Rent disputes remain high

Rental dispute numbers are high in Rotorua.

Unpaid rent has triggered hundreds of formal tenancy disputes between Rotorua landlords and wayward tenants, new figures reveal.

Last year, 1537 complaints were filed with the tenancy tribunal at Rotorua District Court - a decrease on the number of complaints in 2013 but more than each of the previous three years.

Complaints were overwhelmingly lodged by landlords, mostly relating to unpaid rent or termination breaches.

Mediator orders were the outcome for 858 complaints and 684 led to tribunal orders.

Meanwhile the heat stays on the rental market as new TradeMe Property data shows median weekly rent in Rotorua increased by $10 year-on-year to $280 in April.

Russell Hardie Rotorua property manager Donna Russell said the tribunal was "an effective tool" for property owners.

"We have a no-leniency rent arrears policy so, if a tenant fails to pay, next day we'll begin going through the system," she said. "Tenants are sent a letter saying they have 14 days to meet their obligations. As soon as that's over, we go to the mediation process. If they don't make themselves available or don't reach an arrangement that we feel's satisfactory, we go straight to the tenancy tribunal for termination."

Wayward tenants could be costly for landlords, she said. "The process can be slow at times, meaning significant costs for property owners. That's especially true of the summer period when everything closes down."

Stringent checks were the best way to ensure good tenants, she said. "The problem with the tribunal process is there's nothing on the record if a tenant's going through it so they could be being called up for rent arrears and the property owner whose place they're going for would have no idea.

"Property owners often require us to get references, do credit checks and some like to go to the tenant's property to get a feel of what they live like."

Whakatane District Court received 235 complaints last year and Taupo District Court received 212. All Whakatane complaints and all but one Taupo complaint were resolved through tribunal orders.

Nationwide, landlords and tenants made 32,097 complaints to the tenancy tribunal in the last year.

In 2010, more than 33,000 complaints were made, while more than 35,000 applications were made each year between 2011 and 2013.