Making Headway

So, going back to 2016, and realising we had to strengthen this business or risk being shut out of it, we began what would become a bit of a labour of love. I called every single firm in the Greater Wellington area, trying to get someone to call me back. Which was harder than I thought it would be. It was a bit unbelievable, but having not long before been hit with the Seddon and Kaikoura quakes, the multitude of damaged and failing buildings and the Wellington City Council reducing the time people had to seismically strengthen prone buildings, it seemed that everyone had the same ideas.

Some companies called me back to tell me they were too busy and couldn't fit anything in. Others told me our job was too big, or too small. And then there are the ones who didn't even offer a returned call much less an excuse.

I spent hours on the phone, sending out images showing the property boundaries and where we were. Along with all of the information we had on the building. Nothing was getting me any closer to finding a solution to get the building strengthened.

At a complete loss, I asked for help from family and a referral was made for us which led to a phone call from BECA.

This was a game changer for us as immediately they agreed to take on the project and they began organising the initial meetings right away.

It's so funny, but back then I was just so darned grateful that someone would talk to us, much less tell us they could help us fix our building, that I didn't look a gift horse in the mouth so to speak. I was so focused on everything that was happening that I didn't stop to wonder if the path we were heading down was right or not. To a degree, feeling like the work we had to do was being forced on us unreasonably didn't help.

So here we were, meeting Pico Leung, who was assigned to us as our liason with BECA.

First impressions were naively good. We both got the impression he was friendly, personable and initially seemed to know what he was talking about. There were no major red flags at this point, and after a number of meetings, we began the journey forward with asking them about solely strengthening the 509 building. As that was the stickered building.

First up, was the seismic assessment, and the investigation into the construction of the building. What they would need to do to fix it and bring it up to code. Then of course the costs involved. Which at that time were quite low. Initial discussions were around the $500'000 mark.

This seemed reasonable and we were very hopeful of this being an achievable goal.

Hindsight is glorious, so looking back now I should have been more aware of the lack of meeting minutes. The lack of communication outside of booking meetings. The lack of detailed information provided in writing.

I wish I had known then, what I do now. I would have made many, many different decisions.

But on we trucked. Moving toward the goal at that time, which at that point was just was making the building safe.

After we had the first estimate though, we got to a point in discussions where we realised that it was a lot of money to spend, when the visible results would be so negligible. The bones of the building needed upgrading. But the outer structure would still be the same thing as we looked at day after day now. Which made it so hard to justify - even though it was required.

That was the catalyst for the change in direction.

We had a conversation with Pico where we discussed our concerns for the budget vs the end results. We floated the idea then that Dwayne had around living options and Pico seemed to be quite excited by the prospect. He warned us about it costing a lot more than we had planned initially, but weighing up the pro's and con's of the total improvement value and the improvement in the look and feel, the math seemed to be in our favour. The improvements would increase the value of the property and it wouldn't seem to bad going into debt, as we would at the end have a much better asset. Logical right?

You would think.....

Once we made the decision to start down the route we were heading, we were instructed by Pico that as we had retained him as the Project Manager, everything needed to go through him. So we were clearly told we were not to contact anyone directly and we were to only speak to him if we had questions or wanted things to happen. It was an interesting situation looking back (especially when you see how things played out!) as we had never done anything like this before, so we didn't know that this was unusual. We blindly believed Pico was in charge because he was qualified and capable, we expected that he knew what he was doing and he was correct with the advice he was giving.

Little did we know that this was just one thing among many, that would lead to this house of cards being toppled......

In hindsight, I wish I had asked to see his CV. That I'd treated hiring him, like hiring any staff. Reference checks, checking qualifications were valid. That we hadn't been caught up by a pleasant persona and that we hadn't simply assumed that because BECA were a large corporate, that would automatically make them competent and good at their jobs. I should have requested evidence.

And these are not mistakes I will ever make again - and if you are reading this, please do your homework before you hire anyone! Don't go in blind and don't ever trust anyone at their word. Get everything in writing and triple check everything.