Clarendon Tower law firm reunited with documents

DAVID WILLIAMS

A Christchurch law firm has been reunited with its files for the first time in almost a year.

Cavell Leitch Law yesterday became the first former tenant of the earthquake- damaged Clarendon Tower to receive its important paperwork from demolition contractors Mainzeal Property & Construction and Smith Crane & Construction.

The first batch of wheelie bins containing documents arrived yesterday afternoon at a Hornby warehouse.

Cavell Leitch managing partner Julian Clarke said sorting through the thousands of files would take months.

Some clients' affairs had been on hold while the firm waited for the retrieval of the papers, which included deeds, family trust documents, historical wills and powers of attorney.

"We've got court cases that have been deferred in the hope that we'll get these documents out at some stage," he said.

"And some of them are huge court cases. There's one [in which] people are arguing over tens of millions of dollars, and we've got 16 boxes of evidence."

He said the firm had electronic backup last year, but the quake had sped up the move to digitised records.

Cavell Leitch, which is now based at the Hazeldean Business Park in Addington, occupied three of the Clarendon Tower's top four floors.

Mainzeal took possession of the building, on the corner of Oxford Tce and Worcester St, on January 9.

Mainzeal's southern region construction manager, Allan Greig, said it would take six workers about five days to clear Cavell Leitch's files from levels 15 and 16.

"We are making every endeavour to do tenant recovery on all levels," he said.

Each level is inspected by engineers and strengthening work, if required, is undertaken before tenants' items are retrieved.

Greig said there would then be a "soft strip-out" - pulling out petitions and ceilings - before demolition.

Greig said access to each floor was by crane because the stairs were damaged.

Last February's quake collapsed internal stairwells in the 17-storey building, forcing people to wait hours to be rescued as aftershocks rumbled across the city.

Clarendon tenants, many of them law firms, have been negotiating with the building's manager and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) for months to retrieve their files.

In June, Cera ordered the building pulled down, rejecting the owner's demolition plans and seizing control.

Clarendon's owner will be billed for the demolition cost, expected to be between $5 million and $10m.

Demolition will take more than a year.

- © Fairfax NZ News