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A multimillion-dollar Christchurch home is set to go to auction on Wednesday, August 19, after the owners won a lengthy battle to have a city council hazard notice removed from the property’s title.
Jocelyn and Roger Atkinson told OneRoof their years-long struggle started in 2011, when the earthquakes irreparably damaged their property at 12 Clifford Ave, Fendalton.
They rebuilt on the site, meeting all consent requirements, including installing 137 piles and a rib-raft engineered foundation. Despite this, the city council placed a section 73 hazard notice on the property’s title.
“We finally got to the end of all that (insurance) nonsense and as a condition of the final building consent, the council said, ‘we want you to agree to having a section 73 notice put on the title’. We didn’t agree,” Roger told OneRoof.
“But the council slapped the notice on anyway.”
The new home’s design and build followed the building consent exactly and was built 800mm higher than the old floor level, Roger said.
“At the time we said to the council, ‘what is the hazard you’re talking about?’ Because they assured us that the house was built to all the requirements. They said there was a hazard to the land. But no, they couldn’t tell us what the hazard was.
“They were using a formula which said that if the water level got above a certain level within a certain distance of the house, then it was automatically a hazard. And that’s pretty crude. Nobody’s ever visited the site. It was all done as a desktop exercise.”
Roger said they never had a problem with flooding in the 34 years they had lived at the property.
The hazard notice on the title sent their insurance premiums soaring, and also made the property more difficult to sell.
But then the couple read that a section 73 hazard notice had been removed from the title of Tauranga property following an intervention by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
The Atkinsons decided to go through the same process, and their own determination, released earlier this year, found that while the property was likely to be subject to flooding during a significant weather event, adequate measures had been put in place to protect the land and house from damage. It ruled that the hazard notice should not have been placed on the title.
It was a relief for the Atkinsons, who had future-proofed the home’s design so they could live the rest of their lives there.
However, their plans changed unexpectedly after they spotted a nearby apartment for sale. “We’re actually leaving reluctantly,” Roger said.
“Suddenly this opportunity came up which we weren’t expecting. An apartment down the road.”
Harcourts listing agent Marie Sherry told OneRoof the Clifford Ave property was a standout because new homes could no longer be built so close to the river.
“If you look from an aerial shot, there’s no other house that is as close to the river as theirs.
“When you’re standing in their living room, you look out past the deck, and the water is right there. It literally appears to be underneath the deck even though it’s not.”
Sherry said that the four-bedroom, three-bathroom home was designed by Sheppard & Rout Architects and brought the word “wow” to viewers’ mouths.
The property has an RV of $2.81 million.
City council head of building consents Steffan Thomas told OneRoof that the decision to place a notice on the title was “consistent with MBIE’s determinations and guidance at that time”.
“The assessment of whether the hazard would occur on the site is based on the predicted future flood levels and the ground levels provided by the owner’s designer. MBIE has since interpreted where a hazard notice is required differently, and this led to their recent determination decision.”