The ripple effect of the leaky building saga: Impact on New Zealand common law and directors’ liability, and growth area for ADR?
New Zealand’s leaky building epidemic has been catastrophic, with an unprecedented level of claims running through the court system, often making their way to our highest courts. The wide-ranging legal issues arising from the saga have been tested, settled… and then, tested again, as has the capacity of the Court system itself.
Some of the key developments in New Zealand have been finding directors personally liable; the extension of duties owed by territorial authorities to residential and commercial owners; the examination of tort and contractual causes of action; joint and several liability of all parties involved in construction; the appropriate measure of damages and deductions for contributory negligence; and when time starts (and stops) running on claims.
The law continues to develop with current cases testing the duty of care owed by product suppliers.
The sheer number of leaky building claims have at times crippled Court capacity. While limitation has curbed this somewhat, the area remains ripe for ADR intervention.
In this webinar, Janine Stewart and Kate Muldrew (MinterEllisonRuddWatts) will discuss:
How the leaky building epidemic has shaped New Zealand common law and directors’ liability, and how this compares to other jurisdictions – specifically, the United Kingdom which has not experienced such a large-scale defective building epidemic and does not have equivalent territorial authority liability, and Canada which faced a leaky condo crisis throughout the 1980s; and
Whether there is opportunity to better utilise alternative dispute resolution forums in latent defect cases.
Date: Wednesday 29 September
Time: 4-6pm
Venue: Online
Cost: $19 incl GST.
AMINZ CPD: 2 points in Category 3 - Attendance at Dispute Resolution Event
