New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Topic

External works

Legal area

Court

1 Oct 2014

AVONSIDE HOLDINGS LIMITED V SOUTHERN RESPONSE EARTHQUAKE SERVICES LIMITED CA520/2013 [2014] NZCA 483

Citation

[2014] NZCA 483
Court

Court of Appeal

The Court held that the notional rebuild cost for the 'buy another house' option must reflect the costs that would be incurred if the property were actually rebuilt on the same site, including reasonable contingency allowances and professional fees; however, external works that can be repaired to an 'as new' condition may be valued at repair cost when calculating the insurer's cap, and the High Court decision on external works was confirmed.
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.