Wednesday, December 21, 2011

We were in court a couple of weeks ago and finally it seemed that the Judge realized just how much of a crock this case is. The summary of accounts still had not been done and the index of evidence had not been received. In addition he asked the question as to How HNZ had laid the charges without having first done the summary of accounts and if they just laid the charges in the hope that we were going to plead guilty.

He made an order for the documents to be produced and stated that if these were not provided he would be open to a request from us to have the charges dismissed.

Today we had the a hearing to see if this had happened and, 2 days ago we received the summary of accounts however I have not yet seen them so have no idea what they/it is. In addition we have been informed that they can not provide the index of evidence as there is none. Now we have the summary of accounts we can move forward and have a forensic accountant look at the figures.

We asked for time to do this however the Judge stated that a fixture of 4 days has all ready been set and that this was not going to be changed. We have 2 months to deal with this and I am quite concerned that this will not be enough time. However from their summation in court the figures are pretty dismal.. Given that we know HNZ are trying to get a conviction their figures are going to be based in favor of a conviction. The prosecutor in summary told the judge that the income derived over this time was $43K. that's a combined income.... 3 kids, 2 adults. the figures my accountant has come up with differ from this greatly however even working on these figures and recalculating the income based on their figures their total claim is not correct.

We have also received a claim against us from Baycorp for 81K as HNZ have now lodged the debit regardless of the fact this has not been to court. Oh and yes the person who lodged the claim with baycorp was our wonderful ex tenancy manager who kicked this whole vexatious thing off Katrina O'Conner.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Drunk on power

It just goes to show that all though we are comparing apples with houses the fact remains that when you give someone the power there is the chance they will abuse it as is our opinion that our old tenancy manager Katrina O'Conner has adopted a similar view and has not qualms about abusing the powers she has been entrusted with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VFygR_-wBsc

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Baycorp

Well we just received a call from Baycorp today. It appears that HNZ have lodged what they are claiming the income related debit is. and yes this was lodged by our then tenancy manager Katrina O'conner.

The matter has still not been to court.

I'm pretty sure this election year neither of the larger parties are getting my vote as both have made promises to look at this matter and neither have done anything about it.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

So its now a Political Issue?

You really have to wonder what politicians do to actually earn their money. Stating the obvious and making generalized statements seems to be the norm these days.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10742704

So OK, HNZ have busted some people but there are also a pile of people in those figures that are being victimized by the powers these guys are wielding. So when Phil and his cronies make erroneous accusations they should be open to prosecution.

But sadly this is not the case, they can make whatever claims they like and if they get it wrong they don't seem to even have to supply an apology or make amends.

Monday, June 27, 2011

I was shocked to see this.



http://nz.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/25753816/

It seems to me that these guys just dont get it, It is all well and good for the haves to pass judgement on the havenot's and to try and shove people in to their own little category but that is not the way the real world works.

I do not deny there are some instances where people are abusing the system but from what we have seen and experanced there are more HNZ and SOE workers who are milking the government not to mention contractors who seem to be charging and putting in claims for work that either has not been done correctly or charges that have been balooned and are unreasonably excessive.

How about HNZ fix its internal strcuture first and make sure your staff adhere to the correct process and proceedure then look at your tennants. A problem exists and unless you deal with that problem at the core you are wasting time and valued resources not to mention putting the New Zealand people who you are supposed to be serving under undue stress.

And before any HNZ Associate or employee tries to take a swipe about unfounded allegations as I have previously stated I have evidence that shows your processes have not been followed on more than one account not to mention the other evidence where your staff have breached their duties and made false claim (including in court and while under oath).

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Draging the chain

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

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

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

Sunday, April 17, 2011

HNZ and the Ministers Mandate

So maybe someone can explain to me why an organisation has had a mandate set down by the crown but they can modify this mandate and create their own meaning, even worse the minister who is supposed to keep an eye on things can ignore the blatant disregard for what the crown has set down.


The crown formed HNZ and gave it the following functions.

 Functions of Corporation
  • (1) The Corporation's principal function is to achieve its objectives.
    (2) The Corporation's functions include—
    • (a) providing rental housing, principally for those who need it most:
    • (b) providing appropriate accommodation, including housing, for community organisations (in particular for community organisations that provide residential support services for people with special needs):
    • (c) lending for housing purposes, and providing other help relating to housing:
    • (d) giving people (in particular people on low or modest incomes who wish to own their own homes) help and advice on matters relating to housing or services related to housing:
    • (e) undertaking housing and other development and renewal, whether on its own account or on behalf of other persons:
    • (f) acquiring and developing land for housing or other development and renewal, whether by—
      • (i) providing housing amenities, facilities, services, or works; or
      • (ii) providing commercial or industrial amenities, facilities, services, or works; or
      • (iii) providing related amenities, facilities, services, or works; or
      • (iv) doing any other thing:
    • (g) selling, leasing, disposing of, managing, or otherwise dealing with land, whether in the course of housing or other development and renewal or otherwise:
    • (h) providing housing or services related to housing as agent for departments of State or Crown entities:
    • (i) taking action, in relation to or in connection with the provision of housing or services related to housing, provided for in—
      • (i) the Corporation's current statement of intent; or
    • (j) conducting research into, and monitoring trends in, housing and services related to housing:
    • (k) advising the Minister of Housing on housing and services related to housing:
    • (l) any other functions conferred on it by this Act or any other enactment.
    (3) In performing any of its functions, the Corporation may consult any person or organisation whose views or knowledge it believes will enhance its performance of the function.
    (4) Subsection (2) does not limit subsection (1).
    Section 18 was substituted, as from 1 July 2001, by section 7 Housing Corporation Amendment Act 2001 (2001 No 37).
And on the HNZ website we find this:

The Corporation's formal mandate The Corporation is a Crown entity. The Housing Corporation Act 1974 sets out the Corporation's objectives and functions as follows8:
  1. to give effect to the Crown's social objectives by providing housing, and services related to housing, in a businesslike manner, and to that end to be an organisation that:
    1. exhibits a sense of social responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which it operates; and
    2. exhibits a sense of environmental responsibility by having regard to the environmental implications of its operations; and
    3. operates with good financial oversight and stewardship, and efficiently and effectively manages its assets and liabilities and the Crown's investment; and
  2. to ensure that the Minister of Housing receives appropriate policy advice, other advice, and information, on housing and services related to housing
 I can see how some of this can be interpreted and the act could be elaborated on, but then we see statements from both the Minister and HNZ claiming they are just acting as a landlord.
A clear case of this is the statement in the following article.
http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10719873&ref=rss

The case has been described as illustrating Housing New Zealand's new direction - a focus on managing houses rather than housing people.
But Minister Phil Heatley has demanded it is to"get back to core business which is tenancy management".

Is Mr Heatly really that far out of touch or has he just not read the act? Or is my interpretation flawed.
And now we also see that Government is also trying to sneak in an amendment to the legislation and, although it is online, I have not seen any other publicity about it and it is going to affect a lot of people.

In the case the herald has reported on it appears their reason for evicting the tenant was that he supposedly assaulted a neighbour. The question I have to ask is were criminal charges laid and pursued, and if not their actions are unreasonable. We have had something similar in our case where we have been evicted before prosecuted and given that HNZ were the ones who laid the charges in the first place and only follow a complaint we made to the tenancy tribunal and minister are really nothing more that an attempt to cause our family more stress.

The crown really needs to look in to how this organisation is conducting itself as it is causing more problems than it is fixing. It seems to be a haven for the power hungry who enjoy abusing their position and pushing people about.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Court Proceedings

Yesterday my wife and I were in court regarding our appeal on the Adjudicators ruling that resulted in HNZ not having to pay for repairs we had done to the house, causing damage to our property and in our view misleading the adjudicator.

Given that HNZ have laid criminal charges against us we felt that as there is evidence that would be beneficial to us in the criminal matter rather than bringing this information to light in the civil matter we would vacate these proceedings and deal with it at a later date once the criminal matters are resolved.

The Judged hit us for $300.00 costs and had we known that we would be liable for costs we would not have done this however as we have tried to get legal assistance and to date not been able to we were none the wiser.

However while waiting out side the court rooms our ex tenancy manager meet with another person who I believe to be a tenancy manager from another region. They proceeded to discuss the cases they were working on including various matters that were completely unrelated to this appearance such as what my wife and I believe was information about our criminal case. Keep in mind that this discussion is going on within a public area and at one stage was taken out side in the courtyard.

From their conversation I was able to ascertain that the other tenancy manager was there for one of her tenants. I later managed to catch up with this tenant and had a discussion with them about their case. I found there to be quite a number of similarities in the way our cases had been handled and the attitude of HNZ to run in guns blazing as I feel they have done in our case with little regard for the facts or the procedure that has been set down for them to follow.

Unfortunately the lady we meet with has not been able to get legal representation to assist her and has also been evicted from her house. I do not know the full story behind her case and have my own problems to deal with but there was enough there to reinforce the view I currently hold of HNZ and their so called procedure.

I have spoken to the office of the Privacy Commissioner and have confirmed with them that the conversation that took place outside of the court rooms may be another breach in the privacy act but given that HNZ has not been held accountable for their previous breach I wonder if its even worth wasting my time and making another complaint.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Victimised

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, February 14, 2011

Who not to vote for

Well after our dealings with government its pretty easy to make this decision, our local candidate is Jame-Lee Ross and last week my wife and I had the opportunity to have a brief encounter with him. He was on the street campaigning with Hon Maurice Williamson who we have also had discussions with about our HNZ issues and who undertook to assist us giving me his guarantees however shortly after his involvement we were hit with the investigation and eviction.

We put several questions to Mr Ross and to be honest he was pretty shifty then stated we could speak to him later when he was elected and had the power to do something.

Now I have lived in this area for most of my life and have never really followed the local politics other than had a few aquantances who have been involved over the years but all i can say is Why on Earth would we elect people who have no idea as to what it is like to be an average Kiwi?

My wifes first comment when we meet Mr Lee was that he came across as a silver spoon boy and a quick review of his acheivments as well as schooling seems to confirm these views. Holds a Pilots Licence, Went to Dilworth School...

Someone needs to make a rule that before you are allowed to represent New Zealand and its people you need to have at the very least rubbed shoulders with us and know what its like to be an average joe.

Who will we vote for? as yet I have not seen anyone who in our view would be suitable however so far the only people who have actually taken the time to review our situation and to even visit and make comment on the substandard house we were being forced to live in were Labour candidates.
In addition the only peope who seem to be asking and answering some of the hard questions again are Labour Candidiates.

An email that was sent to several National MP's seems to have just been ignored and a previous query to nationals minister of housing came back pretty much stating that he had spoken to HNZ and was happy with their response to questions regardless of us having provided evidence showing that their response was full of lies.

NOTE: I stand corrected. Dilworth is apparently not a silverspoon school and from what has been pointed out things have changed a lot over the years. Now apparently you have to come from a broken family or come from "struggle street" to attend.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Equal Opportunities

Well there has been a few developments of late, however until we get to court I am a little reluctant to release some of the info as, although it's likely to be pretty embarrassing to HNZ I would rather not release it for HNZ to cook up an excuse for their actions.

However something that may interest the public is that it is a well known fact that we had tried to build a small business in order to try and get ourselves out of the hole we were in and into a self sufficient situation and that, as a result of a large council reneging on an agreement, we were left with a business that was not viable and was only just covering its costs.

We have also bore the brunt of some abusive trollers via this blog and been accused of all sorts of things, however the fact remains that out family is not well of and we are not making ends meet as we had hoped to after moving out of the substandard accomidation we've had, for the last 10 years, been forced to live in.

After we moved out, however, it appears that HNZ have now repaired the various issues we complained about and put a nice family into the house. They own a really flash late model holden and an exceptionally flash Harley Davidson.

Meanwhile we struggle to keep out heads above water. It looks like the boys will have to give up scouts as we are having problems even getting together enough money for their school stationary let alone other bills. Some may say how about getting child support and the other assistance, however have you ever tried getting this assistance when your already on the end of a government agenceis big stick.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Letter from Director of Government Relations Housing New Zealand

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

27 January 2011
Dear Mr Hooper

Thank you for your email of31 December2010toDrLesleyMcTurk,Chief Executive of
Housing New Zealand Corporation, about issues relating to the termination of your
tenancy at 353 Bucklands Beach Road, Bucklands Beach. Dr McTurk has asked me to
reply to your email, and I have looked into the matters that you raise.

In your email you say that Corporation staff have lied under oath, and that your tenancy
was terminated on the basis of incorrect information. However, I have looked into your
allegations and have found no evidence to support them. The Corporation made the
decision to end your tenancy and commence criminal proceedings after an investigation
found that you had failed to declare the true extent of your income while claiming an
 
You claim to have investigated however you have not contacted our accountants to ascertain what the correct figures were, You have not contacted witnesses who will testify that the damage you claim was done to the house existed prior to us moving in and you have not contacted us to ascertain what parts of the court transcripts show that your staff lied. It seems to me that looking in to the matter was nothing more than asking your own staff internally so therefore it could hardly be seen as unbias and fair.
In New Zealand we follow the Napoleonic Code and more importantly the Code of Criminal Instruction to which a person is presumed innocent until found guilty by a court of law however it appears that not just in our case but others Housing New Zealand feels they have the power to be Judge Jury and Executioner based on whatever information they feel like and without ensuring the correctness of that information.
In your email you also say that Corporation staff have breached the Privacy Act by
refusing to supply you with information that you requested about your tenancy. I
understand that you were provided with this information on 20 January 2011. It may be
helpful if I explain that your original request of 3 November 2010 was understood to be a
request for disclosure under the Criminal Disclosure Act, and was met on 9 November

This to me sounds more like an excuse than anything else, regardless of what we were asking for there is no reason HNZ had to withhold our tenancy information and even to this day they have failed to provide all of this information. Again this is not an isolated incident and we are well aware of others being refused their information.
You also say that the Corporation has charged you for the cost of repairing damage and removing rubbish that you are not responsible for. I can confirm, however, that the charges of $1,430.29 relate only to the cost of repairing damage and removing rubbish relating to the period of your tenancy. This work was required to bring the property to an acceptable standard for re-Ietting. Corporation records show that the property was tidy and in good condition before your tenancy commenced in November 2000.

If these records you claim show the property was tidy and in good condition when it was let are in existence then why have they not been supplied to us as per the request for information under the privacy act? further it is quite clear that the windows you have replaced were all broken when we moved in as I had to repair them myself and covered them over with lexan. This was brought up with our tenancy manager when we first moved in.

 
Finally, you say in your email that the Corporation has not resolved the problem with water ponding under the house, and has not repaired the remaining defects in the window frames. You may be interested to know that this work has been completed.

This may be the case now but given that while we were in the house the problems were not resolved and given that the photos we have are clearly dated as well as independent witnesses viewed the flooding after the work was completed brings in to question your organisations integrity.
I trust that this information is helpful to you. If you have any further concerns, I invite you to contact Peter Lauina, Housing Services Manager at the Otahuhu Neighbourhood Unit, on (09) 261 5502.

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

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Privacey Matters

Finally HNZ have released some of the information under the privacy act regarding our tenancy and I say some as there is a lot of information that has been withheld, the fact that some of the information provided actually refers to other information that has not been provided makes it pretty clear that Housing New Zealand is not playing by the rules.

We allready have a complaint in with the Privacy Commissioner and they are investigating this matter along with Housing New Zealands claims that they do not have to provide this information under the criminal disclosure act.

Fact is that disclosure is disclosure and I'm pretty sure this act is not a mechanism to be abused by government organisation so as to allow them to refuse to make available information that could paint them in a bad light. Such actions are really just an abuse of power and process.

Also keep in mind that the criminal matters are based on our alleged failure to provide HNZ with our earnings details and as such according to HNZ obtained  lower rent based on the rental assessment. This matter has nothing to do with out tenancy and HNZ's investigations team have reiterated this fact several times so there for information regarding our tenancy should be available.

When discussing the matter with the office of the privacy commissioner I asked them how would they know if HNZ was with holding information and they informed me they rely on HNZ's honesty.