Local couple in real estate dispute
Paul Cruden negotiates the four-wheel-drive-only ford in the 500metre-long road leading to the building site he and his wife eventually established. The creek is subject to regular flooding. Photo: Neil Wilson.
Karen and Paul Cruden are in dispute with Golden Bay First National. In 2009 they bought a property that turned out to be very different from they had been led to expect and, as a result, lodged a complaint against the agent who sold it to them, Roger Handisides.
The Complaints Assessment Committee of the Real Estate Agents Authority found Mr Handisides guilty of “unsatisfactory conduct”. He appealed that decision and lost. Last week the Crudens wrote to The GB Weekly to clarify their situation for the community and to warn prospective buyers and sellers to be vigilant. The paper gave Nick Hodgkinson, the principal of Golden Bay First National, the right to respond. The Crudens now say that Mr Hodgkinson’s response has clouded the issue.
“Mr Hodgkinson’s reply to our letter did nothing to clarify the situation,” said Mrs Cruden. “Here are the important facts: Mr Handisides wasn’t censured by the Real Estate Agents Authority, he was found guilty of ‘unsatisfactory conduct’. He appealed that decision and he lost. The real estate agents’ disciplinary tribunal who heard his appeal said that the way Mr Handisides advertised the property was ‘misleading’. He led us to believe that the non-permitted hut was on the property we were buying, but it’s not. The ‘level, two-acre building site with good access’ referred to in the advert turned out not to exist either. The tribunal also said in their decision that they found our evidence to be more reliable than Mr Handisides’.
“The law governing real estate agents’ conduct changed very soon after we bought the property so the tribunal couldn’t award us any compensation, but this is what they said: ‘If we had been able to award compensation then we would have considered very carefully an application by the Crudens for compensation related to the cost of gaining access to the building site that they eventually established.’”
Unable to build on the site indicated in the advertising, the Crudens have eventually built a house on another site, which they had to excavate on the other side of a creek on their property. When the creek floods, as it regularly does, the Crudens have no access to their home. The new building site is up a 500m-long road which they had to excavate and it cost the Crudens a lot more to build there.
“We think it’s misleading of Mr Hodgkinson to talk about old surveys and boundary-defining marks in his response to our letter, when his profession’s disciplinary body has twice decided that Mr Handisides is guilty of unsatisfactory conduct,” Mrs Cruden added.
In the words of the Complaints Assessment Committee ruling, Mr Handisides’ conduct in this matter “falls short of what a reasonable member of the public is entitled to expect from a reasonably competent licensee” and the body that dismissed Mr Handisides’ appeal ruled that his name should be published.
Asked to respond to the Crudens’ comments about the misleading advertising and the way that the property was described to them, Mr Hodgkinson said:
“The issue is over a boundary that the vendor told the agent about and the agent then told the Crudens. The matter is currently with our insurance company and we have no wish to comment further.”
The Crudens have lodged a statement of claim with First National but they have had no response yet.
Neil Wilson
