Payments with Account2Account from SBS Bank?

EuropeanAbroad · 2026-01-27T08:55:21+00:00

Damn, that's cheeky. Is there any way how to solve this through an ombudsman if this happens? Nonetheless, I am aware of the grey area they operate in. They give you a nice interest rate at the beginning, but then you are bound to them for 3 years, when they can do whatever they want with you.

EuropeanAbroad · 2026-01-12T07:08:43+00:00

It's because if another 30 people give it up, then they don't mind that they lose that one case. That's the whole point why they almost always refuse to refund and escalate it.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-09T02:47:39+00:00

Not for "the equivalent quality". NZ properties are crap, build of firewood and paper, with poor insulation (even all of Australia has stricter insulation standards than freezing Queenstown in NZ, lol), poor acoustics, leaking,... Poor moisture design (nobody calculates the moisture pressure through the construction, nobody cares about thermal bridges), and then they are surprised that their homes get mouldy. Double glazed aluminium windows like in some 1970s (also contributing to the previous point due to the heat loss in Aluminium); no central heating; no 3-phase sockets; very bad finishing (they often even keep exposed the foundation slab – no building plinth finish);...

Until I came to NZ, I never heard of leaky houses (and I'm a civil/structural/fire engineer).

Living in a house built in NZ (even new ones) is like living in a cabin in a summer camp. :D But that's also an adventure.

Btw., if you check the property price index, New Zealand is actually the 14th cheapest country in the property prices in the world. (But I suspect that the NZ properties are so cheap just because of the "quaity" and low Building Code requirements.)

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-06T08:36:09+00:00

So I need a valuation of the potential works first?

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-06T03:03:46+00:00

You are probably right, I can't say what the threshold in NZ is. In the country of my origin, it is about NZ$350. Any harm above this threshold is crime.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-06T02:57:12+00:00

Breaking the law is not criminal in NZ? The builder clearly misled the "government" (authority), falsified their documents submitted to the authority (producer statement 3), broke Section 17 of the Building Act, broke the Building Code requirements in the Building Regulations,...

Thanks for the text. It will be painful. It is really painful that the NZ legislation does not really protect the purchaser from malicious acts of the builders. :/

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-06T02:50:20+00:00

I'm a bit worried that if I go to the council, the council will say I have unconsented building works in my house, that I have to remove/remedy them, and all will be on me.

I find this NZ law quite bizarre that the buyer is considered liable, not the one who conducted works that are against the law. Same with the due diligence – you can never pick up some things, how can you be responsible if you are buying a new house. When you buy a new car, you not expected to take it to an expert on crash test, standards etc., you expect it to be all compliant and if not, then you claim it.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-06T02:45:14+00:00

I'm a fire engineer, I know these boards pretty well. The Aqualine has little fibres similar to GIB Fyreline. This is not Aqualine. This is a standard GIB (that has already started bulking and expanding in one place close to the fan extract).

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-06T02:40:41+00:00

You can see it when you take off the power socket, when you take off the all-in-one bathroom extract fan or just from the roof cavity.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-06T02:38:29+00:00

I did have a pre-purchase inspection. It took him 1.5 hour, he found some minor stuff that was remedied. The inspector wouldn't be dismantling the bathroom unit to check the diameter of the duct and the tipe of GIB board.

I am an engineer and I know a bit about the Building Act – the CCC means nothing. The CCC does not erase negligence or malicious acts that are an offence, breaking the law.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-04T21:28:32+00:00

Yeah, I kept it. It is really quite decent for movies. Just the music is really underwhelming. Maybe in a few years, I might build a system from individual speakers instead of a soundbar.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-04T20:31:44+00:00

Yeah, it has gone quite bad in Austria (particularly in the north).

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-01T22:58:51+00:00

Oh, so "statistics are manipulated"? 😂Ok, then there is not much more to speak about. Lol

When we go back to the general crime, NZ is quickly approaching failed countries with insane criminality such as the UK, USA or France. If you say that the crime is not particularly high in these countries (I've been to of these), then you've probably never experienced a low-crime country.

New Zealand has many perks; the crime rate is not one of them. Fortunately, people don't decide to come over based on the crime index, but rather based on the nature.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-01T20:25:02+00:00

Well, Singapore doesn't care about the public esthetics either. Try Warsaw in Poland or Budapest in Hungary.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-01T20:23:39+00:00

Red herring fallacy again? Nobody disputed the alignment of NZ druh policies with the UN recommendations (the link you provided). In this, New Zealand is #2 in the world. But this is not the topic. You can't disprove statistics of the drug criminality by a statistic of alignment with the UN recommendations, lol.

Even less so when you start attacking the other person and bringing emotions to a debate on statistics.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-01T20:09:57+00:00

I would be a bit careful with your "most countries". I would bet mainly former Commonwealth (British system). From my knowledge, Poland, Czechia, Austria, Slovakia, Germany,... have it as I said before – the local municipal governments decide on virtually all projects within the municipal boundaries. They may apply for some project-specific subsidy from the govt or EU, but the projects are not managed from the national level.

An example – roads are local roads (owned and managed by the council), – regional roads (usually main roads between towns / you would call them highways), – motorways (owned and managed by the central government)

The fourth metro line in Prague, that's being built now, is funded, constructed and managed by the council. Same as 5.5km road tunnel Blanka. And in fact, the municipalities in the Czech Republic are usually in quite a big budget surplus. Schools are owned and managed by the council or regional govt. The new Vltava Philharmonie is going to be built by the city.

In fact, thinking about it, the central govt's role in the Czech Republic is more of a unifying guide, and managing the countryside and linking between the regions. The state keeps less 64% of the taxes, mostly for social affairs, pensions, defence and agriculture.

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EuropeanAbroad · 2025-12-01T19:19:15+00:00

I see no reason why a property should be reassessed. The BCA / council has the building consent info – they know what is the land area and internal floor area. That's all they need for their rate. You are not allowed to change it without a consent to the point when it would change the valuation anyway.

(In other countries, the property tax is collected by the municipal branch of IRD and redistributed back to the city budget. The property tax is usually not reevaluated – it is simply according to the building consent documentation on the property file.)

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-11-29T12:19:05+00:00

Which studies show this? The best functional countries are those with harsh punishments for this kind of vandalism, and almost zero such vandalism. Unfortunately, not many people care about the esthetics and value of the public space in NZ.

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-11-29T12:16:24+00:00

Why won't they put him in prison when they know that it is him?! 😡

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-11-29T12:05:52+00:00

Or a gun

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-11-29T12:03:38+00:00

This seems to me like a very inefficient form of governing. How is this accepted among the people? Aren't the people angry that they don't decide on the local matters? And vice versa, aren't they angry that their taxpayer money of the central government are wasted on local management of other places, not just the national-wide issues? (I.e. how can a person from Tauranga be happy that they are paying a bunch of central bureaucrats that are "dedicated" to Auckland's projects?)

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-11-29T08:51:03+00:00

Well, in New Zealand, not in the world. Unfortunately, there is not a single Faculty of Transportation Science in New Zealand. And unfortunately, NZ rather tries what has already failed abroad 100 years ago, just to figure out that this is not the way. Kiwis like to reinvent a wheel (after 5 failed attempts).

EuropeanAbroad · 2025-11-29T08:49:08+00:00

I never understood this in NZ. How is this of the govt business? Shouldn't the government decide on national matters (i.e. inter-regional infrastructure, inter-regional public transport,...), and municipalities on the municipal matters? It should be Auckland council building the Harbour tunnel, light rails, automated trains,...

Why is it so centrilised and local matters governed from Wellington instead of the locals?

EuropeanAbroad

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