Ten things your landlord can’t do

Tenants have more control in New Zealand's rental market than they have for a while. Photo / RNZ

By Susan Edmunds of RNZ

Tenants have more control in New Zealand’s rental market than they have for a while.

With rents soft and more options to choose from, it’s not a bad time to be looking for a place to live.

But do you know the rules your landlord has to abide by?

Recent Tenancy Tribunal rulings show some are still getting it wrong.

Turn up unannounced

Landlords can’t just turn up to their rental properties without giving notice.

They need to give 48 hours’ notice for things like inspections and 24 hours’ notice for repairs or maintenance. If they don’t, they can have exemplary damages awarded against them to a maximum of $1500.

If they are doing maintenance work outside, they need to make sure that they do not interfere with your peace, comfort and privacy.

Tenancy Services advises: “A heads-up of when you are coming and what you’re coming for is a good way to help build a positive working relationship with your tenants.”

In one case heard by the Tenancy Tribunal recently, a tenant claimed their landlord arrived at the premises uninvited and unannounced, entered the garden and shouted at them about parking in a shared driveway. The landlord argued he had been working on a neighbouring property and noticed where the car was parked.

The tribunal said even if the landlord only stopped at the gate and did not enter the garden, he raised his voice and shouted at the tenants and threatened to end their tenancy. It said the behaviour was a breach of the tenant’s quiet enjoyment and interfered with their reasonable peace, comfort and privacy.

If a house is listed for sale, the tenant has to give permission for open homes to be held.

Require professional cleaning

Your landlord cannot ask you to pay for professional cleaning when you leave, including carpet cleaning.

Tenants are only required to leave the property in a reasonably clean and tidy state.

Sarina Gibbon, director of Tenancy Advisory, said the introduction of new rules around pets could make this a bit murkier. “With the pet provisions coming in, it’s going to be really interesting.”

She said one of the examples given with the introduction of the new rules was that landlords might say a pet was allowed if carpets were cleaned to a professional standard. “That’s just an example given by Parliament… it doesn’t mean it will cover all situations.

“It’s one of those things that I think we’re just going to have to watch how the tribunal interprets the new laws and applied them to give the industry guidance. At the moment we’re still operating under the old rules.

“But without pets, absolutely a tenant cannot be required to professionally clean the carpet.”

Charge a pet bond (yet)

Landlords are not allowed to collect a pet bond until December 1.

“I’m hearing every week landlords are collecting pet bonds and they have been all year when they are actually not legally allowed to until December 1,” Gibbon said.

“So if a tenant asks for a pet on November 30 and the landlord gives consent on November 30, that landlord cannot collect a pet bond. If the landlord gives consent on December 1, that’s fine.”

Ask tenants to cover the difference when a property is re-let at a lower rent

Gibbon said landlords generally could not ask tenants to pay the difference in rent if they broke a fixed term and the property could not be rented again for the same amount.

“Especially in this market, I’m seeing with market rent going down and tenants trying to get out of fixed-term tenancies, trying to break their lease early, I’m seeing some landlords and property managers try to charge the rental differential because they can’t get the 2024 level of rent in 2025.

“Even though there are some rare exceptions [where] the Tenancy Tribunal has found that the landlord can charge that, those are really quite unusual.

“The law provides for you to charge reasonable expenses that you incur because of the early break but you can’t charge the rental differential because the loss of income is not an expense.”

In a case the tribunal heard, a tenant broke a fixed term that was due to end in December this year in April.

The property was re-let on June 5 and the tribunal said the tenant could be required to pay rent until then.

But while the new tenant was paying $10 less a week, the adjudicator said the former tenant could not be required to cover this because the landlord did not provide enough evidence that the drop was necessary.

“The landlord would need to show that the lower rent was reasonable in the circumstances and that all reasonable steps were taken to achieve the best rent possible. Without this evidence the claim for rent loss is dismissed.”

The adjudicator also said a break fee could not be charged. “The landlord can only claim reasonable costs that are directly related to finding a new tenant. The landlord must provide evidence of these costs. The only cost that the landlord was able to prove was the Trade Me advertisement which I have awarded.”

Take tenants’ possessions

Landlords cannot take tenants’ possessions to cover money they are owed.

In one case involving a Beach Haven property, a landlord who had been sending the tenant “derogatory and racially suggestive messages”, according to the tribunal, entered the premises, threw the tenants’ belongings out, handed them a bill and took their $4000 computer.

The landlord was told to pay $1500 for breaching the tenant’s quiet enjoyment and $3000 for the possessions.

Let rent arrears add up

If a tenant falls behind on rent, the landlord cannot let the arrears mount unreasonably.

The Residential Tenancies Act says when either party breaches the agreement, the other party needs to take reasonable steps to limit the damage or loss.

Gibbon said that duty to mitigate loss meant landlords had to act quickly on arrears.

She said sometimes people would think that their landlord was being nice by not chasing them, and might be complacent. “If that gets piled up it could tip the legal test and the tribunal could very well say essentially you’ve not done anything about it, you’ve not given a 14-day notice, you’ve not sought to terminate the tenancy, you’ve not initiated an instalment plan to get yourself compensated… we’re not going to award you all the rent that’s owed to you.”

Not pass on bills in a timely way

Gibbon said people also needed to ensure tenants received bills promptly.

“In Auckland you get billed by Watercare and you’re supposed to pass the usage fee to the tenant each month… you have to on-charge it to your tenant reasonably quickly. I’m seeing landlords who sit on it for months and months or even years then at the end of the tenancy go ‘oh by the way you owe me this much’, like thousands of dollars in water. They can’t do that.”

Leave the country for more than three weeks

Any landlord who leaves the country for more than 21 consecutive days needs to appoint an agent to act for them.

Bungle cabin questions

Gibbon said there could also be problems with tenants wanting to install a cabin.

“If the cabin is a vehicle it’s not really a Residential Tenancies Act issue and to withhold consent or attach conditions to that consent, as landlords sometimes think they’re entitled to, is a breach of the tenant’s quiet enjoyment. But on the flip side, not all cabins or caravans or tiny homes can be brought on to the property by the tenant without the landlords’ consent. It’s complicated.”

She said people should get legal advice.

Retaliate

Landlords can’t give notice to tenants or raise rent in retaliation for anything they have done.

In one case, tenants were given notice in June that a family member was going to move back into their property.

But they said it was prompted by a dispute, including issues about the rent and the healthy homes rules.

“Where there is a short period of time between the tenant raising an issue about the tenancy (or filing a claim) and the landlord serving a notice, this may lead to a strong inference that the landlord was at least partly motivated by the tenant exercising their rights. In this situation, the evidential onus shifts to the landlord to show that there was a legitimate reason for the notice,” the adjudicator said.

“In my view the fact that the landlords served notice the day after the case management conference held in this matter, at which the tenants itemised their claims in some detail, leads to a strong inference that the landlords were at least partly motivated by the tenants exercising their rights.”

The tenants were awarded $1500.