A landlord who gave notice to their tenant after a bust-up over parking in the shared driveway has been ordered to pay the tenant more than $5000 in damages and compensation. Photo / 123rf
A landlord who gave notice to their tenant after a bust-up over parking in the shared driveway has been ordered to pay the tenant more than $5000 in damages and compensation. Photo / 123rf
A landlord who tried evicting a tenant after a bust-up over parking in the shared driveway is now more than $5000 out of pocket.
Events unfolded earlier this year when the tenant parked his car temporarily on the shared driveway of the Auckland property to unload groceries.
Thelandlord, Dave Green, then turned up.
There was a dispute over what followed, but the Tenancy Tribunal found Green gave notice to evict the tenant in retaliation for events which flowed from the parking debacle.
The tenant, who has name suppression, then applied to the tribunal with a list of complaints and was awarded $2750 in exemplary damages for the landlord’s retaliatory action.
The tenant also complained about the landlord’s failure to comply with healthy homes standards, and breaching their quiet enjoyment of the premises, leading to $5307 in damages and compensation.
The Tenancy Tribunal has considered the dispute. Photo / 123RF
Green denied all the tenant’s claims, and made a cross-application seeking compensation for damage to the rental home’s kitchen benchtop, which he alleged was caused by the tenant.
According to a recent tribunal decision, the tenancy started in May 2024 and ended in April this year.
The rental home was one of several properties owned by Green down a shared driveway.
On the evening of February 5 this year, the tenant parked his car on the shared driveway to unload groceries when a visitor had parked at the house.
Tribunal adjudicator Lily Ryken said the parties gave conflicting evidence about what happened next.
However, based on evidence to support the tenant’s claim that Green had disturbed their peace, she found he had visited the premises unannounced, and that he most likely stayed by the gate and shouted at the tenant.
Green admitted in evidence that he told the tenant, “you can’t bloody park there”.
A witness claimed both the landlord and tenant were speaking in raised voices.
Threat to end tenancy
Ryken was unconvinced over an allegation that Green “threatened to punch the tenant” and raised his fist, which amounted to a criminal offence.
She was, however, convinced that the landlord threatened to end the tenancy.
“The fact that the landlord sent the tenant a termination notice seven days later supports the claim that they most likely mentioned ending the tenancy on February 5, 2025,” she said.
Green accepted he returned to the premises later that evening and remained parked on the road for a short time, not to “survey” the tenant, but to check that a house he had been working on was secure.
“Amidst all of the commotion that occurred that night, this explanation is reasonably plausible,” Ryken said.
She concluded Green had visited the tenant at the premises uninvited and unannounced that evening, shouted at them and threatened to end the tenancy, which was a breach of their quiet enjoyment of the property, but it was not considered harassment as claimed.
The tenant emailed Green shortly after the incident to “formally address” what was described as “aggressive and abusive” behaviour resulting in action if it happened again.
Green responded with a 90-day notice terminating the tenancy but denied it was retaliatory.
He said it was because the tenant kept parking in the shared driveway, that he had received complaints from neighbouring tenants about it, and he needed the premises for his niece, who planned to move from Wellington to Auckland.
Ryken found the termination notice was retaliatory because Green had failed to submit sufficient evidence to convince her that an alternative, credible reason existed for ending the tenancy.
She dismissed a further claim that Green had failed to maintain the premises in a reasonable state of repair, by not addressing a complaint over mould at the address.
Ryken said there was no significant issue with mould or that the tenant raised their concern with the landlord.
However, she awarded exemplary damages of $250 to the tenant following Green’s failure to include a healthy homes compliance statement with the tenancy agreement.
Small heat pump leads to lack of compliance
The tenant’s claim for compensation of $500 for a breach of healthy homes compliance was also granted, after they proved the premises did not comply with standards over heating and draught stopping.
The premises had a 3-kilowatt heat pump when it needed one of at least 3.7, and two windows were non-compliant.
Green was also ordered to pay $1000 in exemplary damages over the failure to comply with healthy homes standards.
“There is a high public interest in ensuring landlords are deterred from failing to comply with the healthy homes standards,” Ryken said in finding Green’s non-compliance was intentional.
The tenant further argued the smoke alarms were not legal but that claim was dismissed.
Landlord’s counterclaim thrown out
Green’s counterclaim the tenant damaged the kitchen benchtop was also dismissed.
Ryken said it was more likely to have been damaged after the tenancy ended.
She said Green did not submit any photographs taken at the beginning of the tenancy and the entry inspection report did not note any damage.
She said the timestamp on a photo showing what appeared to be a burn mark on the benchtop and a small chip was weeks after the date Green claimed the photo was taken.
Because the tenant was substantially successful in their claim, their request for name suppression was granted.
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.
