Quinovic told to pay tenants compensation
Quinovic apartment tenants are due a payout after being blocked off from light for more than six months because of construction work.
A tenancy tribunal adjudicator said when the construction wall was removed tenants were left with a different problem: ‘‘seriously compromised’’ privacy.
Adjudicator Brent Smallbone ordered Specialist Property Managers, which trades as Quinovic Kent Terrace, to pay two tenants $3075 over the ordeal.
In December 2017, construction work started at an apartment block on 43 Mulgrave St in Wellington in which a wall was put up, blocking the main source of sunlight for tenants Christopher Oakly and Yuko Watanabe.
The work was only meant to inconvenience Oakly and Watanabe for six weeks but that stretched out to seven months.
And when the wall was removed, people passing on the street were able to see into Oakly and Watanabe’s bedroom, thanks to a curtainless floor-to-ceiling window.
The window had been blocked by curtains before construction work began but had been removed. Oakly and Watanabe repeatedly tried to ask Quinovic for curtains but none were provided, Smallbone said.
‘‘No natural light was replaced [by] very little privacy. No curtains meant that people on the street could see into the apartment.’’
Oakly and Watanabe had negotiated a rent reduction with Quinovic over the construction work issues but had continued to pay full rent.
At the tribunal, Quinovic tried to dispute the reduced rent for the period after the construction wall was removed.
But Smallbone said leaving such a large window without curtains was a breach of ‘‘quiet enjoyment’’.
‘‘I am satisfied that the tenants did not get what they bargained for after the wall was removed.’’
Quinovic Kent Terrace principal Matt Stewart said the firm managed a number of apartments at 43 Mulgrave St and he wasn’t ‘‘particularly aware’’ of the one in this case.
‘‘I’ve got no idea which apartment you’re talking about because all of those apartments were blocked off due to construction work.’’
‘‘At the moment I’ve got no comment to make at all.’’