Rent ruling a relief for landlords
Landlords are not entirely off the hook, despite a court ruling that overturned a controversial rental decision.
Dunedin tenant Natalie Parry was handed a $10,000 rent refund by the Tenancy Tribunal because she had been living in a property with unconsented alterations.
The tribunal said that made her 29-week tenancy unlawful. Her landlord, Vic Inglis, had bought the home without realising the problem.
It had been suggested the decision could set a precedent for thousands of tenants nationwide.
But the Dunedin District Court has now overturned that ruling. Judge Kevin Phillips said Parry had not suffered any detriment due to the unconsented work.
Scotney Williams, a legal expert who runs Tenancy.co.nz, said the judge had made it clear that, in this case, the breach was a technical one.
The work had been done to a high standard and Inglis was able to get it approved by his local authority within a month, once he realised the problem.
Williams said the court’s decision could be used as grounds for saying that landlords in similar circumstances, who also did not realise that high-quality work had not been checked off by council, were unlikely to be liable to refund rent to tenants.
But he said that did not mean that tenants would never be able to claim a rent refund over unconsented work.
Auckland Property Investors Association president Andrew Bruce said the case had caused a lot of uncertainty for landlords, and some had decided to remove tenants.
It was important that landlords did not assume the decision meant they could get away with letting unsafe properties, he said.