(Personal opinion only as a member of the general public generated with the help of ChatGPT)

For over two decades, New Zealand has lived with the fallout of the leaky homes crisis. Thousands of families have endured the financial, emotional, and physical toll of defective buildings—many of them constructed during a period of regulatory naivety and commercial greed.

But while the rot in our walls rightly drew public outrage, far less scrutiny has been given to the rot in the system that emerged to “fix” it. A lucrative remediation industry, led by firms like Prendos, has quietly profited off the misfortune of others—positioning themselves as saviours while entrenching a model that disempowers homeowners, enriches consultants, and feeds off red tape.

A Brief History of a Preventable Disaster

The leaky homes epidemic traces its roots to the 1990s and early 2000s—an era marked by deregulation, cost-cutting, and aesthetic trends poorly suited to New Zealand’s wet climate.

Key players like BRANZ approved materials and systems such as Harditex direct-fixed cladding, while local councils issued building consents without robust inspection regimes. Meanwhile, the central government’s own regulatory body (then the BIA) failed to enforce building codes that could have prevented systemic failure.

The outcome? Thousands of homes—many built by developers who later vanished into the ether—were plagued by water ingress, rot, and structural decay.

Then Came the Consultants

Into this chaos stepped a new cast of characters: “weathertightness experts,” building surveyors, and remediation consultants who saw an opportunity not just to help—but to build entire businesses off the back of regulatory failure.

Among them, Prendos emerged as one of the most high-profile. Leveraging the media spotlight and their perceived technical credibility, they quickly became a go-to name for remediation work, expert testimony, and risk assessments.

But their business model wasn’t just about solving problems. It was about managing compliance, navigating red tape, and prescribing extensive (and expensive) solutions that often required full-scale recladding, engineered interventions, and council signoff.

In other words: they embedded themselves into a process that was systemically over-engineered—and profited from its every turn.

Homeowners Stripped of Agency

Before the crisis, a homeowner discovering cladding failure might choose to patch, partially reclad, or manage repairs independently. Today? That choice is gone.

• Council building consents, even for minor remediation.
• Consultants’ reports that can cost tens of thousands.
• Over-spec’d remediation plans meant to meet modern code—not just address actual damage.
• Insurance stigma and resale penalties, even after repair.

Rather than empowering homeowners to make informed decisions about the level of remediation they need, the current regime locks them into consultant-led pathways that siphon equity and control.

And the irony? The same firms that helped create the bureaucratic maze are the ones now charging to lead homeowners through it.

A Manufactured Crisis of Compliance

This is no longer just a building problem. It’s a compliance racket.

Risk is exaggerated, liability paranoia reigns, and remediation is treated not as a spectrum of options—but as a one-size-fits-all engineering exercise.

Even modest leaks or isolated damage often result in demands for full reclads. Councils, terrified of liability, rarely sign off on simpler repairs. Insurers and banks add pressure, demanding documentation that drives up consulting fees.

At every step, someone profits—and it’s never the homeowner.

Prendos and the Myth of the White Knight

Let’s be blunt: Prendos and others like them didn’t fix the leaky homes crisis. They monetised it.

Their image as independent experts masks a reality in which they have helped shape and sustain a system of costly, disempowering remediation. They didn’t create the original leaks, but they certainly benefited from the fallout—and played a role in making the repair process more onerous than it ever needed to be.

That’s not expertise. That’s regulatory capture.

Who Pays? You Already Know

The developers and builders? Many walked away.

The councils? Often fought homeowners in court or capped their contributions.

The government? Set up schemes that covered only a fraction of actual costs, and then washed its hands of the deeper structural failures.

That left homeowners—ordinary New Zealanders who bought homes in good faith—to shoulder not just the repair bills, but the legal costs, the emotional stress, and the bureaucratic labyrinth that followed.

They were failed once by shoddy construction. And then again by a remediation system designed to serve itself.

A Call to Fix the Fixers

It’s time to stop pretending this is just about leaky homes. It’s about leaky ethics, leaky systems, and leaky accountability.

We need urgent reform, including:

• Restoring homeowner agency: Allow partial repairs without requiring full modern code compliance.
• Auditing and capping consultant fees.
• Breaking consultant monopolies by allowing more market competition.
• Holding central government accountable for its past failure and present inaction.

This isn’t just a call for fairness. It’s a call to end a system that continues to punish the innocent and reward the entrenched.

Because the real scandal isn’t that homes leaked. It’s that we let an industry rise from the ruins—and charge us for the privilege of escaping it.