Kāinga Ora yet to issue three strikes against bad tenants - but says it has relocated dozens of disruptive households this year

Kāinga Ora is yet to use its most punitive measure for disruptive tenants since introducing tougher rules earlier this year, new figures show.

The National Party says the state housing provider is failing to crack down on bad tenants, while Kāinga Ora says it has relocated dozens of bad tenants without having to terminate their tenancies.

Under scrutiny over misbehaving tenants, it introduced a "three strikes" policy in February for households who regularly disturbed or harassed neighbours.

If tenants were involved in three separate incidents over a 90-day period, and Kāinga Ora had evidence of each of them, it could apply to the Tenancy Tribunal to have the tenancy terminated.

Responding to written questions from the National Party, Housing Minister Megan Woods said Kāinga Ora had not yet applied to the tribunal to end a tenancy.

It had issued two warning notices for antisocial behaviour in two cases, in Waikato and Northland. It was yet to issue a third notice in any case.

In addition, the tribunal had not issued any orders terminating a Kāinga Ora tenancy since the orders were introduced in early 2021.

Kāinga Ora said it showed that warning notices were generally working well because tenants had changed their behaviour and the provider did not have to escalate their response.

But National's housing spokesman Chris Bishop said the housing provider was showing "utter disdain" for neighbours of bad tenants.

"My inbox is flooded with stories from all around the country of people living in fear of their Kāinga Ora neighbours, but Kāinga Ora simply refuses to take action," he said.

Bishop said that with a housing wait list of 27,000 people, Kāinga Ora appeared to be content to let antisocial tenants "frustrate, annoy and in some cases terrorise their neighbours".

He wanted the Government to insist that Kāinga Ora use the new powers available to it, which were introduced in reforms of the Residential Tenancies Act.

Kāinga Ora's director of practice and customer contact Shannon Gatfield said the vast majority of the time it was able to resolve matters or move a tenant without needing to resort to eviction.

She said serving a warning notice not only enabled the organisation to address a tenant's behaviour, it allowed the tenant an opportunity to change their ways.

"We have seen encouraging signs of this happening, with the tenants who have been issued notices to date positively changing their behaviour so that further notices have not been required at this point."

Gatfield said Kāinga Ora was able to move households where necessary, without issuing warning notices - as long as the tenant agreed.

Since January, 62 households accused of being antisocial had been relocated in this way.

"Neighbours cannot be expected to put up with intolerable situations and we are committed to responding effectively to disruptive behaviour when it occurs."

Kāinga Ora toughened its approach to bad tenants after criticism of its "sustaining tenancies" policy, which aimed to avoid evictions to give tenants as much stability as possible. It was also part of a strategy to prevent state house tenants ending up homeless.

However, the policy has been described as a loophole which protected the worst tenants.

A Herald investigation last year revealed cases where people living next door to antisocial Kāinga Ora clients had been subjected to prolonged abuse and intimidation.

In one case, an elderly Whangārei couple said they were subjected to death threats from a patched Black Power gang member who allegedly threatened to slit the 82-year-old man's throat and watch him "bleed out".

Others had been forced to move out of their homes or sell up to escape years of intimidation and threats.

Kāinga Ora has stressed that these extreme cases were isolated and that the vast majority of its 200,000 tenants were well behaved.