New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Topic

Demolition costs

Legal area

Court

18 Dec 2017

SOUTHERN RESPONSE EARTHQUAKE SERVICES LIMITED v SHIRLEY INVESTMENTS LIMITED [2017] NZHC 3190

Citation

[2017] NZHC 3190
Court

High Court

The High Court declared that for the buy another house option the insurer's cap is the notional cost of rebuilding the rental house on its present site excluding additional works that are expressly categorized as "cover for additional costs"; accordingly the buy another house cap includes the cost of rebuilding existing foundations but excludes additional foundation work required solely to satisfy current building code requirements (Enhanced Foundations) and excludes demolition costs unless those demolition costs are actually incurred by the insured and approved as additional costs; further t…
11 Jul 2013

AVONSIDE HOLDINGS LTD v SOUTHERN RESPONSE EARTHQUAKE SERVICES LTD [2013] NZHC 1433

Citation

[2013] NZHC 1433
Court

High Court

For the purpose of assessing the notional cost of rebuilding under the policy the court adopts a 10% builder's margin applied to the assessed cost including preliminary and general items, disallows any contingency allowance, allows professional fees of $29,000 as the appropriate necessary-fees allowance, excludes demolition and debris removal from the notional rebuild cost (they are additional cover), and allows $79,421.50 for external works by applying repair-or-replace pragmatism rather than full replacement in all cases.