FORGOTTEN NZ
Renters look to flex their muscles late in the campaign as partiesd chase the 50 per cent of Kiwis who have a landlord. Rob Stock reports.
IT’S been a torrid week to be a landlord.
The Renters United People’s Review of Renting has lifted the lid on how miserable life can be as a tenant, paying through the nose for cold, damp, unhealthy homes, and subject to ‘‘no fault’’ evictions.
Robert Whitaker from Renters United makes no bones about the aim of the report: it’s to force renting reforms onto the political agenda.
Whitaker, himself a renter in Wellington, this week dubbed renters ‘‘The Forgotten 50 per cent’’.
‘‘Today, housing security is denied to half our population simply to maximise investment returns for the few. This cannot be allowed to continue. Our tenancy laws must change,’’ Whitaker wrote in a chapter of the Public Sector Association booklet Progressive Thinking: Ten Perspectives on Housing.
Renters United used its report to call for a raft of changes, with arguably the most controversial being ones that would substantially curb the property rights currently enjoyed by investment property owners, some of which would be certain to hit the resale price of rental properties.
These include ending ‘‘no fault’’ evictions, meaning tenants could enjoy perpetual rights to stay provided they paid their rent and did not damage a property, and also limiting rent rises each year to no more than the same percentage that the minimum wage is lifted.
Research from property management company Crockers showed that in the year to the end of July, rents had risen by 10-15 per cent in some parts of Auckland.
Renters United’s proposals would require landlords to be licensed (as they must be in Wales), and properties would have to pass a warrant of fitness before they could be rented out.
These, and other measures, would, Renters United believes, embolden tenants to demand healthy, warm, well-maintained homes without fear of being evicted.
The appeal is not merely that renting is no longer a temporary period to be endured in an ordinary life, and tenants’ interests need to be re-evaluated.
It is that landlords need regulating like other sectors with the potential to damage people’s health, like the food and restaurant industries.
‘‘I see no reason why a hospitalised child is any more acceptable when their illness is caused by their home, rather than their dinner,’’ Whitaker said.
With the general election just weeks away, Renters United is making a late tilt to create a renter voting bloc, and Whitaker believed both Labour and the Greens were cooking up policy announcements on the back of its report.
The group was not affiliated with any party.
Renters do not form a homogenous group. Some are likely to remain life-long renters, but others realistically aspire to becoming homeowners.
But both stand to gain from policies that increase housing supply, which has the potential to bring down prices and rents, and both groups would also benefit from moves that bring stability and power to tenants.
However, landlord groups protest that some of Renters United’s policies could push landlords out of the industry, and drive up the cost of providing rentals, thereby forcing up rents. SEEN by landlords as the party that represents their interests. Its housing policy does not explicitly mention renters. National is ‘‘committed’’ to lifting housing supply, but it’s had nine years in power and Labour criticises its efforts as too little, too late. ‘‘The best way to address housing affordability is to build more houses and build them faster and we have a comprehensive programme underway to help make this happen,’’ National says. Though National has staunchly opposed Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill which would require minimum insulation and heating in every rental home, the party is not blind to the abuses by some landlords. It allocated money in 2016 to fund a Tenancy Services investigation team. In July, Building and Construction Minister Nick Smith told Parliament 400 ‘‘prosecutions’’ had begun before the Tenancy Tribunal. Smith also said that so far, more than 300,000 private rentals had been insulated under National. A report from BRANZ, however, suggests around half of all homes are under-insulated. On Wednesday, the Human Rights Commission condemned Government plans to pass new law which it described as ‘‘imbalanced’’, unfairly favouring landlords.