Rob Stock.
A tenants’ advocacy group is calling for an end to ‘‘no fault’’ evictions by landlords, and to limit annual rent rises to no more than the percentage change in the national minimum wage.
The People’s Review of Renting, crowd-sourced by social advocacy platform Action Station, is being launched this morning by Renters Unite based on more than 600 renters’ stories.
It recommends a raft of law changes to regulate landlords and strengthen tenant rights, including licensing all landlords and introducing compulsory rental warrants of fitness.
The report brought a sharp response from Andrew King of the Property Investors Federation, who said the proposals would drive many landlords to quit the business.
Ryan Evison, an environmental scientist from Wellington, one of the renters who contributed their story, said years of Government inaction have led to massive house-price rises and low-quality rentals, and change is needed.
‘‘What’s going on in New Zealand is pretty gross in regards to the property market and how landlords behave,’’ Evison said.
He’s now living with family after giving up a moth-infested rental where the landlord refused to take action.
Evison said it took eight months just to get the landlord to replace a broken clothes drier.
After the dispute the landlord told him his lease would not be renewed.
‘‘He rented it out again with an 11 per cent increase in the rent,’’ Evison said.
Robert Whitaker from Renters Unite said the imbalance of power between landlords and tenants needed to be addressed, and the release of the report on the eve of the election was an attempt to force politicians to develop policies for tenants, who formed a growing, and increasingly vocal, part of the electorate.
The report calls for a rental property warrant of fitness requiring homes to be warm, safe and dry, and for local authority inspectors to enforce it.
It also recommends empowering the Tenancy Tribunal to inves- tigate complaints by tenants, including site visits and interviews with landlords.
And it wants an end to ‘‘no faults’’ evictions, which landlords could use to get rid of tenants who demanded their legal rights.
Housing academic Philippa Howden-Chapman said: ’’A disturbing theme in this report, given that tenants are essentially buying housing services from their landlords, is how vulnerable and powerless they feel to even ask, let alone demand rights to a flat that ‘shall be free from damp’. Yet this is a right that was established in the Housing Improvement Regulations 1947.’’
Renters Unite also wants to see hated ‘‘letting fees’’ abolished, and landlords and property managers who did not adhere to a legal ‘‘code of conduct’’ facing the loss of their licence to do business.
King said the proposals would add cost and complexity, and drive many landlords from the business.
‘‘We need a situation where people can provide housing to people who can’t afford it, or don’t want to own their own home,’’ he said. ‘‘You don’t want to make it so hard you do not have adequate supply of rental properties.’’
King feared a warrant of fitness, which had been repeatedly rejected by Governments over the past 20 years, would be racheted up year after year.
He called the proposal to turn the tribunal into an investigative body as ‘‘incredible’’ when more than 80 per cent of claims to the tribunal were from landlords.
Ending no-fault evictions would result in landlords being able to sell only to other landlords.