of time and given that HNZ have failed to communicate as per their customer promise as well as remedy the damage to my property caused by your contractors it is prety clear where your organisation sits.

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.

1st Call in District Court over Tennancey Matterrs

We have filed an application in the tenancy tribunal to have the matters reheard and have obtained the transcripts from the tribunal hearing. The rehearing will take place some time next year in the District Court.

While in court I requested that the Judge make a ruling that HNZ has to hand over all the documents as requested under the privacy act however she stated that this was not within her powers and I would have to ask  HNZ's lawyer for this.

Now keep in mind that our request for this information predates any action being taken by HNZ and that under the privacy act HNZ have to supply this to us. However their lawyer has refused this request stating that as HNZ have laid a criminal complaint they will not hand over the information at this stage.

At least someone gets it

The new manager of Panmure branch so far seems to understand the problems and situation, I feel somewhat sorry for him as its pretty clear he has been dropped in the deep end and inherited a mess from his predecessor.

We had a short meeting with him last week and discussed moving out as well as several other matters including the new toilet that was installed by us. We have given HNZ the opportunity to reimburse us for half of this otherwise we would remove this.

Peter informed us at the time that after looking at our rental statement he believed we were in rental arrears and said that any reimbursement would be put toward any arrears. We agreed to this and he went away to look in to the matter.

On Saturday I received an Email from him stating that he had examined out rental account and we were in fact in credit for quite a reasonable amount and that although they would not change their position on the reimbursement for the toilet he offered to credit our account for an additional $200.00 as a token of good faith.

Tomorrow being the 9th November we have our first hearing in the district court over HNZ's breaches in the tenancy act and our other claims and given that HNZ have refused to provide information under the privacy act that would have been used to solidify the facts in court.

HNZ seem to think they are above the law

On the 8th September 2010 I requested a copy of all information HNZ have on file about me/us under the Privacy Act 1993, The request had to be either fulfilled or reasons why the information was not going to be supplied had to be outlined within 21 working days.

After this time on the 6th October 2010 I contacted HNZ's privacy officer Karaka Tuhakaraina who stated he would look in to the matter.

The reason we need this information is that we are due in court 9th of November 2010 regarding HNZ's breach in the tenancy act and the appeal process.

Today being the 22 October 2010 we received a letter from Karaka Tuhakaraina denying us this information under section 29 (ia) of The Privacy Act 1993.

• (ia) the request is made by a defendant or a defendant's agent and is
• (i) for information that could be sought by the defendant under the Criminal Disclosure Act 2008; or
• (ii) for information that could be sought by the defendant under that Act and that has been disclosed to, or withheld from, the defendant under that Act;

It should be noted that HNZ only filed their claim on the 4th October 2010 and from memory we were not served with any proceedings until the 7th October 2010 (actually this is the date on the video when I recorded both Debbie and I being served).

Now I am not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure that retrospectively denying access to information is a little unfair and given that we will not have this information for our hearing against HNZ on the 9th of November really goes to show what dirty tricks these guys are playing.

HNZ Boasting over 100 cases before the courts

A colleague of mine has watched the events unfold and had been contacted by investigators. He was a little alarmed given the comments of the investigator that seemed to him to be somewhat inappropriate given the situation. Out of concern he contacted HNZ investigation team and asked them a few questions but found himself dealing with overly paranoid people who were not very helpful at all. The manager kept stating the phone was quite hollow and that he thought the conversation was being recorded but the fact that my colleague was calling from a cell phone would have been the reason for this quality of the call. It was clear to my collegue that with the level of paranoia displayed they seemed to have something to hide.

The manager was also asked in relation to their investigations "Have you ever got it wrong" to which after a long period of silence he asked if that was a question. My colleague then said of course and its a fair question but the investigations manager refused to answer.

A recent publication put our by HNZ called Close to Home dated September 2010 has HNZ posting they have freed up 114 homes for needy families and indicating that there are over 100 cases before the courts. Given the actions that have been taken against us and the fact that we have never been given the opportunity to review any evidence, it appears to me that quite a number of them are likely to be an abuse of process. Given the fact that it appears tenants have no rights as well as many people who are in a position such as ours would be on very low income, this makes proving your innocence pretty darn awkward.

In New Zealand you are supposed to be Innocent until Proven Guilty and the benefit of the doubt must always go to the accused however HNZ do not seem to hold the same views. They act by throwing all they can at you then you and don't even provide the information to you that would allow you to challenge their findings.

Based on what is clearly an erroneous investigations we have been evicted, had our rental assessment revoked and backdated resulting in us owing HNZ a considerable amount over the last 7 or so years and are facing criminal charges. All this has happened before there have been any checks done on the information and before it gets heard by an impartial authority.

Intimidation and Persecution by representatives of a Government agency

Housing New Zealand tonight at around 10PM served us with documents with the effective statement that if we did not accept them an arrest warrant would be drawn up for us.

It is prety clear to us that Housing New Zealand want us out that that even the statements of witnesses who have been here and seen first hand the interaction have stated that Housing New Zealand really have it in for you.

We have been here for around 10 years and have been asking for the same repairs to be done for 7 years however instead of compleating these repairs the highly motivated government agencey has laid criminal charges against us on what can only be described as a poorly conducted and flawed income audit.

they have been informed that their information is not correct but continue to persue this matter via criminal action.

So much for getting a fair go in this country and being innocent until prooven guilty.

Meeting with Labors HNZ Spokesperson

Last Thursday we has a rather productive meting with Moana Mackey who is the Labour Housing New Zealand Spokes Person. As far as I could tell she was somewhat shocked by the problems we have encountered however was not surprised and stated that of late this type of thing seems to be the norm.

There seems to be little to no protection for the tenants of Housing New Zealand houses and and increasing number of unfair and unjust rulings from the Tenancy Tribunal most likely caused by the close association built between HNZ and the tribunal/adjudicators.

There was some agreement that the problems for us may not be resolvable but our situation could be used as a key example of a government organisation how seems intent on rewriting their own mandate and not following the one laid out by the government in the first place.

Our hope was to be able to move to a privately owned house however due to our financial situation and the claim from HNZ that we now owe over $81k such a move is not viable and we can not find a house what is within our limited budget.

At present it clearly looks like we will become homeless along with out 3 kids in December as a result of the ongoing issues. Certainly comments made by our tenancy manager to an agent who was assisting us with an application for at least one house resulted in what i feel in not being accepted. She stated that there were no issues with our rent and that the place was all ways tidy bit that we had a personality conflict thus making us out to be difficult tenants.

Its the little things

A couple of days ago a new tenancy manager inspected the house and as stated previously we were surprised that he was in agreement with quite a number of the issues we raised. It appears that he has taken these matters seriously and yesterday a workman turned up to fix the sharp piece of metal sticking out of the wall in the bathroom.

I had preciously cut my foot in it after getting out of the shower and the adjudicator played this down as being a trivial matter however the new tenancy manager seems to have taken a different view on this and taken affirmative action.

First Call

on the 27th of August the courts set down a time in October as the first call on the rehearing of the matter taken to the tenancy tribunal and the order made on the 13th of August. Unfortunately it appears that all remedial work has now been stoped as we have not heard from anyone in relation to the repairs.

As yet we have not received the 90 day notice however have begun looking for alternative accommodation as it appears that due to the way HNZ have investigated and sent us a claim for the $80k we would not be able to appeal this in the tenancy tribunal as it is well above the amount they can hear.

Housing New Zealand claimed we denied access

Following a the formal notification from Tenancy Tribunal in their order and a letter that forwarded to me from Housing New Zealand claiming we had denied access to the property for contractors to undertake repairs I thought it prudent to publish the transcript between myself and the Housing New Zealand contractor.

This information was provided to the Adjudicator and both the Tenancy Manager Katrina O'Connor and the Manager of the Panmure Branch Robert Redford were informed that we had not denied access and given the opportunity to rectify their statement but seem to have ignored this.

Whilst in court and under oath Katrina O'Connor whilst representing Housing New Zealand on at least two occasions claimed that we had denied access to contractors.

Here is an extract from a transcript of a recording between myself and Housing New Zealands Contractor.

Andrew:
That’s good. That’s good. Hey just had some issues come up, we’ve been going through some of the bits and pieces and doing some preparation, we’ve been told by Housing that they have cancelled the work order because we denied access.
Contractor:
No, what I said was I emailed them and told them that you weren’t happy with the way that it was going to be to just have the hole filled up so that’s why as far as I know they’ve cancelled it. I’m not too sure. That’s as far as I’ve gone with it so …
Andrew:
Right, OK. No, they’re claiming and stating and certainly got written in their notes on the system that we denied access to the builders to be able to fill it up.
Contractor:
No, I just said to them that you weren’t going to be happy with what was done so there wasn’t much point in us doing the job so … they’ve got the notes for that so …