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The customer had a dispute with Southern Response over earthquake repairs for their home in Christchurch.
A Christchurch engineer has been fined $1,750 and ordered to pay more than $9,000 in fees for writing “substandard” reports on an earthquake-damaged home.
But the engineer cannot be named as he appealed the decision of the Engineering New Zealand Disciplinary Committee and his name was dropped and the fine was reduced to $1750 for $3,500.
The engineer was hired to review reports from Southern Response to help resolve a dispute over the work needed to repair an earthquake-damaged property in Christchurch. He was also asked to provide construction engineering advice as part of his client’s Supreme Court filing.
The Disciplinary Committee found its reports “substandard and unfit for purpose”.
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“We believe the reports were inadequate for an engineer hired to provide their expert opinion and failed to provide it” [his] customer with the necessary information and advice”, according to the committee.
The mechanic acted as an expert witness during an insurance claim from the client from 2013 to 2016.
The customer complained in December 2017 that the engineer had “issued several reports that the complainant found to be useless and without specificity.”
CHECKPOINT/RNZ
Earthquake Commission chief executive Sid Miller says the agency is unable to lead a future repair program. (Video first published in September 2020)
“The complainant also said: [the engineer] communicated with him unprofessionally, delayed their proceedings before the Supreme Court and acted outside of his jurisdiction by providing geotechnical advice,” the decision said.
The customer also complained that the engineer “didn’t treat” [them] with respect and courtesy by being blunt, hard to get hold of and ignoring requests.”
The engineer wrote four reports, with multiple iterations for three of them.
“With so many revisions to his reports issued, we don’t understand why [the engineer] identified no changes between revisions to its reports. His comment that they could be compared by placing them side by side would not be helpful to a client,” the committee said.
The engineer also provided geotechnical advice, which was outside his area of competence as a structural engineer, and did not explicitly advise his client to seek advice from a geotechnical engineer, the committee said.
The committee ordered the engineer censored as a chartered professional engineer and admonished as a member of Engineering New Zealand.