Clock ticking for staff rentals
Farm owners have been warned to make sure their staff accommodation complies with new laws coming into effect in July next year.
The laws will insist that all rental properties, including farm housing, had to meet new standards for insulation.
There was a myth among farmers that they were excluded from the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), Morrinsville lawyer Jacqui Owen told farmers at a field day near Walton run by the Matamata Piako Three Rivers Trust.
‘‘You 100 per cent are and any one of your staff can file a claim against you with the tenancy tribunal,’’ she said.
The only difference between a farmer’s tenancy and those seen in cities was that they were a ‘‘service tenancy’’.
This allowed farm owners to have a much shorter termination date of two weeks rather than 90 days.
‘‘It’s really important you understand that because most farmers I talked to go, ‘Oh I didn’t know that’,’’ she said.
For dairy farm owners with sharemilkers who had signed a contract which included staff housing, under the law the sharemilker now became the landlord.
‘‘They are the ones who can be taken to task for your substandard housing you have provided. That’s not very fair,’’ Owen said.
When farm owners were drafting up their contracts with sharemilkers, it needed to state that owners would supply accurate insulation statements for every house provided and that they would ensure it met all of the required standards of a home.
‘‘I know from experience there are a number of homes on these farms that are not going to meet those new standards.
‘‘Not only are rental standards in the cities not good enough, they are not good enough rurally. People are living in damp, mouldy substandard homes and farm owners say, ‘well that’s the way it always is’. It’s not.’’
The standards included carpeting, drapes and no cooking areas in sleeping areas. The cooking criteria would mean a lot of one person accommodation was not going to meet the requirements.
New rules involving smoke alarms meant if they had to be replaced because the battery had gone flat, a 10-year photoelectric smoke alarm would have to be used. That applied to all farm houses.
‘‘You need to be able to show that you are a good landlord to the Tenancy Tribunal.’’
If the owner signed a statement saying the requirements were met when they were not, they faced a $4000 fine.
Sharemilkers as landlords were also liable to farm owners for any damage done by the tenants.
If an employee contaminated a house with methamphetamine, it was the sharemilker’s responsibility to pay for the damage. The cost of a clean up could bankrupt a sharemilker or contract milker.
Owen said sharemilkers should amend their contracts so their liability was limited to the excess of that policy and they could then factor the excess into their budget if something went wrong.
Insulation Association of New Zealand president Stu Henwood estimated that 140,000 of 180,000 rental homes in New Zealand remained uninsulated in urban and rural areas with only 18 months to go before next year’s deadline.
By mid-2019, an estimated
100,000 rental homes were expected to still not comply with the RTA, he said.
‘‘IAONZ is actively encouraging all landlords to commence installation insulation in rental properties now as demand will only continue to increase into 2018.
‘‘MBIE have already stated there will be penalties of up to
$4000 for landlords when the deadline for the new tenancy regulations kicks in.’’