Posts by Matthew Poole
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Speaker: The problem of “horror tenants”…, in reply to Lilith __,
A friend just reminded me that one of her landlords refused to provide more than one plug to the household.
But, but, the horror tenants!
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Speaker: The problem of “horror tenants”…, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
“Every living room shall be fitted with a fireplace and chimney or other approved form of heating”
Our living room has said fireplace and chimney, so the house is compliant. I presume the law does not include words to the effect that such must be kept in working order at the landlord's expense.
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Speaker: The problem of “horror tenants”…, in reply to Lilith __,
I have been on both sides of the share house issue, often, and I don’t think the law can really do much.
Well, apart from require formal agreements.
Or, in the absence of a specific agreement, apply a form agreement to all such arrangements; much the same way that there're boilerplate employment terms in statute that can be altered but not lowered and apply in the absence of anything more specific.
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Speaker: The problem of “horror tenants”…, in reply to Lilith __,
Landlords are required to provide some form of heating.
Really? Our place has nothing, other than a fireplace that we're forbidden to use because the chimney hasn't been swept in forever. All the heaters are supplied by ourselves.
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Speaker: The problem of “horror tenants”…, in reply to Moz,
Landlords are remarkably free from effective restrictions on who they can rent to. Or not rent to.
Key word, of course, being "effective". In NZ, at least, the Human Rights Act applies to residential tenancies other than ones where it's accommodation shared with the landlord. Proving discrimination on a prohibited ground would be pretty tough, especially in a hyperactive market like AKL or CHC, but it's still illegal.
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Speaker: The problem of “horror tenants”…, in reply to RBentley,
What hasn’t been mentioned is that tenants have to give only 21 days notice of termination compared with the landlord’s 90 days.
Yes, and one of these is probably accompanied by having somewhere to go whereas the other may or not have the same accompaniment. Pardon us for not considering it to be much of a compensation that tenants get to leave on their own terms in less time than they can get forced to leave on the landlord's terms. It's just about the only real "power" that tenants have that can't come back to bite them with the current landlord.
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Speaker: The problem of “horror tenants”…, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
If rent is increased beyond market rate, the tenant can apply to the Tenancy Tribunal for a market rent order.
Which is almost as much use as nothing at all in Auckland and Christchurch. In areas with healthily-functioning rental markets, sure, it's worth something. In those two cities, though, especially Christchurch, the market is only very slightly more functional than "Whatever the landlord feels like charging today."
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Speaker: The problem of “horror tenants”…, in reply to Elinor Chisholm,
we know for a fact that many rental houses are damp and cold, and injurious to health, and it’s not ok. Damage by tenants is really awful, but we do have the courts to deal with that issue.
Precisely. A landlord whose property is damaged by tenants can seek a judicial remedy which is enforceable through the courts. A tenant who cannot afford a rental that’s not dangerous to their health is screwed, and if they complain too loudly the landlord can break out one of those lovely 90-day notices along with a bad reference and then the tenant is on the street.
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Speaker: The problem of “horror tenants”…, in reply to Abbie,
And they don’t, as Matthew Poole says, have the right to put tenants on the street for no reason. There is tenancy law and the 90 day notice.
Uh, the 90-day notice is "no reason". Quoting from s51, Residential Tenancies Act 1986:
(3) Every notice to terminate a tenancy shall—
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(ca) in any case where the tenant is given less than 90 days’ notice, set out the reasons for the terminationIssuing a 90-day notice requires no reason. It allows a landlord to terminate the tenancy because they're having a bad day and they feel like it and they can. So you can protest all you like that I'm misconstruing the situation, but it's there in the law in black-and-white. That particular clause was inserted by our benevolent National Party overlords in 2010, and I'm quite sure that it wasn't at the behest of tenants' rights groups.
ETA: Also courtesy of National, there is no limit on how much a landlord can increase rent provided it's not raised more often than once every 180 days. Yeah, so, about those powerless landlords.
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I am sure that part of the reason for NZ’s very high level of owner-occupied housing is that tenants here have so very little protection against the power of their landlords. The tenant can trash the joint and refuse to pay rent, but the landlord can put them on the street for any reason, or no reason, whatsoever; and make it nearly impossible to find another place to live, no matter how warranted or otherwise a negative reference may be. The “eviction without cause” provisions in tenancy law are odious and unfair, and it’s disappointing that neither Labour nor the Greens have a policy of doing away with this regime.