Having your home burn down the day you move in would be bad enough, but then having the fire damage uncover shoddy earthquake repair work created a whole new dilemma for Georgia Scott and her family.



When Georgia Scott talks about the terrifying moment her family escaped the fire that destroyed their Christchurch home just hours after they moved in, she smiles politely but her shaking hands tell a different story.

That night she and her partner scooped up their "two babies" in their arms and ran for their lives as flames licked at their backs.

"It started in a faulty heat lamp in the bathroom," she explains. "My partner, Mike [Rodgers] raised the alarm. We were lucky to escape with our lives."

DAVID WALKER/STUFF Mike Rodgers (left) and Georgia Scott (far right), are stuck in insurance limbo and living in the sleep-out behind their quake and fire damaged home. They are with their children Sienna, 3, and Finn, 5.

Looking back, she says she naively thought the fire would be the worst thing the family would face.

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But the fire revealed botched earthquake repairs to the home's foundations which ignited a repair war with the Earthquake Commission (EQC).

It is not a war Scott wants to fight.

EQC has admitted to the family that it is at fault but still refuses to help.

Scott is speaking about her family's dire situation because she wants to be a voice for others in similar circumstances.

DAVID WALKER/STUFF Georgia Scott donned a hard hat to walk through her fire-destroyed Heathcote Valley house.

Scott, Rodgers and their two young children, Sienna, 3, and Finn, 5, have been living in a backyard sleepout for more than eight months. The main view from their cold sleepout is of their uninhabitable and dangerous Heathcote Valley house.

She's living in a war zone but instead of bullets, the young mum finds herself wounded by "human beings who have the power to do the right thing but who are deliberately choosing not to".

Scott says she is especially wounded by the apparent blatant disregard for her family's health and safety.

DAVID WALKER/STUFF An aerial shot shows fire damage to the family's roof, fallen concrete tiles, and the white sleepout where they now live, right next to the house.

Last week the family made a desperate plea to the EQC for help when, unable to continue to afford to pay for safety fencing around the home, giant chunks of concrete were falling from its roof.

"We go up and down there, with the children and the dog, out to school and kindy. There are big chunks of it falling off and we've had two near-miss accidents. We've got 8 tonnes of concrete up on that roof, and it's very unsafe."

The community rallied and security fencing has since been donated.

How did the Scott-Rodgers get to this point?

The couple, who met at pre-school in Britain and fell in love with New Zealand as backpackers, had been toying with leaving post-earthquake Christchurch when the family-friendly Heathcote community changed their minds.

"We ended up going for a swim in the school pool with some friends, the kids loved it and that was it, we decided to give Christchurch another go," Scott says.

ALDEN WILLIAMS/STUFF Georgia Scott and Mike Rodgers in their Heathcote Valley earthquake and fire damaged home.

The property has a spectacular view of the Port Hills and is just a 15-minute drive from the central business district, which worked well with the family's plastering business.

Because the property had a house and a sleepout, it also fitted in perfectly with their plans for Scott's retired parents to emigrate.

"The idea was that we'd have the house and they'd have the sleepout so that we could all be together."

Before buying their "forever home", they had a building surveyor from a reputable property check company undertake a check. It passed. They commissioned a building report, ensured the quake repairs had been signed off and had the previous owner's claims reassigned to them.

"Mike's a plasterer, we are in the building industry," she says. "We did all the checks and more."

The family moved into their Heathcote Valley property on March 30, 2016. A fire broke out a few hours after they moved in. Fifteen months later they have not spent one night in their home and Scott is losing hope they ever will.

"It sounds mad but I'd just come back from buying smoke alarms when the fire started," Scott says. "The kids were in bed and there were boxes everywhere. I didn't want to go to sleep before we'd installed the smoke alarms … then the fire started in a heat lamp in the bathroom. A fire investigator tracked the model of the heat lamp down and it had been recalled 16 years prior to the event."

Settling the fire claim with IAG was not easy but with legal support, the claim was eventually settled.

However, as part of the fire claim, investigations on the house revealed some major problems with the rubble foundations – earthquake damage.

STACY SQUIRES/STUFF Georgia Scott and Mike Rodgers inspect damage the day after their house burned on the day they moved in.

An engineering report commissioned by EQC in December 2016 showed that work that should have been completed to repair earthquake damage, had not been done as originally scoped in 2011.

When you call EQC customer services on 0800 Damage, you will be told that you must lodge an OIA request. It was such a call that started Scott's large and meticulously-detailed and chronologically dated file of correspondence with EQC. She lodged the OIA and was shocked by what she read when she received it.

The file clearly showed assessments and damage scopes related to damage foundations with initial costings of several hundreds of thousands of dollars, reduced to "epoxy cracked foundations", which is what was done.

"The cost allocated by EQC to repair the cracks went from several hundreds of thousands of dollars down to just $90 plus GST," she says.

There is no paperwork showing why or how the assessment, which showed a broken and damaged foundation costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair to "as new", as per the EQC Act, was reduced to just $90 of epoxy crack repair.

DEALING WITH EQC A FULL-TIME JOB

In the sleepout on a cold Christchurch morning, the heatpump battles the stiff frost outside.

Georgia sits next to another woman who is also fighting a similar battle with EQC, comparing notes. They sip tea and discuss their relative insurance claims and responses from EQC and private insurers. It feels like another language.

To speak EQC you must recall specific dates and times. You must remember the name of the person from EQC you spoke to a year ago. You must recall, and be able to prove, word-for-word what they said.

To an outsider not embroiled in it, the jargon and legal nuances of EQC and insurance red-tape can be confusing and meaningless.

For an idea of how much fighting EQC has taken over the family's lives, the Scott-Rodgers' plastering business once employed five people. To cope with the level of attention the war with EQC requires, they've had to scale back their business and focus "everything" on getting the family home habitable.

"We went from five staff to now, which is just me, Mike and a part-time worker," she says. "Dealing with EQC is now a full-time job."

In the couple's case there was no private insurer claim on the property so there is no deed of assignment which transfers the claim from the previous owner to them, the new owners.

Many home buyers aren't aware that private insurers don't have to accept deeds of assignment, unless the three parties – vendor, purchaser and insurer – have signed the transfer.

Without the insurer's signature which, typically is rarely (if ever) gained, there's no legal obligation for a private insurer to honour a deed of assignment.

Both EQC and private insurer IAG have refused to pay for the earthquake repairs, despite evidence both made mistakes over the original insurance claim and a recorded admission from EQC that they are at fault.

For more than three months after the fire, the couple lived in a tent on the property.

It wasn't until the day before Christmas eve 2016, Georgia says that IAG "finally settled the fire claim".

However, neither EQC or insurer IAG will fund the cost of earthquake repairs needed and the fire damage cannot be fixed until the foundations are replaced.

EQC has acknowledged it got the repairs wrong, but having paid up to the $100,000 legal cap, say any more payments were in the private insurer's hands.

On January 4, EQC confirmed the claim was now over cap and required a costed scope of works for settlement. In March, EQC paid the cap payment of $111,000 plus GST.

The couple worked to make the sleepout habitable and moved themselves in with their two children top and tailing in one bed.

Scott says she thought things were looking up when the couple and their lawyer Andrew Hooker met with EQC in May this year.

At the meeting a senior EQC manager agreed that EQC had stuffed up, that EQC had caused the loss and that it was their mistake. He then said EQC would not be paying.

"It's simply unbelievable," she says. "If that was any other business which had caused a problem and acted in that manner, the authorities would come down on them hard."

The couple's lawyer, Andrew Hooker, has previously said the family are being bullied by EQC.

"Most people with a bad repair at least still have a house to live in. This family have lost their home and their business. EQC have totally and utterly botched it, and acknowledged it was entirely their fault."

He says that EQC is wrong to claim that its liability is limited to the $100,000 cap by legislation.

"That's rubbish. This is nothing to do with the EQC legislation. They botched the repair... EQC was negligent. By breaching their duty of care, they have caused losses to Georgia and Mike. These people have been wronged."

In June, EQC customer and claims general manager Trish Keith said she recognised the couple's frustration and was sorry if they felt they were not treated well.

She said EQC tried to give them as much information as they could and apologised for not responding on time.

Scott, who worked in sales at The Press until the February 22, 2011 earthquake, says she wouldn't normally be the person to open up to media about her family's situation. She hates the thought of people perceiving her family as seeking handouts or appearing to be "whingers or persistent complainers".

But she and her family are stressed and exhausted and she is speaking out because she wants to stand up for "what is right and just and good".

Whenever she mentions EQC, her hands shake a little bit and her warm, polite demeanour visibly changes to that of a person living with trauma.

"How do the people in charge at EQC sleep at night?" she wonders. It's not a malicious comment, but a genuine query. She invited IAG to Christmas dinner once so they could see what she and her family were dealing with but no-one came.

"Do they ever lie awake worrying about how cold we are? I assume they just sleep well in their warm homes, counting money."

Sadly, the couple are not the only ones faced with this situation. There could be hundreds or even thousands of people who bought so-called repaired houses in good faith and who now have houses with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage that needs repairing to reinstate the equity in their biggest asset.

"We are in the building industry and it happened to us," she says. "I hate to think how many people will be affected."

In an email to EQC, Scott appealed for mercy.

"Although the fire damage claim has been settled, because of EQC's accepted negligence, we are unable to progress works due to the shortfall in costs which you are fully aware of. We are living in a very small space causing constant sickness for both us and our children," she wrote.

"Everything we own is in a container on the neighbour's property, We are no longer able to pay for this either and are relying on other people's kindness and goodwill while we file proceedings against EQC and wait for a court hearing. With two near miss accidents of falling concrete roof tiles since removing the safety fencing a week ago we would like to invite EQC to reconsider and in addition look to fund alternative accommodation that provides a healthy living space, storage for our possessions well as a safe environment for my family to live while we work through the nightmare you have openly created ... the remedial repairs required to fix our house is a direct result of EQC's negligence which you have all agreed with multiple times. EQC have created the repair strategy and costed the scope of works and for us, we are not disputing any of that. EQC has also paid our experts during this process. We are simply asking you to pay the shortfall that you have identified through your own investigations and experts, so we can move on."



In Christchurch, everyone has an earthquake story to tell in some form.

"What makes our case different," Scott says, "is that EQC have admitted it was all their fault but they are not doing anything about it. I think it's hard for people outside of Christchurch to understand what's happening here. They just think we are whinging about nothing. They just don't understand the scandal of what is happening here."

From the sleepout the family are now living in, she stares out a window at the falling down house they once dreamed would be the scene of happy family times.

She may well be the most positive person I have ever met living in such circumstances.

Breezily she talks about wiping the condensation from the ceiling of the sleepout each morning before her two children are awake. It's bitterly cold in the mornings, she admits, but the heatpump does help a little.

A kind woman who has read about the family's situation has loaned them a dehumidifier.

"The community has been so supportive," she says. "But we are not asking for handouts. EQC have admitted to us that the fault lies with them, now we want them to fix it."

Five-year-old Finn, who loves cars and dinosaurs, has bad asthma and Scott is suffering from allergies.

"I had to apologise to the doctor because we've been going there so much," she says with forced lightness.

The couple have decorated their cramped quarters beautifully with possessions rescued and cleaned after the fire.

There's a table and chairs, a comfortable couch and modern artwork which gives the place a homely air but even at 10am on what passes for a sunny morning in a Christchurch winter, it's cold.

No matter where you look, the view is of shattered dreams – the home they bought 15 months ago but have never spent a night in.

"The only thing living in our house now is birds," Scott says.



She says she copes by actively finding positive moments even in the bleakest of situations.

Scott is warm, caring and pleasant.

"There's something about EQC that brings out a different side of me," she says. "I want to raise my voice, I want to demand that they see sense and have human decency but I don't shout."

In the silence of the shattered home, she quietly admits that at 3am, when the children are fast asleep, she has a cry.



"I keep thinking that one day someone at EQC or IAG is going to wake up and say 'ah, we've been horrible to this family who did nothing wrong, we must fix it immediately – we can't have little kids living this way'," she says.

"I have to believe that will happen eventually."

