Photo credit: The Post
A South Auckland property director has been fined after running an illegal boarding house for migrant workers that wasn’t fit to live in.
The Scoop Independent News reports that Paul Knights was fined $54,000 by the Auckland District Court for housing migrant workers in 44 container-style cabins that lacked adequate fire safety systems and appropriate means of escape.
Knights, who acted as the director of 4 Corners Investment Ltd., never obtained any building or resource consents, according to the Auckland Council.
The operation ran between 2017 and 2019 in Manurewa. While Knights lived with his family on a mezzanine floor above the operation, he received a share of the rental income.
The Council wrote that between mid-2017 and early 2018, Knights allowed the staged installation of prefabricated cabins and other associated building works within the light industry-zoned building. He also allowed the works to proceed despite clear advice from the council that consent for the boarding house was unlikely and indications that the activities were unlawful.
While ruling, Judge Sheena Tepania said the case demonstrated why the consenting process existed and why “the creation of risk to health and safety calls for a strong response, even if that risk has not eventuated”.
The court determined Knights’ offending went beyond wilful blindness and that he knowingly flouted requirements for financial gains. In addition to collecting rental income, he avoided the costs associated with obtaining consents and maintaining a current Building Warrant of Fitness (BWOF).
The Crown submitted that although no actual harm occurred, the tenants were housed unsafely. Fire safety systems were inadequate for a boarding house of that scale, and the cabins were not arranged to provide appropriate escape routes.
Knights’ codefendants, Radius Contracting Ltd and logistics manager William Farmer, were fined $67,500 and $45,000 respectively in 2021, with penalties later upheld on appeal.
