Wairarapa Property Investors' Association

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18-09-2019

Neighbours at risk from uncontrollable tenants

Government is considering changes to tenancy law that will make it harder for rental property providers to manage unruly tenants, many of whom make their neighbours lives hell.

“The NZ Property Investors’ Federation (NZPIF) is extremely concerned that more neighbourhoods will become domestic war zones, as happened in Motueka, if the right to issue no stated cause notices is removed” said Andrew King, Executive Officer of the NZPIF.

Currently, landlords can end a tenancy with 90-days’ notice to the tenant, without having to provide a reason. It has been perceived that this means tenants are being kicked out of their rental properties for “no reason”. However this is never the case. There is always a crucial reason.

Some Tenant groups believe that tenants should have a right to know why their tenancy is ending so they can dispute the reason at the Tenancy Tribunal and remain in their property. They claim that the 90-day notice hangs over the heads of all tenants and prevents them from having security of tenure. However, a NZPIF survey has revealed that the notice is not often used and is usually done so as a last resort when proof of a tenant’s poor behaviour, necessary at the Tenancy Tribunal, is difficult or impossible to obtain.

The survey showed that 77% of 90-day notices were given for poor tenant behaviour. The other 23% were for selling the property or undertaking significant repairs or renovations to the property.

The main reasons for issuing the notices were antisocial behaviour and disturbing neighbours, which accounted for 42% of all notices. Respondents said that it was difficult to prove the antisocial behaviour because either it occurred randomly or because other affected tenants and neighbours were unwilling to put their concerns in writing.

An Official Information Request has revealed that Government doesn’t know how many 90-day notices are issued to tenants. However, the NZPIF survey found that only 3.1% of tenants are issued a 90-day notice each year, meaning nearly 97% of tenants are unaffected by these notices.

Rather than providing tenants with security of tenure, removing the 90-day notice provisions would prevent landlords from effectively managing the 3% of poorly behaving tenants to the detriment of other tenants and neighbours.

ENDS

About NZPIF

The New Zealand Property Investors’ Federation represents 6000 property owners and is responsible for educating and supporting landlords to ensure New Zealanders have access to high quality rental properties.

 

For further information please contact:

Andrew King, Executive Officer, NZ Property Investors’ Federation

Email: andrew@nzpif.org.nz

Mobile: 021 216 1299

 

Tags: media release - 90-day-notice