Court of Appeal DELIVERS JUDGMENT

On 11 & 12 June 2025 the Court of Appeal heard the appeals by Natural Hazards Commission (formerly EQC) and the homeowners about the land class action certified in the High Court on 14 December 2023.  EQC asked for the class action to be set aside, homeowners asked for the scope to be widened.

The decision received from the Court of Appeal in late August 2026 is a mixed bag (you can find it in the Claim Documents tab).

It allowed IFV homeowners to be included, but not those with assigned claims, it said that the class action would advance other similar claims and also that it was not time barred (as EQC suggested). However, and most importantly, it sets aside the certification of the class on the basis that the representative plaintiffs would not be able to make repairs to their land on the basis that their private insurer deemed their house was repairable and not a total loss. This is wrong and believed to be open to challenge.

Andrew Barker KC is currently reviewing the judgment with a view to determine which parts of the judgment should be appealed to the Supreme Court. 

EQC should pay the full cost to reinstate your land

Prior to the Canterbury earthquakes, EQC had never settled land claims based on 'diminution of value' (DOV), it always settled on the actual cost of reinstatement.  Even for the Canterbury earthquakes, EQC paid the cost of the reinstatement for all other land damage types other than increased liquefaction vulnerability (ILV) and increased flooding vulnerability (IFV).

EQC's lawyers at the time, Chapman Tripp, recommended DOV as a measure of loss, as a way to minimise payments to homeowners.  The quote below is from EQC's own geotechnical engineers, Tonkin + Taylor.

"DoV was a construct of the lawyers acting for EQC who did not believe EQC customers should receive windfall gains when land was damaged by liquefaction, but not lost, and could still be utilised by EQC customers. In particular DoV pertained to new categories of land damage, namely Increased Liquefaction vulnerability (ILV) and Increased Flood Vulnerability (IFV)."

Once this EQC Land class action is certified by the Court there will be qualifying criteria that homeowners will need to meet.  In the meantime, we recommend that you register now and we can keep you up to date as the claim progresses.

‍

Register NOWCan I join?

What is this EQC Land class action about?

The representative plaintiff (representing all of the homeowners) is arguing that EQC should have paid the cost to reinstate the land to the value of the cap (as set out in s19 of the Earthquake Commission Act 1993).  It says EQC was wrong to pay a substantially lesser amount calculated by EQC using its DOV methodology.

EQC says that it has fulfilled its statutory obligation by paying for the land damage based on its DOV methodology.  It says this claim is a direct challenge to the High Court declaratory judgment in Earthquake Commission v Insurance Council of New Zealand Inc in 2014.  We believe that the declaratory judgment contains a number of errors which need to be corrected, and if need be, challenged through to the appropriate Court.

‍

Learn more

What does it cost?

It costs you nothing to register and registering does not obligate you to anything.

If in the future you receive a settlement as a result of the class action, the litigation funder will charge a fee.  This fee will be determined by the Court based on an application made to it.

You will never be asked to pay any money up front or pay for a share of any costs – it’s simply a deduction off any amount you are entitled to receive once the class action is resolved.  

Frequenty asked questions

Further information about the claim

If you have questions about this class action, please contact us and one of our team will be in touch with you.