Introducing Barbara Davey
 
 
We were delighted to hear from Barbara Davey about her life and work as a legal executive and Rotarian.
 
Barbara has been in the secretarial area for many years and has completed six papers as a legal executive.  She is also currently on the Board which, as part of its duties, looks at the wider range of activities they have responsibility for authorising.
 
In 2001 Barbara left Christchurch for a position in Nelson where she was introduced to Rotary.  They held their meetings in the Boat Shed Café which was a fantastic location.
 
 
Barbara next took up an opportunity to go to Auckland but the Rotary Club she joined there was mostly looking at raising funds whereas she was more interested in projects she could work on.  Six years later she returned to Canterbury and joined the Belfast Club and has now joined us at Papanui Rotary.
 
With respect to her work, Barbara noted that in the early days this involved using typewriters that required being very accurate as fixing errors was a challenge.  Now it is all computerised and work can be done much more efficiently as information quickly goes into her workspace from where it is submitted in a matter of minutes.
 
Her biggest challenge work wise involves dealing with EQC claims.  As a legal executive you needed to assign a claim to the new owner and submit this to EQC in order for it to be formally registered.  This is often quite challenging as poor repairs create sizeable obstacles that need to be overcome in order to complete the process.
 
“Recently the use of the ‘as is where is’ strategy is one you need to be very careful off” advised Barbara. Issues here that need to be overcome include that these properties are usually uninsured plus can’t always be reinsured which means that the new owner has to fund all required repairs.
 
Lots of 1st home owners go after these types of properties and as part of her job she is kept busy ensuring new buyers are aware of these challenges.  Another often unknown challenge is that if current owners were paid out for repairs and didn’t use it this amount must be transferred to the new owners. 
 
Other requirements in place are (1) for people buying and selling property other than the home they reside in, they must hold it for 5 years and (2) people living here on work visas cannot buy property in New Zealand i.e. they must have resident status and proof that they actually live in New Zealand. 
 
This is to protect against money laundering. 
 
We thanked Barbara for her interesting insights into her work and look forward to her involvement with us as a valued member of Papanui Rotary.