Darren Williams allegedly subjected multiple tenants at two different properties he owns to racial abuse. Photo / Thickstock
A landlord has been accused of subjecting tenants at two rental properties to racist messages, including telling one couple to “go to Mumbai”.
Darren Williams has appeared before the Tenancy Tribunal twice this year, both times for the way he has treated tenants at two Auckland properties.
Tenants Niral Dedhia and Jagdev Sinder were renting a property Williams owns in Birkdale. They told the tribunal the relationship between the parties soured towards the end of the tenancy in April last year.
Dedhia and Sinder said Williams tried to demand money for items in the house they had not broken and, when they refused, he applied “psychological pressure”.
They told the tribunal he made baseless accusations and racist comments such as “go to Mumbai”, “why did you vote for National?”, “now go to Winston Peters”, along with other derogatory remarks about the tenants’ parents and their nationality.
The tenants also claimed Williams came to the house without permission, took a pair of expensive slippers and pot plants and threatened to enter the property when they weren’t home.
In defence, Williams said the pot plants caused the deck to rot in winter and denied taking the slippers.
Dedhia and Sinder provided the tribunal with evidence of all the communications between the parties, which contained references to multiple nationalities.
Tribunal adjudicator Joon Yi said in a decision released in September the messages from the landlord “can be best described as rambling accusations and conspiracy theory-type remarks”.
Despite this, Yi said he didn’t order Williams to pay compensation to his tenants for the messages because he was suffering from a “somewhat evident mental condition” at the time.
Yi did order him to pay $500 for the pot plants and slippers for what he called a “serious invasion to the tenant”.
In another decision from the tribunal, which was released this week, Williams was found to have made remarks with a racial undertone to a tenant at a property he owned in Beach Haven.
The tenant moved into the rental in August 2024 and paid $700 a week. In March, Williams advised the rent would increase to $765 per week. When the tenant told him that was illegal under the Residential Tenancies Act, he agreed to delay the rise until August.
In April, the power tripped at the property. The tenant left for safety and told the landlord, who, according to the decision, then accused the other man of causing the damage and made “bizarre” remarks that caused him distress.
When the tenant requested an invoice for a water bill he had paid his landlord for, Williams responded with “more strange comments, including one implying racial undertone”, according to the tribunal’s decision.
Williams sent the tenant a picture of a screw and demanded an explanation, demanded money and then threatened to take his dishwasher away.
After his tenant reminded him that a landlord must give 24 hours’ notice before entering a property, the decision says Williams sent more derogatory and racially suggestive messages.
Within a week, Williams entered the property without permission and allegedly threw the tenant’s belongings out, including a $4000 computer.
The tenant applied to be released from his fixed-term contract at a hearing held last month. He provided photos of his belongings on the street, along with Williams holding his desktop computer.
The tribunal adjudicator said Williams didn’t disagree with his tenant’s version of events. He instead said he wished to apologise and was suffering mental health issues at the time.
Yi, who handled both tenants’ applications, said while he took into account the landlord’s mental health, it didn’t completely excuse his behaviour.
“Although this explains his bizarre acts, it does not do so to the extent of it completely excusing his actions,” Yi said.
“The effect of the acts of the landlord had made the tenant fear for continued stay and had personal belongings thrown out through an extreme invasion of privacy. The perplexing messages and emails with reference to the tenant’s race were such that it amounted to harassment.”
Yi ordered Williams pay his tenant $1500 for exemplary damages for breaching the tenant’s quiet enjoyment and $3000 for disposing of the tenant’s goods.
In 2020, Williams was ordered to pay more than $6000 to two tenants after unlawfully entering the Birkdale property and taking away the front door, damaging or causing the tenants’ possessions to be wilfully damaged and serving them with an unlawful trespass notice.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū, covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.