Earthquake fix-it payouts - how does this work?

Am trying to make sense of the coverage of the last two days, so if anyone can clarify...

So the EQC pays out (direct to the owner) the first $100,000 towards fix ups.

The insurance companies have to come to the party with the remainder.

The total cost that both these combined have to cover is the cost of the land remediation AND rebuilding the homes.

Who is paying for the time that those folk will have to spend living elsewhere while this work gets done?

What happens if the remediation work for a section costs more to complete than the EQC estimates, especially once contractors get involved and do their own pricings...?

And how is the govt/council/EQC going to ensure that the remediation work in particular is done to the standard required and that houses aren't rebuilt on land where the work hasn't been properly completed (am thinking here of reports of leaky home cases where owners took the dosh for settlements and then sold the houses without doing the work to fix the problem properly or sold the property 'as is'...)

Seems a lot of uncertainties still there and feel very sorry for the landowners trying to work their way through all this...

I think I read the other day that Fletcher Building have been appointed by EQC to co-ordinate all the repairs over $100,000. Hopefully that means they will control repair standards, co-ordinate construction crews etc. I imagine (hope) that this would mean, for example, sending a roofing crew to work along a row of houses at once - much more efficient than each house / job doing their own thing.

We can but hope...

Tigger, your concerns are VERY justified.

What I feel will happen is that many people will spend their $100 000 on a holiday, new car or booze or whatever and not to fix up their homes as they will get the money paid out as cash.

No specifics have been floated yet in regard to the remedial work to land that needs to be done. The only thing I've read was that when a single parcel of land needs to be fixed it will be very costly and will take a long time as larger areas will have priority. This leads me to conclude that they will flatten whole neighbourhoods, stabilize the land (which involves removing the top soil, digging trenches to fill with more stable material, then adding shingle or similar plus cover again with top soil. You can imagine that this is easier to do if whole neighbourhoods are flattened.

A friend of mine lives in such a neighbourhood. She has a 50 year old lemon tree which is really really big and VERY productive plus a huge pear tree of similar age. She also has organised her garden in a permaculture paradise which was a labour of love. I think the hearts of such people will sink when they hear what is going to happen.

The time frame for this is 2 years. During this time they have to live somewhere else. No insurance will pay for the alternative accommodation. They have the 100 000 Dollars in the bank. It is anyone's guess what will happen during these 2 years.

Once the remedial work has been done they'll get their land back - a bare section with nothing on it. Most insurances don't cover driveways and fences - we didn't take out insurance for that, it is not normally part of the policy.

It will be hard for older folks (like my friend) who have worked all their lives to build up their retirement paradise and will have to start from scratch.

I also imagine that any repairs and building will have to meet the standards of the Building Act, and thus be inspected and issued with a code of compliance, as any building or renovation would. And I imagine that these standards will include earthquake protection and structural requirements for areas subject to liquifaction.

I got the impression from a couple of people who are/will have to rent that the EQC will/are paying the rent for their alternative accommodation.

I also read somewhere (but can't remember the exact details) that the money will be held by the mortgager (ie the bank who owns the mortgage) so it can't be frittered away. I'm sure they must be planning some way of preventing people taking the money then living in a shonky house rather than repairing.

Hopefully Lyn S will see this thread, as she has spoken extensively to both the EQC and her insurer and will know better than me how it works (their house will probably have to be rebuilt).

OakhengeFarm;342304 wrote: I imagine (hope) that this would mean, for example, sending a roofing crew to work along a row of houses at once - much more efficient than each house / job doing their own thing.

We can but hope...

Being married to a builder and seeing how work on different houses progresses, with a range of materials, styles and sizes, and timeframes based around the fact that no two of these houses will be the same, I would think this would be a pretty hard ask, if possible at all...

Coincidentally, I just got a newsletter in the mail from our insurer, State.

EQC covers house (up to $100k), contents (up to $20k), land immediately around the dwelling, main accessways and retaining walls, water tanks forming part of a water supply, internal swimming pools/spas that are an intregral part of a residential building, septic tanks.

Anything other than that is the responsibility of the person's insurer, and that will depend on their policy. For example, we have State Home Comprehensive, and that covers drives, paths, bridges, external swimming pools, paving and other artificial surfaces, reasonable costs of alternative accommodation to a maximum of $20,000.

However, I imagine other policies will vary. For example, if you have State Home Essential (I presume a cheaper policy), the cost of alternative accommodation is not covered.