Cadex Finance Ltd director Darren Crisp was ordered to pay damages for his company’s failure to properly weathertight Queenstown’s Alta Apartments built in 2007.
Queenstown Lakes District Council sued after paying $1.3 million settling its liability to Alta Apartment owners for negligence in wrongly issuing a code compliance certificate. Having paid up, Queenstown Lakes claimed from directors of head contractor Rilean Construction (South Island) Ltd and from Darren Crisp as director of Cadex Finance, the company responsible for apartment construction. Rilean Construction directors settled out of court. The amount paid remains confidential. In ‘leaky building’ claims, it is common for councils to pay twenty per cent, contractors 80 per cent. On this formula, directors of Rilean Construction and Cadex collectively would be in the gun for some one million dollars. Terms of the agreed settlement between Rilean Construction directors and Queenstown Lakes included specific agreement for Council to go after Darren Crisp for his share.
With legal action filed, Mr Crisp left for Australia. The High Court was told Mr Crisp has been bankrupted in Australia. An Australian bankruptcy is no bar to legal action in New Zealand or to creditor claims against any New Zealand assets Mr Crisp may have.
Justice Gendall ruled Mr Crisp liable to pay Queenstown Lakes. The amount he has to pay was supressed in the publicly issued court judgment.
Mr Crisp was liable for his company’s failure to properly weathertight Alta Apartments because he had complete control over steps that prejudiced Alta owners: he had the architect backdate her practical completion certificate for the build despite known weathertightness issues (allowing apartment titles to be issued and triggering buyers liability to pay); he negotiated the release of retentions totalling $50,000 (withheld to ensure weathertightness remedial work would be carried out) without then having the work done. The architect had signed off on completion, subject to specified remedial work being done.
Queenstown Lakes District Council v. Crisp – High Court (29.08.19)
19.157