Draging the chain

On the 8th my wife and I appeared in court on the charges laid by HNZ however we were unable to proceed again as HNZ had again failed to supply full disclosure as well as a statement of claim, witness list and other relevant information pertaining to the case.

I am no lawyer but one would think that a statement of claim would have been prepared well before any charges were laid as is the case with any other court matter. and that all of the evidence would have been provided to the defence.

After speaking with our lawyers it appears they were pretty shocked as to the delays and reluctance to provide the required information. In the meantime we are struggling to bet by and are in essence being held ransom by the actions of this government agency and its staff.

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.

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.

Human Rights - ICESCR - The obligation to protect housing rights includes:

From my previous posts it is quite clear we are getting a pretty raw deal and this morning after reading some of the information under the Human Rights Act and from http://www.hrc.co.nz/report/chapters/chapter13/housing01.html

I gave the Human Rights Commission a call and layed a complaint however were told pretty much that there was nothing they could do for us and they have no jurisdiction.

This seems to me to be a bit of a contradiction as to what is published in Chapter13.

The obligation to protect housing rights includes:

The commitment by the State and its agencies to prevent the violation of any individual’s rights to housing. The State must provide access to judicial redress if these rights have been violated.

The State must ensure effective protective measures against forced evictions, racial or other discrimination, harassment, and the withdrawal of services.

But then as was pointed out by the person I was speaking to, I'm probably taking it out of context.

After a second discussion with these guys they inform me that this is an international treaty signed by NZ and that they have no powers to do anything about this. The conversation took place over some 50 minutes as was pointed out to the chap on the other end of the phone albeit in somewhat of a condescending manner.

He has made it very clear that these matters can only be heard in court and that this is the only avenue available for us. He also informed me that it is up to us in essence to prove out complaint. I agreed but also informed him that this is a double edged sword and that HNZ have not proven anything and only speculated and bullied us in to giving statements. Even what little information we have been provide with has not been corrected after we informed them that it was not correct.

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.

Creative History

It seems from where we are standing Housing New New Zealand's staff practice the rewriting of history to suite their needs and in all honesty from what we have seen make false claims as to the count of events as well as create documents and backdate them so as to create their own paper trail.

On the 17th of August 2010 we received a letter from our tenancy manager Kartina O'Conner for access to the house for an inspection to take place Monday 30th August between 9AM and 12PM stating she would need to check all the rooms in the home. My wife and I arranged our schedule so as to be here however after waiting all day Kartina did not turn up.

Monday the 13th September 2010 a message was left on our phone from Katrina O'Conner and although I did not pick this up my wife said that Katrina wanted to arrange access for an inspection. That morning I sent an email to katrina.oconner@hnzc.co.nz asking her to clarify in writing when she would like this meeting.

Katrina then sent me a response and in noted under our name in bold the following statement
AS previously discussed It is necessary to complete an inspection of your home
I took this to mean as per the previous letter and the phone call.
This email was dated 13th September 2010 11:23am and the request was to visit Monday 20th September 2010 between 10am and 11am.

On the 14th we received two letters from Housing New Zealand both written by Katrina, Postmarks on the envelope were for the 13th of September however on the letterhead one was dated 9th September and the other dated 13th September

The letter dated the 9th September implies that we have denied access or at the least made it difficult for Katrina to conduct her inspection and makes threats as to the tenancy tribunal and exemplary damages. As stated above the reason the previous inspection did not take place was nothing to do with us as we waited here all day on the 30th and Katrina did not turn up nor did she phone us to arrange an alternative time.

The other letter received was dated the 13th September and was in essence the same as the email received requesting access for Monday 20th September 2010.

This is not an isolated incident as We have previously received notices claiming we had denied access to contractors and despite being provided with information to the contrary these complaints have never been retracted. Even in court both Katrina O'Conner and her boss Robert Redford made these claims. We have a transcript that has been attached to one of the previous posts between myself and the contractor who states we had not denied access.

Another instance was when the window frame fell apart after having been repaired and the glass broke almost decapitating my youngest son, HNZ claimed we denied access to the contractor however the contractor refused to conduct the repair as requested by HNZ due to safety concerns. HNZ wanted only the glass replaced in the faulty frame.

I am sure that if this was a member of public and not a government employee questions would be asked as to what was going on and why this false information was being created and recorded in what can only bee deemed as an an official government document.

I have sent an email to katrina.o'conner@hnzc.co.nz he boss robert.redford@hnzc.co.nz and who I believe is the Chief Executive of Housing New Zealand Lesley.McTurk@hnzc.co.nz however as we have been evicted from the house in what we believe to be a retaliatory manner I do not hold out much hope of anything being done.

Here are copies of the original documents in order. Click on the image for a larger view

The original inpection date that Katrina failed to attend

Complaint implying we denied access

The recent inspection request

Envelopes that both the Complaint and Recent inspection request were received in

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 …