Building inspections on Christchurch's Pyne Gould Corporation Building between the two massive earthquakes of September 4, 2010 and February 22, 2011 had "life and death implications", the building's manager has said.
But Howard Buchanan, of NAI Harcourts, told the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission inquiry on Tuesday his company had done everything possible to ensure the safety of tenants after the September 4 quake.
Eighteen deaths of the 182 people killed in the February quake occurred when the PGC building collapsed.
Legal assistant to the commission, Marcus Elliott, suggested that by not demanding a more extensive inspection of the building by the structural engineering company, Holmes Consulting, that NAI Harcourts had placed tenants in danger of death and injury.
Inspections between September and February carried out by Holmes Consulting had been at Level Two - "a rapid visual inspection and, by their very nature, brief", the inquiry had been earlier told.
However, Mr Buchanan rejected the suggestion his company had placed occupants of the Christchurch building at risk of death after the September 4 quake.
"I'm very happy with what our team did," he said.
NAI Harcourts were reliant on the expertise of the structural engineers reports from Holmes Consulting, he said.
He added that the Christchurch City Council had deemed the building had only suffered "zero to one per cent" damage as a result of the September quake.
Practicalities and time limitations were also important factors in decisions made at the time.
"There were a huge number of buildings in Christchurch at the time that were earthquake prone," Mr Buchanan said.
He also confirmed that the building's owner, Stephen Collins of Cambridge 233 Ltd, had given unconditional instructions that all his commercial buildings be inspected by structural engineers to ensure that they were safe to be re-occupied by his tenants.
He said Mr Collins had not given any limits to the type of inspections to be carried out by Holmes Consulting.
NZN