You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter Wolfcamp from US talks it by helping you get those DIY projects done right. The Resident Builder with Peter wolf Camp Call eight hundred eighteen eighteen US talk Sibby.
The house sizzle even when it's.
Dark, even when the grass is overgrown in the yard, even when the dog is too old to bar, and when you're sitting at the table trying to have to stop.
Scissor hole, even when we again, even when you're therellone, house sizzle Wolf even when they go.
Even when you go around funnel one.
You love your moves, scream does broken pains, being in fund locals vesperal when they're gone, leaving them.
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Wilbra Ben, even when you're theirlone.
Years and a very very good morning and a warm
welcome to the Resident Builder on Sunday. You're with me, Peter wolf Camp, the Resident Builder, and this is an opportunity to talk all things building, construction, repairs, maintenance, new ideas, subcontractors and subcontractor, wrangling contracts, legislation, rules and regulations, all of the things that go along with maybe owning a house, living in house, looking after a house doing the maintenance, and I had a little bit of that myself this week,
where continuing to work away on this little project. There was a little bit of rot, I thought in one of the posts that's holding up the verandah. I had a bit of a fossic around with the putty knife, just to see how soft it was and whether I could put that, you know, sort of fetch that out and maybe fetching a new piece of timber, screw it together.
It's still going to be strong enough, et cetera. Or when the putty knife went from one side of the hundred mill posts to the other straight through the guts of it, basically I thought, yeah, maybe not by the time I fart around and cut that piece out and do a couple of half houses and all the rest of it. Shall I just go down and buy a new post, which I did, But of course it's not just a new post. It's a post that's got fluting
on it. So a forty five degree bevil on the lower section, then a blank, then another section, and then another blank and then another section. So a little bit of time with a router and chisel and primers and so on, and anyway it's done. It's on my bench. I finished about six o'clock last night, I think, and well, I don't think i'll work on it today, but Monday looks like a good day and I'll get on to
that project. So, if you've got a project that you would like to talk about all some questions of a building nature, the lines are open. The number to call is eight hundred eighty ten eighty. You can text as well, it's nine to nine two. And if you would like to send me an email, like if you so for
example with the text. I know we're used to texting pictures to each other that pictures don't work on the text here at news Talks heed b. If you'd like to send me a photograph of something that you have some questions about, then you need to email that and that is Pete at newstalksb dot co dot n said, So, Pete at Newstalks, heb dot co dot n said, I trust you've had a good week, maybe a productive week.
I had a number of sort of comments to me just during the course of the week about having Chris Pink the Minister in the studio last week. I will definitely reach out again, maybe in a couple of months time to go. Look, if you've got the time and the inclination, which he seems to have, then we'll get him back into the studio and maybe focus a little bit more. To be fair, I had a whole heap of sort of topics and questions that we needed to
get through. So we did get to a couple of texts, but it'd be great if you had an opportunity to talk to him as well. So leave that with me. We'll get that organized. Speaking of leave it with me too, the other day, two weeks ago on the show, someone rang and was interested in a property that had, as
they describe it, a defective title. So it was a cross lea's property where perhaps some changes had been made to the buildings that were on that cross lease that had not been registered on the title or on the flats plan, and so the title was, in their words, defective. And it's something I know a little bit about, but I thought, yeah, let's reach out to to someone who really knows what they're talking about in this particular sense. And if you recall, a couple of months ago, we
had been Thompson on the program. He's a property lawyer. We talked about boundaries and boundary issues and so on. It turns out that he actually knows quite a lot about cross leases. So Ben is going to join us after eight o'clock this morning to talk specifically about cross leases. When I spoke to him last week to organize the time, he said, oh, look, I've actually just done a presentation to the Law Society at one of their conferences on cross leases. So what is a cross lease? We might
start there. Where did they come from? Like how are they different to a regular fee simple title or a unit title and those sorts of things. So what's a cross lease? How do they operate? And what happens when one is called a defective cross lease? And then how do you go about fixing it? If you're interested in the property that might have a defective title or defective title in terms of the cross LEAs, what is the remedy.
So we'll talk about all of that with Ben after eight o'clock this morning, But right now it is your opportunity to call to chat to talk about all things building and construction. And it might be around new products and new ideas, something you haven't seen before. It might be well, it might be a little bit topical. I was going to mention this after seven o'clock, but I'll
throw it out there now, as is my want. Often when I sort of get up, I go online, I check out the couple of local news stories, and the one that I stumbled upon yesterday was front page, as it turns out, of the print edition of the Herald, about double glazing, particularly double glazing with regard to heritage properties, and the headline was something along the lines of council demand viller owner removes double glazing because it contravenes something
in the resource consent. There's a little bit more to that story if you've had a look at it, and you may here to comment. I'd be interested in your comments before I offer up my own on that one as well. But right now we should talk all things building construction. The lines are open, The opportunity is yours. Any questions that you might have around repairs, maintenance, new builds, products, regulations,
dealing with subcontractors. I might even have a bit of a story about that as we go through the morning as well, But right now I want you to ask the question. So call me now eight hundred and eighty ten eighty. We'll get things started. It is coming up fourteen minutes after six, back after the break.
Meat it twice, God was But maybe call Pete first video walcav the resident builder News Talks.
He'd be your news Talks, he'd be We're talking all things building and construction. It is seventeen minutes after six, and a very good morning to you, Bob.
Yes, good morning, Peter, Hey Bob. I wonder if you can help me. I'm having some painting at my home and outside I've got a little decorative wall. It's a brick wide and at one stage is about three bricks high. There's a course of bricks that have broke, basically broken away, and they still there, still three bricks, and there's still mortar on them.
Yes.
Is there any way that rather than cleaning them all up and having a remortaring them, is there any adhesive that I could stick it back to the wall.
Yeah, and.
Yes there is. And it's one of those things that I'll suggest a brand because I've used it, and I've actually used it for almost identical sort of circumstances. Some years ago, I was backing a trailer down a driveway and I happened to clip the side of a block wall, right, and so I took a chunk out and I'm like, oh, what do I do now? And I use some fix Al. So it's a hold fast sud Old product called fix All, and I had some in the back of the truck.
I'd used it for a while. I put a little dab of that on and I glued that little chip back into the block wall. And to this day, some seventeen or eighteen years later, it's still there. It's still holding tight. So yeah, I think if you get something like fix All that would probably hold it in place.
It's no way it's it's just a decorative end cap. And so that sounds so fix All and I'll just get that at any hard way I take it, will I.
Yeah, you probably need to go some of the biggest stores, but yeah, I think they're in most stores.
Oh thanks for that, Thank you very much.
Take care.
Just clean it up.
I mean I can clean it up, make sure there's no dust there, and then just use a bit of that to bet it back down again and it'll it'll last very well.
Is it a fairly sick type store.
It's it's in a cartridge, so you'll need a corking gun as well. You know you're extrude yep, okay, so just extrude out of a corking gun.
Okay, okay, another mix along the top. I've been cleaning it because there's some the beenpen many twenty nine years old, yes, and along the top of some of the mortar has sort of come out and it's got and I've cleaned it all up. Would that sort of a thing?
No, Well, you could try and repoint at using this, but it won't be a nice look. While you're in the store, have a look for there's there's all sorts of like powders and pre mixes that you can use for grout repair and for mortar repair. So there'll be either products by Seeker or who else does it? I think even Sally's do one. There's a couple of different companies. It'll be like a dry powder that you can mix up, make into a little paste and use that to tidy
up the mortar. If there's some of that mortar loose.
Oh look great, it's a little bob and what did you call it?
Do you called it?
This one by Seeker? If you go into the sort of masonry section, so where they where they've got cements and those sorts of things. They'll often have those powders as well.
Good all right, you.
Take care, take care or I wait one hundred and eighty ten eighty then number to call Michelle. A very good morning to you.
Good morning, How are you very well?
How can I help?
Hey?
I have a question? Can you please tell me about the difference between a freehold title and unit title and what to be a with when you're purchasing.
I I'm not going to offer up an opinion because I think it's really important that you know these sorts of things are right. So in this instance, what is this a standalone residential dwelling?
So currently have a free We've got a couple of homes, and I'm a freehold title and another one we're just gone into the unit title. It's part of a complex. And obviously there's a different lending criteria around unit titles from a banking perspective and from a freehold title. It's just really curious around what makes a unit title so different to a freehold title. And obviously there's a lot more freehold title gives you more options than a unit title.
But I'm just curious as to what makes a unit title. Does the unit title have to be Is it just something in a complex or in where there's a joining buildings, Is that what makes it?
And particularly with unit titles, you might find let's say it's you know, increasingly there's say small low rise high density housing or low rise medium den city housing where you might have a ground floor flat, a middle floor flat, and then a top floor flat and possibly two of
them on each level. Right, So the person at the top effectively owns the same piece of land as the person at the bottom, and the person in the middle also has a right to the land or to occupy that space, hence the unit title right, whereas obviously with a freehold piece of land, then it will be here's a piece of land which we know the size of the land, we can determine the boundaries, the four corners or however many corners, and that land is owned exclusively
by the occupants of that property or by the owners of that property. There is also freehold but subject to parcel, which is a way of saying you own this piece of land, but we actually don't know exactly how big it is. And that's not uncommon in older heritage areas where there hasn't been surveys or modern surveys, so you know, we think it's two hundred square meters, but it might be two hundred and five, and the boundary might be here,
it might be somewhere slightly different. And then obviously there's cross lease titles, which we'll be talking about with with Ben a little bit later on today, which is where effectively you've given you lease your land to your neighbor or to neighbors if there's multiple ones, and they also lease their land to you, and so that that's the
cross least part of it. But the unit title one, Yeah, my understanding is in terms of borrowing, it's slightly more complex for the bank because there is multiple interest in that same property.
Yes, okay. Would it be fair to say so that most unit titles operate under a body corporate structure or not necessarily?
I don't know whether i'd say that most do. Certainly I'm aware of a number that do. And again, if it's in a let's say it's a building where it's multiple levels, right, that then it gets I think it gets really important that someone you know on the bottom level knows that the person on the top level is going to look after their roof. Because they can't look after their roof, they're reliant on the other person. So wrapping that up in a body corporate makes a lot
of sense. For example, let's say there's a development and these are increasingly common in terms of this is our building topography. Now you might have four adjoining properties, each of them two or three stories high that share you know, one and two share a boundary wall, two and three share a boundary wall, three and four share a boundary wall,
et cetera, et cetera. But they may not have a body corporate to you know, even let's say if the roof extends over all of those dwellings, there may not necessarily be a body corporate in place to ensure that if one one roof requires repair, it can be requested by the other. So I think that gets a little bit challenging in that space.
So that would be very potentially be depending on your neighbor. And that's where a body corporate comes in quite good in the sense that they will take care of the entire process in the context will at once, whereas when it's an individual you can get a very different level of expectation.
Yeah, And I mean if you drive around and like that, you know, I've certainly been, you know, think about sort of when we had just in terms of New Zealand's building history nineteen sixties nineteen seventies, there was the beginning of a little bit of intensification. So you know, brick and tile units, for example, often dated from around that period. And I've either been to look at one or something like that, and there'll be let's say four buildings in
a row. They're all brick and tile units, and you know, one roof isn't really good condition, the other roof is in poor condition, the next one. You know that sort of thing. And I guess in that instance there where they share the roof, obviously there's been no agreement between the parties to keep it consistent. And so you know, Party A has repaired or replaced their roof and the
one next to it hasn't been replaced. So I guess that's that might be the advantage from my own experience, I have no experience of body corporates in terms of owning property that's covered by that. You know, I went actually to inspect a property on Thursday, that is it's an apartment and the Body corporate is involved there. But
you know, and again they seem variable as well. Like I know people have had terrible encounters with body corporates where they haven't been particularly well managed and that sort of thing. But then I also know people that sit on boards of body corporates and you know, they're well managed, everyone's really engaged, et cetera, et cetera. So it is so variable.
Yeah, no, that's awesome, or I thank you for clarifying that.
Hopefully that's reasonably clear. But the unit title is multiple occupancies on one patch of land sexually. Ok yeah, good luck with that, all the very best. Okay, you too, take care, Michelle, Bob think oh eight hundred and eighty ten ages on that. So a couple of weeks ago we had a question about the Essentially, it's the phrase that is often used as defective title. So what happens when there is a cross lease arrangement with multiple dwellings on a property and there are alterations to one of
those dwellings. What type of alterations require you to update the flats plan? What happens if you don't, If you're purchasing a property that has a defective title, How can you fix it?
You know?
Mental out of the call that we had last week, someone said, I, you know, I have heard and been involved with a case where it cost about twenty thousand dollars to resolve the defective title. Now is that common? Is that too high? We can talk about all of this with Ben Thompson, who is a lawyer specializing in this,
after eight o'clock this morning. If you've got a specific question, you know, if you're in a situation where there is an issue with a Crossley's title and you can summarize that into a text, feel free to send them through and I'll put those two to Ben after eight o'clock this morning as well. Twenty nine minutes after six we n take a short break. We'll talk to Steve straight after.
The break doing of the house, extorting the guard and asks Pete for a hand the resident builder with Peter Wolfcap call oh eight eighty News TALKSB.
US TALKSB indeed and we are talking all things building and construction. Steve are very good morning.
Yes you're talking about this double glazing. It's not the double glazing that's the problem in the heritage zone. It's the frame, the way it looks. Yeah, we've got one here in Thames. You now, what the framers have done is they've overlaid the outside of the frame with plastic molding so that it looks like a wooden frame. The only problem with it is the material they've used, or the double sided tape they've used to adhes adhere to the frame fails.
It's not.
They've got to do a little bit more research on that. What they use to stick a plastic molding to an aluminium frame that will successfully hold it there, It paces west, it gets all right, and they have a habit of falling off after a while. There must be some sort of an adhesive.
So let's because I think, you know, that's.
All that needs with that. One was in the paper was that the shape of the frame is wrong.
I agree with you.
You know, it's it's it's a flat frame where it should be raised.
Yeah, on that point, I agree with you. I think, just just to be really clear, because I think this is where the details are actually really important. Right, So what you're describing is not double glazing. It's what we would call secondary glazing. So it's the addition of of another insulating layer. In your case, some glass or some perspects or.
Something double glazed window.
No it's not.
Oh the one on the paper wasn't.
The one in the paper used double glazed units and inserted into an aluminium frame. Right, So what But what you just described in terms of another layer adhered to the front of an existing window is not double glazing. That's called secondary glaze.
Nothing to do with the double glazing. It's the shape of the frame.
I understand.
I think we're a cross.
Yeah, yeah, but yes, you're you're right. I think that the headline as it appeared, suggested that council have a problem with double glazing. Council do not have a problem with double glazing in terms of heritage houses or any
other house for that matter. What I think drew the attention of council is that in the heritage area someone had removed the timber sashes and replaced them with aluminium insert joinery, and then in that aluminum joinery was some double glazing, and it was it's the fact that you know, even at first glance, you can tell that that's not the original heritage elements. So that's the issue that council had.
Yeah, I say, we only have hair to make it look like a wooden frame. They've stuck an extra piece onto the aluminium which is made out of plastic.
Yes, that's not sticking.
It's just I don't know what the solution is there. The owner has said them back twice. Now he's thinking of of because he's a cabinet maker. He's thinking of making something out of wood or something very similar rather than plastic, and then getting an adhesive that wood would stick to. It would stick wood to an aluminium frame, bearing a mind of course. Now it's oxidizing. It's going
to have to be cleaned right back. But it may it may look it may stick better or whatever than a piece of extruded plastic but just got double sort of tape on it.
Yeah.
Again, I want to emphasize the fact that what you're talking about is secondary glazing, and it's always going to rely on the It will rely on a number of things.
It is.
There is an effectiveness to it. But let's not be deluded and suggests that it's double glazing. I mean, your frienk should just install double glazing. If it's into existing aliminium frames, they could probably achieve that. I am interested in your comments everyone's comments on the article yesterday in the Herald, and the commentary from some other people, one of whom I know, which with gross respect Alex Wooden Hannah,
who is the lawyer in the article. It quotes Alex Wooden Hannah, lawyer who is representing the interests of the family who are the owners of the property that has attracted the attention of counsel, talking about double glazing as environmental best practice. And while that is true, double glazing is more effective in terms of thermal performance than single glazing, EM does not perform as well as timber if it's
standard aluminum jewinery. So in fact, what you've gained in one sense in this particular instance, you've lost in another by using a frame that is less thermally effective than
what you had there in the original one. And from a heritage point of view, and given that I look to be fair, I saw that article yesterday when I got up, I got online, I read the papers online in the morning, and then I got the paper out of the letterbox and opened it up and there's the front page spread talking about council have a problem with double glazing, and I thought, no, that's not actually the
problem the problem is the aluminium jowinery. Anyway, you may care to comic oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number to call Christine the same.
I just wonder if you get help with this I have. I think it's called a soak away pet or some pat a hole in the ground. Now I live five minutes from the town center. Now my neighbors they don't have a hole in the ground. But the point is I am paying a plumber basically every time it rains to plunge, to plunge from the hole in the ground under the gates out to the garter. Just recently he's chosed me five hundred to take sediments sediment out of
the stormwater pipes. But I mean, I've already had to pay previously. This is a problem. So I was just wondering, how can I be connected? Why isn't it ridiculous that I still have a hole in the ground. Is there ridiculous that I live five minutes from the town center, don't you think an't haven't we modernized with these holes in the ground.
Yes, although saying that I've done properties in the last ten fifteen years where that's been an accept solution in terms of soakage. Right, So control of stormwater is the responsibility of the homeowner. So you're the homeowner. I presume therefore you are responsible for stormwater discharge on your property. If you've got a soakage pit that was built, let's say twenty or thirty years ago, fifty years ago, it
won't be working anymore, right, it just won't work. And the reason it won't work is that when they so in its most basic form, dig a hole in the ground, right, take all the soil out, put in some scoria, and poke your drainage pipe into it and put soil on top. Now, if that's what they did fifty years ago, which is probably what they did, what would have happened in the intervening fifty years is that sediment would have infiltrated all
of the gaps in there. So instead of it being avoid or having voids in it that allow the stormwater to rush in there and then filter into the ground, it's going to hit the end of the pipe and it's going to stop right, and then it's going to back out and overflow where you down pipes come in. So one, you know, to be fair, the plumber should have told you that right, there's no point in cleaning the pipes out if they just run into a blockage
at the end. A couple of alternatives for you. One is that you get a drain layer in who excavates out the old soakage pit, removes everything, puts in some gea textile cloth which stops fine material filtering into those voids. You line the pit with that, You put in some drainage material, you fold the filter cloth over the top again, and then you backfill. Now that will work for the next twenty or thirty years if you do that well.
The other option is your comment about being close to the township, is that you could go to council and see where the nearest stormwater connection is, and then you could extend your line, your pipework and make an application to council to join the council stormwater. Now, if that's if the council line runs through your property, that might
be a little bit easier. If the council line is outside of your property, maybe in a neighbor's property, then you would need to seek permission from the neighbor to enter their property in order to do that connection. The work needs to be done by registered and licensed train layer and you probably need to make an application to council for a connection. But that would be a long term solution, yeah.
Because otherwise I'm paying the prime every time it rains, and the canceled trees they're not on my property, they're on the neighbor's property. And he doesn't pick up the rubbish, the rubbish floats down, my gaffer gets blocked to where the road goes over the gaffa and my son polls right there, is that anything or not?
No? I mean all you could ask, all you can do there is you have a right as a homeowner to trim the neighbour's trees to the boun and if you know, if the wind blows your nigh the leaves from your neighbor's tree, excuse me, into your spouting, then you're just going to have to do something about protecting the spouting and making sure it doesn't block up.
And I don't know what these solutions you've given. How expensive are these solutions, I'm not worrich. How expensive are.
They look everything will start in the thousands.
Okay, So what's the other option?
I would suggest that you're that probably the lowest cost option will be to you know, get a drain layer who knows what they're talking about to come and determine. Ideally, you should be able to send a video down so you can see what the existing stormwader line looks like. Right. If it's blocked up right to where your downpipes are, then you'll need to either clean that or have that replaced,
which will start to get a bit expensive. But look, I think that if you get a drain layer who could come and open up your existing soakage pit redo it to modern standards, which this is where the geotextile cloth or the filter cloth is really important, that that will work fine for you for as long as you need it to work.
But that and the money, all of that, well.
You know someone's going to turn up with a couple of guys. They're probably going to bring a truck with a digger. They're going to have to what they take out, they'll have to take away to the to a tip site. Then they'll need to bring in scoria, then need to bring in filter cloth. They're probably could you, i mean, depending on the size and ease of access, two men for a day maybe to do it. You know, it's it's still going to be a couple.
Of grand to do it, okay, right, and I.
Mean without seeing it, it's pretty difficult for me to to give you an estimate.
I should have a drain layer.
Just have a lot, yeah, and get a drain layer who It sounds like the plumber is just focused on what happens to the pipework right and is not thinking about where the storm water goes. So in this instance it's probably a drain layer's job. They do the video survey first just to determine that whether or not the pipe work's working, because there's no point in opening up the cat in the soakage pat if the water is not going to get to it right because of a
block pipe. So do the soakage pit after you've determined that the pipes are working properly. And the soakage pit they work quite well if you do them properly.
Okay, okay, thank you very much.
All the best, bye bye. It does emphasize the fact that ultimately, if you are a property owner like I am, like most people listening to the show probably are, you know, you are responsible for stormwater on your property. It's as
simple as that. And yeah, if you've got a catch pit that was or not a catchpit, sorry, a soakage pit or a soakhol that was done twenty thirty, forty fifty sixty years ago, and it was done in the traditional manner, which has dig a hole, throw some scorier in there, and then poke your stormwater pipe into that. They fill up, they get fill of set, they fill with sediment because there's nothing stopping the fines from infiltrating all of those gaps around the scorer. I've seen them
with old bricks and things like that. So the only solution, as far as I'm concerned, I'm happy to take a call from a drain layer, is you've got to dig it, out, line the pit with filter cloth, fill it full of scoria. I often put in some drainage coil in there just to create some volume that's not going to be compressed, and then take that filter cloth up, wrap it over the top, and then you can put top soil over that.
But what it means is that the fines the sediment doesn't filter in and fill up all of those voids, and you need those voids in order to cope with the storm water. That's how they work. And when you do them well, they are remarkably effective. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is the number. It is six forty six. Well, let's call it six forty seven. Actually, we'll be back after the break.
Whether you're painting the ceiling, fixing with feds, or wondering how to fix that hole in the wall. Give a feeder, wolf gap, call on eighty the resident builder on Youth dogs'd be.
Your news dogs, he'd be. If you've got a building question, it can be about building, it can be about the rules and the regulations. That's certainly but topical at the moment. Based on the Herald article that appeared on the front page to hold pretty much the whole front page yesterday about a villa where the villa owners have made some changes to the joinery at the front of the villa.
It's been brought to the attention of council, and council have issued an abatement notice basically telling them to remove what they've done, and I presume probably reinstate the original joinery and so on. But the way in which it was presented is that it was an issue that council had an issue with double glazing. Can I say again
council have no issue with double glazing. What they had an issue with is the substitution of timber frames with aluminium frames in that particular street in a very well known heritage area. So there might be some legs to that story. I think this week, oh, eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty is the number of call. Now someone's text through and said stormwater responsibility goes beyond your property as I understand it, to where it connects to the main storm water which might be under the road beyond youry. This could be a very busy road that requires traffic management digging up the road, which is an unbelievable cost in Auckland. How can this be council absolving itself of its responsibility. There's probably a bit more to that story.
I don't disagree with you, and I've been involved with developments whereby in order to connect to the public line, it's meant, you know, going out into the street or excavating across the road that it might be that the storm what happens to be on the other side of the road. Typically it's on both sides of the road, or it runs through the rear of the section. Yes, there is a lot of work that's involved there. Most of the time, it's when you choose to develop the property.
In the instance we were just talking with Christine about her existing property. Yes, if she if there's not a public stormwater line on her property or nearby, then yes, she may need she may want herself to go and connect to it. I don't I'd stand corrected, but I'm not aware of an instance where counsel would come to a homeowner and demand that they connect to stormwater if
they weren't delivering the stormwater to the boundary. In effect, unless you're developing, that's that's the really big you know, that's the thing that would change it quite considerably. Happy to take more calls and text on that. Also a quick question that came in earlier this morning. Pete looking at building a coastal garage. What are your thoughts of steel frame versus wooden frame? So sorry, garage at beach questions from Kylie, Well, hello, Kylie, thank you for texting.
Look my off the cuff remark would be in a coastal environment. What we know is timber doesn't rust, so there might well be an advantage to using timber for the construction, particularly if it's exposed to windblow and salts and that sort of thing. If you're lining both the inside and the outside, and you can protect the steel framing, and steel framing does have a galvanized coating on it, you might find that you'll you know, it'll be okay. Oh,
eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call. Hi, grab the call. Yeah, well not, let's do that. Let's walk quick call before the break, Dave, greetings to you.
Yeah, Hi, I live. I live on a high wind zone on the coast. And one of my neighbors' houses was built about twenty five years ago, and he's got a reasonably low pitched roof with trimline profile iron so it's got you know, the slight the up that's like corrugated. It seems that the wind the building paper has deteriorated over the years, and it seems that the wind is driving the rain up and over the gutter and through and it's rotting the boundary rafters behind the behind the bargeboard.
Yes, and I want to try and prevent.
That happening at my own place. I've got the same trimline profile. I know I can buy that close out foam profile foam to push in those voids. But I wonder then about the roof has no you know, it's nice to let air.
Yes, it restricts ventilation, doesn't it.
Yeah, so yeah, I've never I never realized that was a problem. Wind can blow the rain over the gutter and in that void, and it can actually once the building paper is deteriorated, which that old tar paper seem to do, it starts rotting the framing and behind there. Have you seen that before?
I have to say, I know what you're talking about, I haven't seen it, or if I have seen it, it's not that common, right. Typically what happens because what you're talking about there is the wind actually driving the rain over an open space, right, which requires a lot of rain and a lot of wind in order to
do that. Typically, what we see with wind driven or wind born rain is that it will land on a surface and then be pushed up and under a flashing, And if the flashing is not sealed, the water sits on the surface and is driven uphill by the wind. And sometimes if they haven't turned the sheet up or there's insufficient cover on the flashing, it'll travel up and then come in and drain back down and that's what
causes the leaking. So the fact that the end of the boards, I actually if you have a look, there's some pictures online if you search for sort of roofing detail around adding a flashing underneath the bottom edge, that might help. So have a look for that year. That actually makes quite a big difference, and that's why it's often recorded required now in the building code. So have a look at that in terms of best practice for roofing, particularly on low pitch, squeaky.
Door or squeaky floor.
Get the right advice from Peter Wolfcare, the resident builder on News talksbr.
The Talks heb we're talking all things building and construction here on the show this morning. As it happens, we've been doing this now for eleven years. I put a date in Madari going Hey, just a quick reminder, first show of this or the first episode, first showing, first broadcast of the show, was exactly eleven years ago today. So thanks for sticking with me, is all I can say. Thank you very much. Oh eight one hundred and eighty
ten eighty is the number to call. We had a brief comment earlier on and certainly, I was kind of happy to discuss it. The headline in yesterday's Herald was window ruling total idiocy. Stunned villa owner told new window double glazing is against heritage rules. A Mount Eden villa owner says it's total idioc that Auckland Council is demanding they remove double glazed windows from their house to comply with heritage rules, claiming the order is expensive and unnecessary.
The government is also seizing on the issue to show why it believes that planning laws need to be relaxed. However, Auckland Council and heritage protection groups say that the rules are needed to preserve the city's beautiful historic homes before they're lost forever. And then the article continues, it is front page of the Herald yesterday. I have a small
issue with it. Council are not objecting to the double glazing, so the headline stun villa owner told that new window double glazing is against herisge rawls is only part of the story. The issue that council might have in this particular instance, because the house is in a very well known heritage zone, is that the replacement of timber sashes with aluminium is what council would be objecting to double glazing.
Council have no objection to double glazing villa windows. I've done it on a number of projects over the years. It can be done sympathetically, it can be done in sympathy to the character of the home, and council have no objection to that. So it's not the double glazing, it's the aluminium frames. Maybe you'd like to make a comment. Eight hundred and eighty ten eighty is the number to call A couple of quick texts as well. Hey Pete
a few years ago. A few weeks ago you mentioned a place down south that does wood fires, good quality ones. I live in a home built in the early nineteen hundreds. I've got a fireplace in the kitchen, but it's now not fit for purpose. So I'm looking for a fireplace that looks a bit old worldy for my kitchen to replace that one needs to warm my home. It's not
just for locks. Thanks from Michelle. The company that I was talking about, and I've known about and worked with them over the years, but I actually had the opportunity to go and visit earlier this year is a sea which is ees ce A. They are based in Dunedin or just outside of the Dunedin CBD. And yeah, they will do fireplaces that will retro fit into your existing fireplace, so you've got options for wood, for gas, or even
for electric. They are not old ye worldy in your you know, they are a modern looking fireplace, but they are super effective, So have a look. Ces ce A is the one starting to get a couple of questions with regard to cross leases and the notion of having a cross lease title that might be defective. What does
that mean? Well, we're going to get an expert on the show in an hour's time, so just after eight o'clock Ben Thompson, who is a property lawyer and actually is pretty much an expert in the field of cross leases as an you know, addresses and speaks and presents to the Law Society on these sorts of issues. So Ben is going to join us after eight o'clock this morning.
If you've got any specific questions about cross leases and cross lease titles and this notion of you know, hey, what's a defective title, we can talk about that on the show this or you can ask questions send them through as a text and I'll put those two ben after aida clock another text. Any thoughts on skylights versus sola tubes for the interior we want to bring more natural lighting. I think they're two different things, and they
don't do the same job. They kind of do in the sense that it's a way of getting light into an interior of a building that maybe doesn't have a window, or because of orientation you want to have more light in there. But I wouldn't see them as the same thing.
I think they both have value. We have some version of a solar tube in our own house, so we've got a walk in wardrobe that's in the middle of the house, doesn't have any exterior windows, and because I wanted to have some sort of natural light in there rather than having to turn the light on every time you go in there, we've put a solar tuber. So what it does mean is that going there during the day and there is a reasonable level of light. It's about the equivalent I think maybe have a forty what
bulb or something like that. Skylights I think are quite different. They can be used to enhance the architecture. They can be used, you know, if you want to get late afternoon sun or early morning sun, or you've got a particular vista that you might enjoy out of there. While they do this sort of same thing, I think they are quite different and both are valuable in their own situation.
I wait hundred eighty ten eighty, getting some good texts on the cross lease questions, and I encourage you to flick those through and we will put those to our expert Ben Thompson, who is a lawyer specializing and susing property law, but is also quite well regarded in terms of his knowledge around cross lease's defective titles, what that means and how you might go about fixing them. I eight hundred eighty ten eighty text from Simon Pete. It's
just some window framing. Nobody cares. The busy bodies need to move on. The council should not be wasting time and resources on it. Either. Couldn't disagree more with your Simon with the greatest respect. I think that heritage areas deserve to be preserved. I think that people that own heritage houses need to be aware of kind of their
responsibility in terms of looking after them. And I think it is the sort of thing that council, if you're in the heritage area and you make some changes that are not sympathetic to the quality and the character of the building. I think council do. I mean, look, you'd hope that they don't spend an awful lot of time on it, but I think they should in this instance go. Actually, that's not what we want for our heritage areas, is
my opinion, my humble opinion. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty the number Steve, Good morning, Pete.
Can I Steve.
Hey, Pete.
Look, I'm an architectural designer and Aukland next builder, yep, And I just want to talk about the heritage buildings well. And also I call them the kit set homes of the early nineteen hundreds at.
Riddle Auckland, which they are.
Yeah, they're the kids at homes early nineteen hundreds. It's a different way thinking about it, isn't it. And they're all over the place. And I'd just like to pose a question too, that will these nineteen eighties houses that we see all on the place, of these ninety seventies tack year old homes, are they going to be heritage in another hundred years? But look, they're going to be classed because it seems to be time, isn't It classes things as heritage, even the most ugly, horrible things that
are falling apart around years now. You probably tell Pete, I'm not a big fan of them. I deal with them every day. I deal with the planners and council a lot of I do a lot of renovation extension work on villas, bunglis, getting plans through building consents, resource consent, and I see it all. Pete and a lot of people just don't realize the extent of the bureaucracy and Nazism. It's crazy. I mean we have been We've called these hells it's that are classed as heritage and character. They're
all over the place. There's hardly a house that doesn't have it now in central Auckland that doesn't.
Have hold on, hold on, hold on. Let's throw a little bit of analysis into this, right. Actually, I'm coding from the article where it talks about the Sally Hughes, who's the chairwoman of the Character Coalition. So special character areas represent two point five percent of Auckland's land area. So I don't know how many houses that equates too. But we're not talking a significant you know two point five percent of Auckland's good land area is here.
Yeah, could I say something really quickly, but yes, that's dead right. But do you know what? Do you know the area that occupies incredibly valuable central area that's going to be required for high density housing in the future. And we've got to understand that, Peter. I just want to say one thing. Have you been Have you been to Japan? Have you been to Cailgoi. It's this beautiful. You get off this train station in Cailgoi right in Tokyo,
and it's like going back in time. And they've dedicated this whole little area to traditional Japanese homes and it's credible. People go and walk around the weekend and it's like I said, it feels like you're back in the Samurai times. Now when you jump and then you jump on the train in the next crane station five kilometers up the road or supplicate is back to modern high density urban living. That and see that's practical, that's practically minded. Now I go up.
Hang on the mountain. Doesn't that go contrary to what you're just saying. You're saying that we need to use these areas of heritage homes for high density living. But you're saying over there they've protected that, and then a couple of kilometers down the road, Well that's what's happening. And in most main sence here.
Now, the point I want to get across feed is that we need to have one centralized area, pick out the carve out the best little niche area in Auckland. That's going to be your character heritage zones. The rest
allow it to be demo. Because we've got a broad region of central Auckland pretty much covered in character overlays and heritage, and all we need, all we need is a small about a little square meter square square kilometer right, a couple of square case whatever, but a small area of our best quality that people can go and look at if they want to see the heritage like a museum. We don't need to have vast areas of central Auckland
covered with character overlays. It's stymying progress. Made I deal that every day and I go to the top of Mount eden Hill and all I see when I look around me is a sea of corrugated roofs that look like shanty towns. And that's all they are. We've got. If we're going to look after the young people in this country and stops going away, We've got to get like your fanmate, because I'll tell you what, it's not
the money why they're leaving. They don't like you know that lady you were talking about who's just all out protecting heritage. It's those types of luddites that are driving this country backwards. Or an actual fact, if you stay with no progress, you go with backwards. If you stay where you are going backwards. And this is the thing we've got to get out of this mindset. These heritage I love to look at them, right, but I'll tell you what you know yourself when you get up close
to them. They are set homes. They're a diamond dozen. They're cold, they're drafty, they're rotted, and you know what when you have to put when you're dealing with these character overlay homes. Even people who want to put a little tiny the public aren't aware of this bureaucracy. And I'd like to see more To get onto this. You
know this yourself. You need to get a resource consent to put a tiny little bathroom window into the back of a house because you're breaching the exterior envelope of that house where no one can see this little window. It's going to cost you an extra five thousand dollars bureaucracy through resource consents before the build of even throwed in. It's crazy, it's crazy. If they're going to protect anything, just do this creet frontage, which I think.
Steve, you've had your rump and look, you and I could certain have a beer and discuss this for ours. I tend to be in the opposite camp to you. I think that protecting heritages is actually really important, not to the complete and utter detriment of development and so on. I think we do need to intensify and so on. I certainly wouldn't agree with you in the sense that
picking one spot. You know, there are different little heritage pockets all across Auckland, and I think you know you can't just go, hey, look we actually like Pons and and the rest of you be damned type thing. No, mate, Even then you'd say, well, let's pick a bit of Parnal, and let's pick a bit of bel Moral, and let's pick a bit of Mount Eden, let's put a bit of burken Head, and there's some lovely little heritage houses and how it can there's some nice old villas and
papakura and so on and so forth. So but I look, where we do have common ground I'm going to move on, is that I agree with you that I some people that I'm aware of did some alterations to heritage villa. It involved work at the back of the house. It was sympathetic to the original design. It couldn't be seen from the road front at all or the streetscape, which I think is what the protection should be about, is
protecting the streetscape right. And yet suddenly their building consent was held up and they needed to apply for a particular part of a resource consent to change some joinery, which I felt was a little bit pointless. Oh, eight hundred eighty ten eighty is thanks for you. Call Steve all the very best. If you've got a comment to make. Eight hundred eighty ten eighty is that number to call. It is twenty one minutes after seven.
Helping you get those DIY projects done right. The resident builder with Peter Wolfgat call eight hundred eighty ten eighty youth talk ZB.
Recently, I was made aware of a new product that you can use for roof coo so I wanted to find out more and on the line as Murray from Polymers International, tell us a little bit more about Injuris and the company behind it.
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stand behind the products that we import. We represented the manufacture of the Injuris roof coating with their other products for over twenty five years and have been promoting the Injuris roof coating product in New Zealand for the past two years. The manufacture of the Injuris is a company called Moment of Performance Materials, who are a Korean owned business who operate in over forty locations in twenty plus countries around the world and have more than five thousand employees.
So they're a substantial manufacturer I meta for our technology and innovation based business.
So Jurist has been out there for forty years. What's taken it so long? To get to Little Old New Zealand.
Well, it's pretty much they were sold out. They were producing only limited amount and they were sold out, and so they've only recently added some additional production capacity in Japan to allow them to now offer it throughout Southeast Asia right now.
What is Injuris roof coating.
Aland Juris Pete is the one hundred percent silicon roofing membrane. It was developed by g Silicons. That's the old g UP, sorry, the old General Electric from fifty years ago, and it's been used extensively in North and South America. So we have a lot of data and case study information that support the product, including UV resistance start going back over
thirty years. But one of the great things about in Juris is that we can offer up to a twenty five year warranty on the product depending on the game which is applied. Once it's applied, it forms a seamless membrane, stopping leaks and helps extend the life of virtually any type of reefing.
So if people want to buy Injuris, how do we find out more?
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You can probably first start with it our distributor shield Coat, New Zealand Limited. They are at seven Woodson Place, wire Our Valley, where you can give them a call on eight hundred one two three nine hundred. Or if you just want more information on the Injurius root coating product, you could visit the Silicon for Building dot com website and that's got a lot of case studies and information on the Injuris.
Appreciate the update and again that website, Silicon for Building dot Com.
Newstalks be.
I do feel that we could do like a whole session on the heritage houses. The texts are going nuts. This is awesome. Look I just and I'm sure I've said this before ad nauseam, and my apologies for repeating it. But like in my own instance, I actually live in an old house. I live in a we live in a nineteen five. I think villa fairly traditional villa. I've done lots of work on it that I hope is
sympathetic to the original builders where I live. In the last twenty odd years, almost all of my building work has been on heritage building. So I love them. I think I'm reasonably passionate about them, and I believe they should be protected and preserved as best we possibly can. Flip side to that, I guess, and it was pointed out by Steve, is that you know, they don't perform particularly well. In order to get them to perform in terms of their thermal and energy efficiency requires a lot
of input and often with some considerable compromise. So there are some challenges there. And then there are larger challenges in terms of social challenges around providing more affordable housing for more people, to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to get on the housing ladder, and to provide that
security for themselves. So I understand the complexity around the debate of you know, do we lock up large tracts of land into heritage houses or do we allow development in those areas in order to will it level the playing field. So there's lots and lots of issues. Some of the texts I'm not going to read out. But let me see who's this one from? If your number ends in one, three, seven, I appreciate the text, but
I'm not going to read that out. I would think if you're purchasing a heritage home, it's because you like the house as it is. You can get new wooden joinery double glazed and that will stay with the wood. Council wouldn't have an issue. You're absolutely right. This is off the Herald article yesterday. It's not about the double glazing. It's about the fact that they've ripped out the timber
sashes and replace them with aluminium. That's what has got council upset here here one hundred percent agree with Steve on the old heritage homes. Let's expand in New Zealand. Council heritage specialists is because they want to keep the house as it is. Yep, there is that. There's a couple of others. Let's expand in New Zealand heritage specialists, keep the divisions to ensure compliance. Let's keep New Zealand
like it used to be. I'm not sure text to sale of what Steve's saying makes good modern sense, says Lee. Shame on this buill demand shouldn't be allowed to touch heritage properties. Well, they need maintenance right and often they're not fit for purpose, and so typically we want to extend out the back. But I think there is a value in having streets where there is a cohesive look to the street, where heritage areas are protected. I think there is a benefit to the city as a whole
if we do something to continue to protect those areas. Anyway, we can open the lines on this. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty and Kevin, you've got some comments to make on heritage as well. Good Kevin, hi P. Hello, Yeah, very well.
Thank.
Good. Thanks.
I've just been driving for three hours. I'm just listening to you here. But hey, I agree with on the face of it, what Steve's talking about. I mean, I can't see why we can't shet aside an area and orkan say, or heritage homes. And one thing you haven't mentioned so far is if you've got a heritage listed house and you want to make some changes, it's very expensive.
It's okay for you being a builder, but for the average person who has one of these homes, I guess would be an added cost that they wouldn't have in a more modern home.
Except I counter that by saying that unless you happen to have occupied the house for let's say more than forty or fifty years, you will be aware when you purchase a property and a heritage area that there are restrictions around what you can do. And in fact, it might be the reason that you purchase because you like the area, you like the heritage elements. So you can't then buy a house knowing it's in a heritage area and then complain about the heritage rules.
Yes, no, I agree with that. But if we're moving forward and we need more housing in the central areas to bring more people into those areas, then maybe that's an alternative what Steve said into set aside an area.
And then again we are getting that. You look at most town centers and there's intensification. There would be some areas where there's going to be very little, but if you look at like the district plan and those sorts of things, and the intensification guidelines for most cities, you'll find that there's areas of intensification reasonably close to the CBD. So again that's already happening.
Yes, I know, but in those areas where there's a heritage listing that that that does put some restrictions on.
Of course it does, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyway, I appreciate the thought that the idea, the idea in Japan where they have an area where it shut aside. If you want to go and look at some heritage old heritage houses, go to that area and have a look the rest of it, the areas you can move forward and modernize and intensify.
Although you know, I'm just thinking about Auckland because that's obviously where I live and where I'm most familiar with. Is that, you know, if as a I don't know a council or even as they decided that that's the approach that they would take, it's going to be a pretty hard cell to go to one area where there's been long standing heritage protections. Hey, look by the way, we're sending in the bulldozers because down the road that's
where we've selected an area to remain intact. But you guys missed out, you know.
It's it's yeah, I do understand that, Pete. And there'll be obviously some problems with even going down that track, but it's it wasn't a bad idea.
And I think that.
You know, there is too many of you know, you get an old but.
Hold on again, it's two point five percent of the auckland Land area as heritage houses. Two point five percent. How is that too much?
Well, no, because it's all it's not concentrated in one area. If it was two point five in one area, fair enough, but it's all over Auckland.
So you've got these But.
Something that's two point five percent can't be all over Auckland, right, The maths don't stack up. If it's two point five percent, it means it's little bits here and there.
Yeah, but I think it's I think it's more concentrated in the in the central area.
There are more heritage protections. You're right, So places like you know, Pontsmbee, parts of gray len Mount, Eden, Devenport, so on and so forth have higher levels of protection than other areas. Yeah, appreciate the comment. I look, I think it's a great debate and we should be having it more and more. So I'm happy to give some time to it today on the show. Appreciate your time, Kevin, all the best. Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty. We'll talk to Bruce after the break.
God was but maybe called Pete first you work the Resident Builder news talk sai'd.
Be Someone has has text through and said, Hey, I think you're a bit blinked on this in terms of me. Yes, I am blinked in the sense that I'm passionate about heritage right, and I think that protecting it is actually
really really important. I would agree with Steve that I think sometimes council regulations around resource consents for heritage work are how can I put this nonsensical in the sense that one case that I will not case a situation that I was very aware of a little while ago where people were doing alteration, not even to the footprint of the building, but substituting one set of joinery for another and in fact making it more authentic than what
was there then required a specific letter from a planner around the resource consent and completely unnecessary as far as I was concerned. So look, I think that some of the regulation where potentially overregulated. Should we have heritage protections? In my opinion, yes we should. I wait dreen eight talking all things building though, Bruce, what's your question about tiling?
Oh?
Hello, yes, Well, first of all, Peach, I've interested to hear about the bungalows, a lot of the.
Billow type houses with olderations. We we built a house.
To aban bungalow design in twenty seventeen, and it was interested here that you mentioned the wooden slash windows.
Yes, effective for.
Insulation, but we went for aluminium to a design that we've been keeping with the bungelow because the aluminium is cheaper.
Sure, but it still works well.
I guess the double glazing. But maybe what might have.
Been better.
In terms of building science that if you do let's say heat transfer test, right, so you're testing the thermal efficiency of different types of material that you could use to make a window frame out of, then it's very clear which are less thermally conductive so more energy efficient to which you know, and there's a scale, right, So in this particular instance, just very specifically on this article this house that appeared on the front page of the
Herald yesterday, substituting I'm going to make a presumption, which is that the aluminium frames that they installed are classic what they'd call classic or standard aluminium frames as opposed to more modern thermally broken aluminium frames. The performance of the timber would have been higher than the modern aluminium that they've just installed. So you know, you've got to look at the components and the assembly and the methodology
in order to reach a conclusion. But I just want to you know, I did see that article yesterday and I thought to be blunt, I felt it was mislead in the sense that council don't have an objection to double glazing. They have an objection to the aluminium joinery and a heritage house. So let's be really clear. Yeah, now did you have another quick question comment?
Yes, in that same house, of course.
We two.
We've got tiles in the shower, in one of the showers and that's the join the ground has become discolored.
Yes, it still works. We'll discolored, especially.
Around the plug hole.
Yeah.
Sure built the tyler at the time the builder sectum because too many joins.
Right right, We've got another.
Tyler who who's who's quite Toompeton.
But the job was the damage has done.
But he's like he's like bake trails too, which but that's another story.
But they discoloration and I wonder.
I've tried to clean the grout.
Yeah, it's just a horrible you know, yes.
Apearing whether there's a sort of a filler that could to the flush for the surface.
Yes, Okay, A couple of options for you. One is that very carefully either you or you could get tiler to come and do it. Is to actually remove the grout, because you know, if you do that carefully because you've got to think you've got the thickness of the tile, which is probably going to be five to eight mil or something like that, so you could remove and then below that you'll have the tile adhesive, and then underneath
that you'll actually have the waterproofing. So if you're careful, you could remove the grout and redo the grout, and then I think on a shower floor you would use an epoxy grout, which is you know, will seal better against moisture in gress than standard simontitious grout. So that's an option. Take the grout out, replace it, and then
redo the silicon at the same time. Other option, which I've seen done is there are companies that specialize in cleaning and recoloring grout, where they will literally meticulously clean the area, dry it out, and then apply essentially like an epoxy paint over the top of the grout line to color the grout again and that will last quite well. So though those broadly speaking, are you two options pull it out, replace it, or have it colored. And the
company that I used years ago was grout Pro. I think they're around the country, so you might find Bruce that either of those two options will give you the result you want. But yeah, sometimes when it gets a bit old and discolored, it is really hard to look after. I hope that helps all the very best to you. We're going to talk to and after the.
Break doing other house storting the garden asked Pete for a hand the resident builder with Peter Wolfcap call eight eighty US Dogs V.
You and news talks'b. We're talking all things building construction, and we've talked a little bit about heritage, and we could have a lot of discussion around that, and I'd actually be really really happy to do that. Someone's text through and said, Hey, while I get that you like me personally, while you've got a the text is appreciate your passionate about heritage, but you haven't explained why. I'd like to hear that. Danny Gosh, that might take me
a little while to unpack. Look, I think that protecting something of your heritage, the history of where you live, is important. I mean, one of the things that I love about travel, and I love to travel is going to places where they have preserved something of their heritage.
The fact that I got to work when I was twenty years ago, I was working in France briefly on a house that's probably three hundred four hundred years in a village where behind the village was part of the aqueduct, that part of the water supply that went to the pont to guard that went on down to name. You know, So the only reason that you've still got heritage is if you keep protecting it. If every generation knocks down what the previous generation's done, then we won't have any heritage.
So on that level alone, I think it's important to preserve it. I also, you know, and this is where it is a challenging topic to talk about. We need growth, and we need better performing buildings, and we need more places for people to live that's affordable. So, you know,
do heritage protections prevent that. I'm not actually sure that it's a binary yes or no answer there, Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty then to call remember after the break after eight o'clock this morning, we're going to be joined by Ben Thompson, who is a lawyer, property
lawyer who specializes in cross leases. So if you've got a specific question about cross leases and maybe what's called a defective title, feel free to tax those through and we'll be discussing it with Ben Thompson after eight o'clock this morning.
Benjie, good morning, Good morning, Peter Harriett.
Very well, how can I help excellent?
So I live in meadow Bank. I've got a small house at seventy square meters, so there's a garage underneath. It's a nineteen fifties property. There's a garage underneath the kitchen, which I really need for storage solutions and also park in my car. It's had continual leaks and floods since I moved in. The private plumber and my house insurance people have both said it's a council issue. The council are dragging their heels. I've sent them all the pictures.
But I've also noticed that it's got considerably worse since the house opposite me, which is very large, has been having extensive building work done over the last six to eight months. So now the garage is completely unusable. I can't even stick my car in it, and I I don't know what to do because the councilor being slow is essentially a part of the home that I wouldn't have bought the home without that space, and I can't
use it. It's a mess, and I just don't know what else to do if the council continue to drag their heels. I'm also crossly, which I know you look it at later. And when my garage floods because I'm at the top of the hill in Meadowbank, it does apparently cause my neighbors problems, so they're not happy.
Either, right.
In terms of like we're the obviously when it rains, right, you've got the water that lands on your property, which is kind of your responsibility to control. But potentially you've got water that comes onto your property from adjacent properties or maybe even from the roadway. So what do you think is most likely?
Well, the house insurance people from the AA said that because of the water table, it looks like most of the water is coming from the road, right.
Okay, in which case, you know, you could make an argument that it is council's responsibility, through at or whoever, to ensure that the catch pits are right, that the curves are the right height, that the road shape doesn't
inadvertently direct water onto your property. And this happens, right, And I think it happens recently frequently because I've seen it in other properties where they were inundated during the recent floods and in previous floods, simply because the road design ends up directing excess water directly onto their property. But at the same time, it's kind of with the greatest respect, it feels like going to a really busy bakery in Europe, taking a sticker, you know, a ticket
and waiting in line. Because most councils, certainly Auckland Council, are just inundated with issues around flooding and stormwater control at the moment and trying to get for a year,
yeah exactly. And you know, while it would be nice if they could act faster, I suppose I have a little bit of sympathy in the sense that this is a really significant problem that Auckland Council and all councils probably are dealing with, and you know it's going to take a long time and some of these things, you know, this is why we start and see the buyback scheme, right, some of these areas are not going to be habitable in the future because of flooding. That doesn't help you
and so on. In terms of getting the attention of council. Maybe you do need to take what information you've got and the correspondence that you've had and go and see your local board member. I would suspect that right now they're particularly attentive because there's elections in a couple of months time, right so now is a great time to try and get the attention of a local community board member or your local counselor to get them to put
a little bit of pressure on. Sometimes with bureaucracy, I found that you've got to build a relationship with someone in the bureaucracy and then kind of, you know, hope that they then listen to your concerns essentially before they listen to concerns of somebody else.
I mind, I don't mind doing that at all. The only thing I'm concerned about is if it isn't a council problem and this is where I can't get from the moment, and I do need to pay for it because it's my responsibility, then I'll save the money and do it. I need that clarification first, because I don't want to pay for it if it won't be fixed because of the water table, and then I've just wasted my money. But I need a definitive Yeah.
I mean, look, you could go to an engineering firm that specialize in flooding and flood mitigation, and there's a few of those around and I'll leave you to do your own searching on that particular one, and heaven independent and assessment, and you know, someone experienced in this field. It might even be an experienced train lab for example, could come along and say, look, this is what I
think is happening, and here is a solution. We're going to, you know, introduce a swale or we're going to put in some channel grates at the top of the property which will capture the water. But then we've got an issue where the stormwater line won't handle that. So we're going to upgrade the storm water because we know that the council line further down will cope with it in most cases, or will create a situation where water is diverted away, you know, with planting or with a retaining
wall and something like that. So in the event that the storm water overwhelms the infrastructure, let's say the water is pushed away from the building. I went to a house yesterday actually to have a look at exactly that sort of issue. So yeah, there will be a solution. I wonder whether I think it's important to get expert advice. So I wonder whether if you ask around, maybe if you start with a drain layer who happens to work with like a drainage engineer, they might be able to come.
The other part of this is there is now a new sort of division within Council called Healthy Waters, and that's specifically looking at storm water right in a different circumstance. I've had some dealings with them. I've actually found them to be incredibly helpful, and so just have a look through the council website see if you can find Healthy Waters and go to them directly.
I will do.
Thanks, look, thank you, good luck with all of that. Take care all the ust think right out now. After the break, we are going to be talking about property, specifically cross lease titles. What are they, where did they come from? What happens if you find out that there's what they call a defective title on a cross lea's how do you fix it? What's involved in that? What types of things do you need to do to address that. We're going to talk about that with Ben Thompson after
eight o'clock. Remember, as always, we're into the garden with the climb passed from eight point thirty as well. He sent me a copy of the book that he's been involved in. It's fabulous, So we'll talk about that too. Back after the clock news.
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A b you were News Talk said, be Pete wolf Camp with you this morning. Remember at around eight thirty this morning, we'll jump into the garden with a climb past as always prior to then, and based off a phone call a couple of weeks ago, and over the eleven years now that I've been doing the show, questions around cross lease titles come up from time to time, particularly when the comes an issue somehow with the cross lease title, perhaps some building work that was done that
hasn't been included in the title. And then in the conversation a couple of weeks ago there was discussion around a defective title, which sounds kind of ominous. And some people I know who have been involved in the purchase of a property where the adjoining property it was on a cross lease, did some work, didn't update the flats plan. It all seemed to get really complicated and seemingly really expensive, really quickly. So I thought we should talk to an expert.
And as it happens, we've already talked to Ben on the show before, talking about property law. And it is my great pleasure to welcome back to the program Ben Thompson from Pidgeon Judge. And when I called you the other day and said, hey, do you know much about this? You went, I've just talked to the Law Society about it. So I can't think of a better person to ask questions about cross leases than Ben Thompson. Good morning, Hi Pe,
very well, very well. And yes, it was seemed fortuitously that I've got exactly the right person to talk to. So let's do a potted history of I guess land ownership in the sense that I guess for hundreds of years we've issued title to an individual to own and occupy a piece of land. Then we started with cross leases. Where did cross leases come from? And why were they even a good idea?
Yeah, well, they were invented in the nineteen sixties by a north Shore lawyer called Brian Mahn as a way
to sort of evade subdivision restrictions at the time. So the unique to New Zealand, and they're sort of primarily recreated, and there's sort of a bit of a time walk between the sixties through to the Resource Management Act in nineteen ninety one, because the legislation in that sort of twenty thirty year period did enable you to create cross these titles without having to go through the same steps
as you might ordinarily to subdivide the simple title. So the relatively popular there's about two hundred and sixteen thousand of them in New Zealand. About half of that are in Auckland. Obviously naturally they're in more intensive, more developed areas. So yeah, unique to New Zealand.
So for people who might not be familiar with it, I can recall sort of back in the heyday of the late eighties early nineties, where where everyone was having a go at subdivisions and there were or not subdivisions cross leases. There were lots of you know, thousand square meter sites, right, so you bought something on a thousand square meters it had an old bungle at the front.
You essentially went got a cross lease drawn up created a section at the back, you whacked on a new house at the back, and because you were the affected party, you could sign off on heightened relation to boundaries, all sorts of things. But the cross leases were really popular at that time as well. So can I assume from what you're saying is that it is not available anymore? So let's say you've got a thousand square meter site and you wanted to cross lease it. You can't.
Well you can, it's been found to be unavailable, but you just it's just been deemed a form of subdivision under the definitions and the resource management X. So the steps that you would have to go through to create a cross police title nowadays is almost the same as if you were just subdividing the title ordinarily into a fee simple title or creating a unit title. So the advantages that it provided in that period are no longer there because you could get away with not having to say,
for example, separate the services. So you're doing ass subdivision, you might not have to put in separate storm water, wastewater, drainage and so on down the driveway. You could have shared those resources because in effect, there was still one overall title. But yeah, like I said, in the early nineties, when moost legal changes came into place, the benefit of doing a cross leagues kind of evaporated. So it'll be
quite rare to create one these days. It probably has happened, but would be unusual.
Okay, So let's say you've got one, or you're interested in a property that is a cross leave situation. So again, if you're most familiar with Auckland, you know, you'll drive down a street, you'll see a bunch of nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies bricantile units. There might be two of them on with one driveway, there might be three, there might be four, and often they will be on a cross
lease title. Correct, fairly typical. So let's say you buy one and then you decide that, gosh, it to be really good to just make a little addition here, and maybe you get a building consent for it, and so you add you know, a little work area, or you extend the laundry out and that sort of thing. What's the responsibility in terms of updating the cross lease title.
Well, it depends on exactly what you're going to do. And all right, the specific nature of your cross leaves. But in a fact, when you've got that ties, you've leased to the external boundaries of the structure that was leased at debate the lease was registered, so whatever the original building was that the date the cross lease has created, you've only leased to the external boundaries of that. So
that might be that Brita and Tole unit. So if you want to put on an extra story or an extra sleepout or something like that, then you don't actually own the area or lease the area that exists beyond that. So by doing that, you are creating a defect in your title because the area that that new addition is occupying is not something that you've got a lease to. You may own underlying fee simple and share with the other owners, but you don't have any lease rights in
respect of that airspace or that area. So it's very important before you do that work to get the consent of your cross lease neighbors because virtually all cross leases will have a clause in there that says that you're not to undertake any structural alterations without getting the prior consent of the neighbor. So that's always going to be a good thing to get that consent to the neighbor.
Whether you actually have to update the title will depend exactly on the nature of the work you do, because.
You may not have to.
Just putting a deck on may not require it. But like an enclosed building that's attached to the to the lease structure, yes, you would need to update the title to give to give it sort of perfect that defect in.
Terms of asking permission. So the person that you need to let's say this, try and keep it a little bit simple. Let's say these two recontile units on a cross lease, there's A and B. B decides that they want to make an addition extend the living room out a little bit, and they go to A and say, this is our intention. Can we agree? Can A refuse to agree to a change to the cross leaves?
The clause that governs it is in most cross leads is going to say that they can't unreasonably withhold their consent, And as you can imagine, there's a lot of debate over the sort of past thirty forty years about what that means. What when can you reasonably hold and when
can you not reason? And reason we've hold. One of the issues across lease is the disputes are resolved by way of arbitration, which is a private form of dispute resolution, so there's not a huge amount of case law that's visible to the public to be able to understand what's
been decided. But fortunately there was a case that came around on this exact question in the last couple of years, Marcelli versus Leo, and effectively that has moved to the goalpost more in terms of allowing for development, because we were since the nineties, people's interpretation was well, if the works that they were proposing had more than a trifling detriment, that was the words used by the judge, then they
could they could withhold their consent. And what that meant that was quite a strict test because virtually everything we'd have more than a trifling detriment. But now since this recent case that we got a year or so ago, the test is a lot more I'd say a lot more fear. It's really along the lines of whether a reasonable lesson or a landlord would would agree to those works and would it i mean fundamentally injure their their interests.
So it's no longer a trifling detriment test. It's more of like you know, reasonableness, and it's going to be a fact specific, but it certainly means that they have to act reasonably. And part of acting reasonably means you're
going to have to provide reasons. So if you're going to say no, I'm not going to agree to that whatever the apartment B is proposing, a flat BEE is proposing, you're going to have to say, well, the reasons why I'm not agreeing at X y Z. And there might be things like it's going to interfere with my privacy obviously you're building an extra level or in affect my sunlight,
or some actual real reason. It can't just be because you know, you're just have a you know, general minor disliked for what the person that's proposing the works work
to you. So it's important to be reasoned. And if you're the person, like in your situation is a flat B and you get that feedback, it may be possible to you cater to that feedback to enable it might be sort of a back and forth type of situation, and I've certainly dealt with that with clients, where specifically with the sunlight one, you might then go to the architect and say, can you do some sun studies for me and actually project what the impact of these works
would have on the neighbor. Yes, and you might find out that the complaint or their issue actually isn't going to be effective. They might it might be something they think will happen, but in reality it's not going to have that level of impact. So there might be ways to address it. And I think that's the way to approach it is more of a conversation, getting feedback back and forth. Can you tweak it? Can you address those concerns?
And if you do that, it's going to be harder and harder for the sort of person in Flat A to actually ultimately hold out and not give their consent.
Does it become and I guess logically it does. Let's say these four units on a cross least title in order for A to do something, would they need the agreement of the c n D or just the adjacent property.
Yes, they would need it for all of them. They're all collectively termed the less ores, which is just legal worth for the landlords. Yea, all four of them are the landlords collectively. But if they are saying the design of the crosslease development is that there might be one house at the front and they sort of run in a row that four of them, which is quite a common layout actually on one long driveway one two, three, four yea well, and the one at the back is the one that's proposing to work.
Well.
Clearly, the two at the front they're not likely to ever really be impacted by whatever oposing at the back, so it'll be very difficult for them to withhold consent. The one immediately next to it, Okay, they might have genuine concerns about, you know, the increased size impact on like I say, sunlight, privacy, all that kind of stuff, whereas the ones at the front that they actually probably
don't have a reasonable basis which can withhold. So whilst their consent is needed, it could well be a bit of a formality in terms of yeah, but they all do need to consent to it.
Okay, we're going to take break and then when we come back on just talk about how do you fix a defective title. So Ben Thompson from Pigeon Judge is with me. We're talking about cross leases will be back after the break.
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Joining me this morning on the program has been Thompson, who is a property lawyer specializing in all things properly, but particularly cross leases as well. So Ben, actually, quick text, here's a classic sort of example. Can you check from a text text has come in, can you change a window to a ranch slider on a cross lease home? If you don't change the height or the width of the window, my builder says, it's okay.
Well, that specific example was what came about in the case where the trifling detriment wow train phraseology came it. It was on the North Shore and someone was basically they had existing war with normal windows and they wanted to converted to a ranch slider. The neighbor was wanting to refuse this consent because they say, well, now it's going to look out onto us, and we're going to have people coming and going, and it's going to be
noise and all the rest of it. I think the question is is, you know, does that perform a sort of structural functionality with the building, because remember you need to only get consent to structural alterations, so you need to determine whether it's structural or not. I tend to think if you are removing when I'm putting a round slider, it probably would be considered structural. So the safest thing to do would be to get the consent of the
cross loose neighbor. You're not going to have to update your title, You're not going to have to incur large amount of legal costs. You're just going to have to literally ask your neighbor to you mind and consent to it. I mean ideally you would get them to sign off and that in writing, so you can keep that with
your documents. When you sell the property, you can prove that you've got the consent to it, and that probably should be the end of the matter, because it's unlikely the neighbor could have reasonable grounds to object unless, for example, where you're doing it is exactly you know, overlooking them or something like that, so you're reorientating the outdoor living area of the house or something along those lines. But yeah, yeah, I would suggest you do get it in that situation.
Yeah.
Actually, just leading into the whole question around defective titles, here's another text. I purchased a property that had the addition of a deck. I got letters of approval from number two and number three prior to purchasing. However, both of those properties have now changed hands. So does it remain defective? Are the letters of approval not worth the paper they're written on. Please can you ask?
Well?
I can, so in that instance there does.
Well, yeah, well, decks aren't necessarily might be something that
requires the plan to be updated. So, and the reason for that is the standard sale and Purchase agreement that we all pretty much use when we're buying selling property in New Zealand has clauses around requisition of titles, and it talks about how if you've got a cross least title and there are additions to the title that are outside the least areas, there might be a requirement on the vendor to correct that for settlement and deposit a
new plan, which will be costly expensive and cause delay. However, they are they edited in a sort of qualification on that by saying alternations to the external dimensions of any lease structure, so will only mean alterations which are attached to the leaf structure and enclosed. So they have to
be attached and they have to be enclosed. So like an open car port, as long as it's on your exclusive use area, yes you need to consent to the neighbors, but you're not going to have to necessarily update the title. The same would apply to a deck, so you need to get that consent, but you don't necessarily have to
update the plan in this situation. From the text there, it's like, well, they've already got the consent from the landlords at the time it was done, and as long as they keep records of that, that's going to be sufficient, because any incoming purchaser is going to be bound by the decision that was taken prior to them coming onto the title, and in fact, they probably should have been disclosed to them by the former owner of the flat that they've bought.
That's an issue between them.
It doesn't concern you because you've already got your deck and it was approved at the time you put it in.
Okay, that's that's reasonlutely clear in terms of you know, if there is an issue and we're calling it a depictive title, the just or updating the title, what's involved there? Who's involved? Is it a surveyor is it legal? What's the process?
Yeah?
Both, so, I mean the surveyor is you know, in some of these guys they do a lot of this type of work and they're really quite helpful and you know, confirming exactly the process and what's required. Yes, But yeah, if say we've added on an extra bedroom. I mean before doing the work. You hopefully you've gone and got
the consent of the maylors before you've done that. And so once that work is complete and you've got your code of compliance certificate for doing it, you're then going to say to the surveyor, right, we now need to plot this on the flats plan. Surveyor is going to deposit a new flats plan that will depict that, and effectively, what we then have to do is surrender the existing lease. Because bear in mind I said earlier on how the lease is only to the external boundaries of the building
that the date is registered. So the old one no longer works. So you're going to have to deposit a new one or go to the external boundaries of this new defined area, and that will effectively create yourself a new title which gives ownership of all of those editions. The process of doing it, you're going to have to get the consent from the mortgagees not just of your title,
but all of the other cross leases. Again, it's more of a formality, but it is a step that you have to go through so that you know a little bit of legal costs involved.
With that.
Yeah, so it is it is.
Something to you know, take into account before you do
these types of works. But the process of updating the title, providing everyone's on board in it and there isn't a dispute about the works that you've done, it is, you know, fairly straightforward and so yeah, and add value to your property, of course, because clearly without that, when you go to sell your property, you're going to get yourself into a bit of trouble and you potentially might be ruling yourself out out of a pool of buyers because anyone's buying
with a mortgage that requires insurance and the rest of it, it's probably not able to buy across these title where there's unconsented additions that are to pick us on the flats plan.
Right.
So the advice, and this is general advice obviously, is if you are the owner or of a property that has cross lease and that's head work done with a flats plan hasn't been updated, you should really do that before you sell, because it's going to be more difficult to sell.
You need to front foot it.
So certainly, even just pick up the phone and talk to your lawyer or someone that's experienced these things beforehand and say oh, I've got this, and you know it might be the case you don't need to do anything, but if you do, then you need to allow yourself that clear window of time to be able to go
through the motion to get things perfected. So you don't want to be put in a situation where you go into auction and all this has come up all of a sudden, because all it's going to do is to press the price, because, like I say, if people are buying with mortgages, you're not going to be able to buy these things unless these things are tracted. So it's effectively ruling them ount of them, reducing the size of
the tool of purchases that can buy your property. So yeah, you want to get ahead of time and say so if you think you're selling next summer, you might sort of start thinking about it now and say, okay, what would need to be done if we need to do something, And then you know, when you go to the sale process, you know that you're all you know, these surprises aren't going to come up.
Yeah, it has opened a whole can of worms, which is not unexpected. So I think maybe if it's all right with you, we might get you back on and reasonably short notice to go through some of these individual texts that are coming in. I find it a fascinating thing. It's interesting your earlier comment around these are now less common, or in fact almost we don't use them any more as a way of doing subdivisions. We tend to just go subdivisions rather than cross Lea's.
Well, they are, they are less common. There certainly a lot of them.
There is a lot of them.
Sort of there's an element of a ticking time bomb to them because they're all created at that period of time, you know, most commonly the seventies safe for example, and buildings, as you know, only have a sort of finite lifespan. You know, even a well built building in that era may only be designed to last fifty years. So we're now approaching a time, you know, some fifty sixty years on where a lot of these buildings are perhaps no longer fit for purpose, if they haven't been repaired and
maintained well. It may no longer be economically viable to repair them anymore, and they may need to be demolished and rebuilt. Yes, in a Crossley situation is actually really quite difficult because you can potentially be constrained by the you know, the design and the footprint and the volume of what was there before, which clearly is not going to be economically possible to build the exact same building
again fifty years on. So there is even though we're not creating new prossly is the fact that there's over two hundred thousand of them and they're due to last for nine hundred ninety nine years means that the issues that we encounter with them aren't going to go away. So yeah, there will continue to be a sort of
hot topic of conversation. And government has previously considered whether they should be a conversion process to be simple or unit titles and a cost effective way of doing that, and the Law Commission recommended that in the sort of ut for you the late two thousands, and they drafted a bill to enable it, but it's never been adopted by any government yet. It's not really considered a sort of hot topic or a boat winner, but it's yeah,
the ideas there to potentially do that. We might get to a situation where that's required in the next you know, twenty years, I'm not sure, but.
Absolutely fascinating. Okay, So Caution is the important word here that you know, and one of those things. Don't ignore it. If there's something with the title that is defective or you've got concern, it's about talk to your lawyer. Make sure you get it sorted out, either before you sell or certainly before you buy something that might have a defective title.
Yeah, absolutely I could agree more with that.
Really appreciate your time, Thank you very much this morning, Ben Thompson from Pidgeon Judge. Really appreciate it. We will, if it's okay with you, get you back on the show fairly soon, I think. Much appreciated. Take care of bit, all the best. Yeah, there's there's so many questions about it, so I think we will will try and get Ben back and hit the text much earlier on. We'll do that right, let's jump into the garden. We're a little
bit behind time. My apologies. I'm sure he will forgive me because he did see me a book this week and we'll talk about that in just a moment.
Helping you get those DIY projects done right. The Resident Builder with Peter WOLFCAF call oh eight eight Youth Talk ZEDV for more from The Resident Builder with Peter wolfcaf Listen live to news Talk bok set b on Sunday Mornings from Sex, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio