The fallout from Queenstown’s leaky Oaks Shores complex continues, with its body corporate forced to take legal action against an apartment owner who’s refused to pay his share of remediation costs.
A High Court judgment released last week confirms Singapore-based business executive Jeffrey Carvell owes just over $640,000 in unpaid special levies, interest and other costs.
Body corporate chair Graeme Kruger says the special levies allow Oaks Shores’ 70-plus owners to fund the costs of rebuilding the complex, as well as its leaky building claim against Queenstown’s council.
The owners had to take action against Carvell because he’s refused to pay up, Kruger says.
‘‘It’s a large sum of money, and effectively other owners have been having to cover that.
‘‘We’ve exhausted a number of avenues to reach him, through his legal representatives, his bank, through whichever means, we’ve gone beyond the call of duty for a constructive outcome in his favour.’’
The body corporate success fully applied for a summary judgment on August 25, a process by which a court can decide on a claim, without a trial, where a defendant has no arguable defence.
Unless Carvell appeals, the body corporate will sell Carvell’s apartment, Kruger says.
He’ll receive any funds remaining after his bank recovers its loan and the body corporate’s debt is satisfied.
Carvell couldn’t be reached for comment.
The 84-unit lakeside complex below Frankton Road, completed only 16 years ago, has a litany of weathertightness and other building defects.
Remediation work’s underway on the second of its four blocks.
It was developed by Invercargill-based Ross Wensley, whose companies have since been declared insolvent, forcing Oaks Shores’ apartment owners to pursue a $163 million claim against the council, as the body that issued the building consents, and about a dozen other parties.
Unless the claim’s settled by mediation, it’ll go to the High Court in February.
