One of the basic consequences of climate change is sea-level rise. In New Zealand, tens of thousands of homes are currently exposed to this risk, and will be underwater in just a few decades. But thanks to strategic legal action by rich coastal property owners determined to maintain the "value" of their "asset" (and, more importantly, pass it off to some other sucker for a higher price based on fraudulent information), local authorities have been afraid to properly notify of these risks. Now, the government plans to stop that bullshit:
Councils will be required to disclose a wider range of natural hazard risks to prospective home buyers, under a law change to be introduced to Parliament later this year.This is a good move, which will finally enable the retreat from the coast we should have been planning for the last decade. With hazards properly notified, people will be less willing to buy, and financial institutions less willing to lend or insure. The end result is that people won't buy or build there (at least not if they're intending to stay for any length of time), and high-risk coastal property will become a valueless stranded asset. So I guess we will see a concerted effort by current owners to get the government to bail them out at inflated values, or to sell up and dump their toxic waste on some other sucker before it gets labelled as such. Which sounds a lot like fraud to me...Local authorities will in turn be shielded from legal action taken by home owners angry about their properties being added to hazard zones – provided they have disclosed the information in good faith.
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Property owners would still be able to take legal action against councils for failing to include information about natural hazards, but the legal protection would make it easier for them to disclose relevant risks.
