A blueprint for radical change

Renters United wants the Government to pass laws to give renters a fairer deal. Stuff takes a look at what is being proposed.

Ablueprint to change New Zealand’s ‘‘broken’’ rental laws has been published this week. Tenant advocacy group Renters United successfully got the Labour Party to commit to giving renters a fairer deal, and the right to live in first-world-quality homes.

‘‘Every New Zealander has the right to a warm, safe and stable home. But our rental laws are broken,’’ Renters United says.

But its proposed changes would profoundly alter landlords’ property rights, including giving tenants the right to stay for as long as they want, and pegging rent rises to inflation.

What does Renters United want?

A total reshaping of the powerbalance between landlords and tenants. In this case, Renters United wants laws that let tenants stay in a rental for as long as they like, providing they pay the rent, don’t significantly damage the place, or engage in serious illegal, or antisocial behaviour.

At the moment, a landlord can give a tenant notice, if they want the house, or plan to sell it.

So no fixed-term tenancies?

Only in limited cases, such as when a homeowner heads overseas for a period, intending to return, and rents their house out until they return.

What would this do to house prices?

It could well limit the buyers for homes with sitting tenants, potentially resulting in lower prices for them. Similarly, people looking for a home for themselves would have less choice, and could face more competition.

This could be a recipe for a twotier housing market, with a premium being paid for homes without tenants.At best, potential sellers might have to bribe tenants to leave.

What does ‘‘the right to a home’’ mean?

A home is a place where a person feels safe, can be healthy, and can live their life.

For Renters United this means not only security of tenancy, but the right to bang nails in the walls, repaint rooms, have pets, and move family members in when needed, including elderly parents, new babies, and potentially even troubled family members such as people being released from prison.

Pegging rent rises – isn’t that price-fixing?

This is unlikely to occur. Housing Minister Phil Twyford has ruled out rent controls, preferring to keep rents in check by increasing housing supply via KiwiBuild.

Rents are currently set by supply and demand, which has been a charter for landlords to gouge an ever-higher share of households’ income as supply has failed to meet demand.

The Renters United proposal would limit rents to a maximum of the rise of the consumer price index. Rent rises for sitting tenants could only happen once a year. The only exception would be when a landlord invested in improving a place.

Many would have to improve their places, if the WoF comes in.

That’s the rental warrant of fitness?

Yes. The rental WoF would be established, based on a single, national set of standards, and no home that met it could be rented out, if it did not comply.

Local councils would do the inspections, Renters United said. Councils could choose to ‘‘supplement’’ those, for example, requiring extra earthquake strengthening.

What if a landlord didn’t play ball with the new laws?

Tougher penalties, bigger fines, and bans from being a landlord, or a property manager. Careerending stuff. Oh, and the Tenancy Tribunal should get extra money, and power to hold landlords to account.

When tenants took landlords to the tribunal, their names would not appear in judgments, so other landlords wouldn’t be able to blackball them as troublemakers.

There should also be a register of rental properties so inspectors could keep tabs on them.

Has Renters United got a chance with any of this?

Yes, Renters United is in thick with the Government, but realistically it isn’t set to get the overnight shift to a Europeanstyle rent-for-life model, on which a lot of this is based.

There’s a lot of politics to happen between now and the end of the review of the Residential Tenancies Act later this year.

The WoF looks likely, especially as Labour pledged to the Greens in its post-election deal to ‘‘ensure that every New Zealander has a warm, dry, secure home, whether they rent or own’’.

Banning letting fees will happen. An end to ‘‘no cause’’ evictions is something Twyford favours. So is only limiting rent rises to once a year.

Stuff