Seasonal sympathy for renters
The spirit of Christmas is alive and well in the decisions of the Tenancy Tribunal.
It’s never a good time for a landlord and a tenant to fall out, but Christmas is an especially awful time for tenants to end up homeless.
Some tribunal decisions in November and December reflect referees’ feelings of sympathy for tenants. But some also note that landlords can find Christmas a challenging time, too, if their tenants aren’t living up to their side of the tenancy agreement.
When Mahony Lai Kama George Ahasi Velo Tupou and Siueli Fehoko ended their relationship, they were left paying for an apartment they no longer wanted to rent together.
The former couple went to the Hamilton Tenancy Tribunal asking for their fixed-term tenancy to be ended early, which the tribunal can order in cases of unforseen changes in tenants’ circumstances, where not doing so would result in financial hardship for tenants.
Tupou was unemployed, and the tribunal decided to limit the award against the couple, citing Christmas as a factor.
‘‘I award compensation of $555, or three weeks’[ rent, to the landlord, taking into account the fact that Mr Tupou has no current source of income at all, that he is residing with his parents, and that it would not serve any purpose to inflict a heavier penalty on him just before Christmas.’’
Christmas cheer fear
The owners of a Napier rental property asked the tribunal to evict their tenant Lisa Barron, fearing she would hold an out-ofcontrol Christmas party.
Two previous parties held by Barron at the property had led to complaints from neighbours.
‘‘These have involved physical violence, loud verbal abuse well into the early hours of the next day, gang affiliates, the police, and there has been extreme disturbance to the neighbours,’’ the Napier Tenancy Tribunal found.
‘‘The landlords fear further out-of-control parties over the Christmas/New Year period if the tenancy was allowed to continue until the expiry of the 90-day notice,’’ the tribunal found at a hearing earlier this month.
The tribunal found Barron had breached her tenancy agreement, and ended her tenancy.
Homeless at Christmas
Just 60 days after moving into a Cambridge rental property, Nancy and Roy Harlow got a notice from the property manager telling them the owner intended to move in himself.
They would have to leave just three weeks before Christmas, the notice said.
‘‘The law as it currently stands permits the landlord to do this. I have no power to order otherwise. In that sense, the Harlows are stuck with this result, because there are no ‘rights’ in the Act to protect them from this,’’ the Hamilton Tenancy Tribunal ruled in December.
Their landlord, Tree Town Property Management, was ordered to pay the Harlows $1500 compensation for distress and emotional harm and $2500 towards their moving costs.
No Christmas Day eviction
Christmas is not only a rotten time to be made homeless, it’s also a rotten time to find a new tenant.
Mt Maunganui tenant Carolyn Worthington, who had fallen behind in her rent, asked the Tauranga Tenancy Tribunal to delay her eviction until Christmas Day.
The tribunal granted landlord Erin Flegg’s application to evict Worthington for breaching her tenancy agreement, but declined Worthington’s request not to end the tenancy on December 9.
Unwanted Christmas guest
An acrimonious landlordtenant boarding house spat included an accusation that the tenant had ‘‘assigned’’ his room in a boarding house to someone else during Christmas last year.
‘‘Both parties claim they have been harassed by the other,’’ the tribunal noted of tenant Jianing Liu, who took the case to the tribunal, and his Auckland landlord Christina Liu.
Tenancy agreements prevent any tenant subletting without permission.
‘‘Whereas I accept the tenant may have allowed friends to stay in his room while he was away for a brief period over the Christmas holiday break,’’ an Auckland Tenancy Tribunal referee, said, he also found no evidence the tenant was paid by the friend.
The tribunal ordered the tenant, who took his complaints to the tribunal, to pay $150 for ‘‘exceeding [the] maximum number of tenants’’.
But it also ordered the landlord to pay the tenant a total of $1530 for failing to lodge the tenant’s bond, and in exemplary damages for her behaviour during what the tribunal called a ‘‘chaotic tenancy’’.