The danger of buying property off the plan

In retrospect, it was not only their desire to come home, or even the arrival of their first child that brought John and Tanya Robson back to New Zealand and led them to buy a house off the plan in Wellington, but also their faith in business practice.

This has been all but destroyed.

The Robsons' story epitomises the Kiwi dream of home ownership.

In order to afford it, they worked in London for 10 years, saved money, and dreamed of children and a house with a view.

In Mr Robson's account of what went wrong, punched into the keyboard and posted on the Internet just a few years later to vent his pent-up anger, it says he worked 12 hours a day and sweated blood.

"It all changed when Ms R was born, two weeks after 9/11," Mr Robson writes.

"This little bundle blew us away and after the rush rush of the last years, we both stopped dead in our tracks."

Within six months, they were back in New Zealand.

On June 25, 2002, in accordance with their contract, they made a $58,000 deposit on their dream property, a house with a view of the harbour, in the upmarket Wellington suburb of Khandallah.

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