Myrna Candelaria
We bought a 6 year old house January 2021. The house is a 2-storey 3 bedroom & 2 bath. There are two skylights in the house; one in the common bathroon on the second floor and the other is in the kitchen. The house was built by Platinum Homes (PH) so we’re expecting it to be of good quality. Prior to moving, we did a bldg inspection and no leak was detected since there was no rain during that time. We moved to the house on 25th Feb 2021 and started to change the wall from wall papers to a white paint. Our painter noticed one of the ceiling cornice of one of the bedroom which shares a wall of the common bathroom and suspect that there could have been a leak from there. True enough, after living for a few months with new painted walls and carpet, with heavy rain, the house started to leak to the bedroom flowing inside the wall and wetting the new carpet. We have contacted PH about the issue since we’re aware of the implied house warranty. They fixed the issue and again it leaked. This time, the water flows to the common bathroom and it’s confirmed coming from the skylight. We again informed them and fixed it again. Fast forward to Dec 2022, while my husband and I were overseas for holiday, we asked our friend to look after our house. She notified us that there were water on the floor right underneath the kitchen skylight. When we get back here in NZ we did not notify PH immediately since we don’t have a photo evidence to show them until the rain last Friday. We have emailed again PH about the issue and they replied with a promising schedule for assessment. However, during the three days of rain, the ceiling had started to discolour and the paints peeling and bubbling. We tried to contact PH again to follow up and a different person responded to us. Telling us that the fault was outside of the scope of the bldg code and telling us that since the skylight did not leak for 8 years, the remedial should be covered by our insurance. This person who replied to us is the same person who responded to us when we just moved in and noticed that the external wall of the house had some cracks and also told us that it was not covered by them. We believed that Platinum Homes should be fixing this issue given that all the houses in the block (4 houses) have had skylight issues before and therefore the skylights was poorly installed. By the way, prior to moving to this house, it was rented out so I don’t expect the previous tenants to take care of the house like we do now (since we bought it).