Apartment owners in the Nautilus in Orewa, Auckland, have won the the biggest leaky home settlement seen in New Zealand.

Owners of a North Auckland apartment tower have been awarded more than $25 million for their defective leaky building.

Significant weather-tightness issues were identified at the Nautilus in Orewa in a report from specialist building and quantity surveyors and valuers, Prendos, in October 2008 - less than five years after the complex was opened.

The body corporate and 150 owners of the 12-level block have been locked in a legal battle with various parties since.

Justice Murray Gilbert has just released his decision following a six-week trial in the High Court at Auckland which ended in September last year. The $25.07m is understood to be the largest amount awarded to leaky building owners in the country.

The decision against the Auckland Council, which inherited the issue from the former Rodney District Council, and other parties, means ratepayers will have to foot the bill.

The council can then seek to recover part of the money back from other parties involved.

In 2008 those parties included builders Brookfield Multiplex Construction (NZ), Walker Architects, Downer EDI Works (discontinued), Facade Technologies, tiling specialists Charles Norager and Sons, and Bostik, makers of sealants and adhesives, and Zurich Insurance.

But Brookfield Multiplex Construction, Walker Architects and Facade Technologies have since liquidated and an agreement was reached with Downer during the trial.

The claim against Bostik was abandoned during the trial, leaving the council and Charles Norager and Sons as the only solvent defendants.

Justice Gilbert found all parties contributed to various defects which occurred from start to finish in the building of the complex.

But overall he found that the Auckland Council was liable to address most of them.

Centurion Management Services body corporate chief executive officer Steve Plummer said it was very satisfying to see justice after a decade.

He praised apartment owners for sticking together through the long, frustrating process.

The decision was a step in the right direction but there is still a lot of work to be done and consents would now be sought from the council to begin the remediation process, he said.

"I think for owners it's a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel.

"At the moment they still have a leaky building and it will take a while for it to be remediated," Plummer said.

"There'll be another whole raft of challenges, but at least they have got the resouces now to meet those challenges and get through to the other side."