Auckland landlord fined after posting tenants’ family photos and child’s schedule on rental ads

Images of the family's personal belongings were included in the property listing photos on Trade Me. Photo / NZME

Family photos, university degrees and a daughter’s extracurricular schedule were all exposed online by a careless landlord.

The landlord went into their Auckland property and took photographs of the premises during a viewing for potential new tenants near the end of the former occupants’ tenancy.

The images were then used on several websites, including Trade Me, to promote the property.

Those photos showed the tenants’ belongings, including expensive computer equipment and paintings, photographs on the wall of the female tenant and her daughter, the male tenant’s university degrees and a schedule for the tenants’ daughter’s extracurricular activities.

The tenants have now taken the landlord to the Tenancy Tribunal claiming a breach of quiet enjoyment for a number of reasons, including the photographs.

According to a recently-released decision by the tribunal, during the tenancy, which began in late 2023, contractors undertook work at the property or delivered items without the tenants being given at least 24 hours’ notice on three occasions.

This included when a new washing machine was delivered, when a contractor turned up at 9.30pm one evening to paint skirting boards at the property, and when another contractor arrived to repair deck boards with no notice, disrupting one of the tenants who was working from home at the time.

According to the decision, the landlord also did not provide the tenants with mailbox keys for the duration of their tenancy.

They had to access the mailbox using a pair of homemade tongs despite raising the issue with the landlord and the letting agent.

Front door keys were also not given to the tenant for eight days while they lived at the property.

The tribunal found the tenants’ right to quiet enjoyment had been breached, and it also ruled the landlord failed to appoint an agent while they were overseas for a month in late 2023 to early 2024.

According to the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), a landlord who is away from New Zealand for longer than 21 consecutive days must ensure they have an agent in New Zealand.

The landlord claimed that Rent Hub acted as its agent under a casual letting agreement signed in September 2023, before the tenancy began.

However, that agreement only required Rent Hub to market the property, find and vet tenants, prepare the tenancy agreement, and lodge the bond for a fee equivalent to two weeks’ rent.

It did not provide for ongoing property management, and once the tenants moved in, day-to-day management was the landlord’s responsibility.

The tenancy agreement and bond documents named only the owners as the landlord, with no reference to an agent, and there was no separate property management agreement or regular management fee.

The landlord was ordered to pay $2643.26 to the tenants for breach of quiet enjoyment and exemplary damages.

They were also ordered to remove the photos from online.

Meanwhile, the landlord applied to the tribunal for compensation for damage to a wall after hooks were removed, damaging paint work.

With permission, the tenants attempted to fix the damage but were unable to restore it to the same condition.

The tenants were ordered to pay $458.74 in damages.

Brianna McIlraith is a Queenstown-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the lower South Island. She has been a journalist since 2018 and has had a strong interest in business and financial journalism.