Samantha Motion: Attitude check needed for landlords resisting rental reform

The number of households renting in NZ is growing faster than owner-occupiers. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

New Zealand's growing population of renters will get some new rights next month, in what has been called the biggest tenancy law reform in 35 years.

No longer will landlords be able to kick tenants out for no good reason.

They can still give ratbags the boot for sustained anti-social behaviour or repeated late rental payments. Same goes if the landlord decides to move in themselves or sell up - though in the latter situation landlords will have to give twice as much notice, 90 days instead of the current 42.

The property market in the Bay of Plenty is on fire, and as much of a boon that is for sellers, the rising prices push first homes more out of reach, leaving many renting for longer.

According to Stats NZ's Housing in Aotearoa: 2020 report, the population of renters in New Zealand is growing twice as fast as the number of owner-occupiers, renters spend more of their income on housing than owner-occupiers, and the number one reason renters leave a rental was because their landlord ended the tenancy.

Fair cop then, surely, to give renters better security of tenure, while reducing their exposure to the whims of landlords.

Not so, according to some in the property investment scene. There is melodramatic talk of rentals being deliberately left empty rather than risk the hassle of tenants, of landlords selling up and rental stock reducing, of rental prices being driven up.

I think it isn't just laws that need to change in New Zealand, but also some of the attitudes to renters pervading the investment-property-owning classes.

We can all appreciate landlords take on risk when they allow someone else to live in and effectively care for their investment, and certainly, there are horror stories of what the worst tenants have done.

That's why landlord insurance exists.

But most renters are just looking for a home. Maybe for a few months, maybe for life.

In my view, being a landlord is not a passive, detached investment with only profit and those sweet, politically untouchable capital gains at stake, no matter how many layers of middlemen between owner and tenant.

It's a social investment as well as an individual financial one, and the new rules will shift the rental landscape more in that direction.

I hope those resisting this long-needed evening of the tenant-landlord playing field can see the grass is just as green on the other side, for all.