KEY POINTS:
Tenants who trash rental properties or refuse to pay the rent will soon be named on a Government-run website.
Is this a fair approach for people who fail to respect the properties they rent?
Or is it unfair to use public shaming? Should bad landlords be the ones who are named?
Tell us your flatting nightmares.
>> Read the story
>> Send us your views
Here is the latest selection of your views:
Andrew Beech
Its a fantastic idea to create this register. When a tenant fails to pay rent or causes damage to a rental property then they are basically stealing from the landlord. If the register encourages less of this style of theft that can only be a good thing! Surely the only people who could feel threatened by this are those who are bad tenants or landlords.
Gary Williamson
Why not have a website for people who do not pay reparation for NZ District Court and NZ Dispute Tribunals cases also? Unfortunately if you win a case against another party it means nothing. The other (loosing) party is told by the Court they must pay reparation to the winning party but it often does not happen. Many of these loosing parties merely avoid payment to the winning party by continuing to moving address. The Court does almost nothing about it. I am sure if it was their money it would be very different. I see a double standard here. Justice should be done, or these loosing parties will, for example, keep driving around with no insurance and damaging others vehicles and either just drive off or go through the NZ Justice system knowing for well that all they need to do to evade reparation is to move address a few times and they will get away with it. The NZ justice system needs a major overhaul in this regard. The NZ Government made third party motor vehicle insurance optional a few years back, so is there much hope in them making it compulsory again as it used to be? Before a vehicle can be give a WOF or Registered it should have to have paid up third party insurance as a prerequisite. This is how many overseas countries with smarter Governments than NZ do it.
Keith
As a long term renter I wouldn’t hesitate to say that the whole system needs re-organizing. There are many things wrong with the way renting works such as The lack of standards for rental properties. Many properties are sub-standard and unmaintained. There needs to be a set of standards and inspections much like a building code. Letting fees should be illegal as the tenant pays them but receives no service for this fee! Renters pay a whole lot of money for very little, in the last 8 years my partner and I have paid out over $90,000 in rent and I that time I have never had the landlords do any necessary maintenance. What do you get for your money? the answer is unfortunately very little, you pay $10,000 + every year for an product you have no control over. When you look at it renting is a very poor option in NZ. With house prices becoming unaffordable something needs to be done to clean up this industry full of cowboys and crims.
Arina Bosch
There has for some time been talk of a potential recording system of bad tenants for the sake of protecting landlords and certainly they have the right to this service. Yet what has been interesting in the past has been the negative reactions from landlords at the idea of tenants enjoying a similar service, whereby they can access feedback regarding landlords from their previous tenants. Abuse of leasing conditions and expectations is equally a problem against tenants and the same proposed system should regulate both ways.
Tama
How about a list of bad estate agents as well?
Gavin Cheyne
It is fair. Why have so many responding to this article complained that another website should be set up for bad landlords? Read the article it says: a new online service for Tenancy Tribunal rulings so the activities of landlords and tenants can be monitored. And names of landlords and tenants would be published so people could make a search before choosing a rental property. Seems fair to me both bad landords and tenants will be listed.
Linda
I can understand why some people would like a site like this up and running. Due to the behaviour of some people, and the condition they live in some properties or the condition some leave the properties in when they leave. But what about from the tenants point. What about the odd tenant that in like years of renting, and might have had a few off times and only missed the odd payment but caught it up, what happens to them. And what about from the tenants point of view when a list of wear and tear repairs are meant to be done, but after at least 2 years they still have not been done. Who is accountable then? Does a tenant have to put up with not getting a new toilet when it was decided one was needed? Or when a window is cracked and landlord says they will fix it and it never happens.
Carl
The government is not the friend of the people, the government should always be looked at as the peoples enemy, Giving the government more power and more data about individuals is dangerous. This government has used time and time again scare tactics to convince the population of New Zealand into giving away more and more of their rights and freedoms. Social profiling was used in Nazi Germany to weed out so called undesirables. It is important not to allow the government to collect too much information about us. And the argument that it wont happen here I’m sure is the same one the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and communists thought back in the 1930s. The excuses of stopping paedophiles, hackers, drug dealers, non-paying tenants etc. are all emotive and are designed to illicit compliance from the populous. The wording of your online poll even follows this, who would unreasonably object? Surely only those guilty of such things. The truth however is everyone should. Data collection by governments is the beginning of a state where it will become increasingly hard to speak out without being silenced for something in your past that at the time is politically or socially unacceptable, much like being a Jew in 1930s Germany was for the time unacceptable.
Kate F
The site will name both tenants and landlords who have been ruled against, from the information that I have read. What is wrong with that? If someone has vandalised a property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, they should be named, shamed and have criminal charges pressed against them in my opinion. Ditto if landlords are harassing tenants etc. As a landlord I have been taken to the tenancy tribunal by neurotic tenants who made up abject and blatant lies in an attempt to weasel out of a fixed term lease. I was the innocent party, so can vouch for the fact that landlords are victims of system manipulation as well as tenants (in my experience, far more so). Unfortunately any system can be used that way. However, the landlord is handing over the keys to an extremely valuable asset every time they sign up a tenant, so they are in a more vulnerable position than the tenant and they have a lot more to lose. Landlords deserve protection and they deserve the ability to screen out tenants who have a history of destroying property.
Grace
I think there should be bad landlords listed as well. The scheming ones who take advantage of tenants should be made known. We have had several very nasty landlords and do not wish to narrate all the incidents but be aware that the scheming landlords can always come up with bills for maintenance that coincidentally equates with our bond. We were not aware that we need not pay for maintenance until the next tenancy, where the landlord took us to the tribunal for refusing to part with our bond again. This current lease is with an agent who did not lodge the bond until we pressed on and demands rents be paid a day in advance when we pay our rent fornightly and look after the place like our own. Where is the give and take? Landlords always consider themselves the superior ones but they forget that without us tenants, their investment would be a total loss.
Liz Hart
The Govt would do well to set up a parallel site listing rogue landlords / property managers who fail to carry out essential maintenance in a timely fashion, or install life saving devices such as smoke alarms. This way both tenants and landlords would receive better protection. I am also interested to see what rights of reply are available to those who are listed. How do they get on the list in the first place? The Govt would be well advised to model the criteria used on the No Cowboys website to ensure all claims by either side in any dispute are fairly dealt with.
Leon
I have 2 years of flatting experiences in Auckland area. During the period, I have had a terrible landlord, and fortunately I also had a fatherly figure like landlord who have been very supportive. The bad ones should be publicly shamed and the good ones should be publicly honoured. In the last 3 years, I became a house owner myself and started sharing my house with flatmates. Some were great like family and some, believe me, were nasty. They demand good things for nothing.
Lia Garnett
A government supported website should definitely include a list for bad landlords to be fair. Landlords that sexually harass tenants,or dont advise new tenants if a property has sold prior to moving in should all be named and shamed too!
Natarajan.S
The government could can start other lists and tenant and landlord mischief lists will be appendix to it. For example, NZ First MPs’ showing their middle finger in Parliament will be on top of the list. People showing other fingers next. This is sign abuse. Lovers’ mischief in public place will find next. Those who get up to mischief in private will be after that. This will be called sexual abuse. Sports coaches like John Bracewell who abuse public money by playing second or third eleven in Internationals should find a place as sports abusers. Parents who abuse children by patting them or smacking will be on the next list. They will be listed as child abusers. Consumers who ask for discount will be on the next list. They will be business abusers. Businesses who want to sign you up for long term contracts for services or supply without giving full information will be on next list. They are consumer abusers. Children who disobey their parents in the street or shopping malls will find entry next. They are parent abusers. Is there an end to it? Give this Government/Public Agency some good agenda.
Lynda
Tenants complaining of being abused by negligent and dishonest landlords need to learn read the signs. If the house is filthy and full of rubbish when offered for let, this shows the level of respect your landlord has for future tenants. If you still move in and go to the bother of cleaning it up and keeping your rent up to date and still the landlord breaks the rules and neglects his duties, just forget about your bond, as this landlord has no respect for the rules. If you fail to get a witness and take photos (before and after) when you enter and quit such a property, look forward to ending up on the proposed website as the villain of the piece.
Dee
It has to be a two way street. Yes there are horrible tenants out there. However after reading feedback, there are also some nasty unfair landlords! We have rental properties and our own home, and we rent out a ski lodge to friends only. I do feel that people renting get the short end of the deal as for whatever reason they do not have their own property so its our job as landlords to provide a safe, healthy, comfortable and reasonably priced place to live. I would like to know that tenants are going to take care of my house, but I also think its only fair that tenants know what sort of landlord we are, and as far as I can tell we are pretty good and absolutely keen to foot the bill for reasonable repair and maintenance. Stingy mean landlords should also be put on some list so people know that they can have a safe and happy place to live with sympathetic and fair landlords.
Jane Wilson
The names of all who cause trouble should be listed weekly in the paper from A to Z. All scoundrels of every shape and size should be shamed and then placed in stocks lining the streets from the Herald outwards. The rest of us (myself included) can then keep a list so when, by some accident we cross one of these unsavoury beings, we can use the age old saying no vacancies. Of course landlords should be exempt. After all they are only offering a public service and are often hounded by tenants who have no respect for delicate appliances and as in many cases this is their pension fund, they must ensure there is a suitable return on their investment. Ex-state houses were cheap once but now they are very hard to come by.
Amanda
A friend and I moved into a student flat in the central city. It was a pigsty, with fleas, holes in the carpet, greasy walls, burns in the kitchen lino, and an oven caked with filth. The house was dirty in general but the rent was cheap. We flea bombed, spent three days cleaning the place after we arrived, and checked with the landlord that it was okay to clean out the unused garage, which was filled with rubbish and junk from previous tenants. I paid the council for a private parking spot on the street, which the landlord used at his leisure whenever he was in the area, despite it having no connection to the flat. When we left 13 months later, having been model tenants and never missed a payment despite the rent having been raised twice during that time, we left the place spotless, and in much better condition than when we moved in. We cleaned ceilings, walls, skirtings, door jambs, behind and between things - everything conceivable. However, the landlord took us to the tenancy tribunal to try and get us to pay for various things. He claimed he had had to get the carpets professionally cleaned (we had hired a steam-cleaner and done a great job), he’d had to hire a professional to clean ceilings, the bathroom and also the oven (which we’d left sparkling clean), he had had to remove copious amounts rubbish from the garage (we had cleaned it well and left absolutely nothing). We ended up getting none of our considerable bond back because the tribunal took his word over ours. During the time we had lived there, he had failed to fix the lock on the front door despite three requests, and as a result we’d been burgled twice, we had to pay hundreds of dollars for huge hot water bills after he dragged his feet over having to fix the hot water cylinder, and he had done random and intrusive inspections with no notice despite our polite suggestion that he follow the law and give us 48 hours instead of just turning up and letting himself in with his own key. Our next landlord cried when we left and bought us a case of wine for having taken such good care of the place - but we had probably be on a bad tenants list if it was up to the previous landlord.
Kit Carr
Concerning landlords and tenants, perhaps the concept of having a feedback section as used on the Trade Me Auction site could be adapted in some way here?
Bernice Kershaw
I think this idea is good in principle, but agree with other correspondents that there are always two sides to a coin. Some landlords are extremely remiss in regard to their responsibilities to tenants, so will there also be a website to name them?
Karen
This is going to be the same kind of sad farce that debt recovery is in this country. The speed with which an experienced rip-off can re create themselves under a different company name compared to the snails pace the debt recovery agents move at and the complete lack of realistically enforcable actions is equal to the speed with which a bad tenant can present false ID and references, with the same fruitless results for the victim at the end of the day. Tenants wilfully damaging property and/or squatting in the landlords premises not paying rent should be a police matter since this is a form of theft anyway, as should rip-offs who steal from law-abiding merchants. Time the politicians got real and enacted some laws with real teeth instead of these Clayton’s laws which are really an insult and just another tier of bureaucracy to create jobs for the boys at the taxpayer’s expense.
Greg Power
I can see both sides of the argument but favour the Landlord in the first instance. Having been in the military, we rented their houses and were subject to a white glove inspection when we left. We had to clean stoves, door jams, etc, etc and the gardens, lawns, exterior and interior (including fly spots) had to be immaculate given the condition of the house. This meant the new tenants moving into a spic and span house. The military had less maintenance and everyone was happy. Miscreants paid the price from their pay for commercial cleaners to put things right. No one really had a problem with it as we all respected property and understood that we would be moving into a clean and worthy house at our next posting. I rented out several properties over the years. One particular tenant kept my house in immaculate condition and sometimes even better than I imagined. Fantastic people who paid on time and were a pleasure to be associated with. My next tenants put holes in the walls and left owing. I had to write this off as you can nott get blood from a stone. No money, no paying. I do not do residential renting now. I do commercial, as it is safer and less troublesome. There is less capital gain but less trouble.If this comes in it will be worth thinking about residential renting again but only if the names are retrospective for the last 10years of tribunal orders. Unfortunately, many landlords do not take up the tribunal system as they find it is not worth the time involved to be awarded costs and never see a penny. Thus it will not be comprehensive enough for me. People tend to forget that the landlord has a huge financial stake in his property and should have more rights of eviction when damage or non compliance of tenancy agreements are breached.
Sheridan
My landlord is a shocker. I get the feeling that if we pressured him to properly fix our shower or toilet, he would put us on the bad tenants list out of spite! If it is based on court rulings only, then I would feel reassured. However it does need to name both parties. I have been taken advantage of so many times by landlord in the 16 years I have been flatting and, ultimately, they have the power as they can evict you, so the spotlight should be directed at both parties!
Darryl
I am sick of tenants running away owing money. They only run to another landlord and then do the same to him. At least everyone can now keep a check on the bad ones. Remember to check their drivers licence or ID so you do not get given false names though.
Andrew Millar
It is an interesting idea, and if run well, could be very useful for all the parties involved in the renting process, however only if bad landlords are given equal treatment. The kind that fail to undertake any maintenance, try to hike the rent up to unreasonable amounts, or are incredibly difficult to get hold of when needed. A lot of the time landlords don’t really care about their tenants until the rent money stops coming. I also believe part of the problem is landlords and rental agents are not selective about tenants as they could be, as there is such a pressure to get someone in to cover the bills because of so many people buying in to the Kiwi dream that if you have a rental property it is easy money and you are set for life. Surely they if they sought out references and the like it would not be such a problem. As for those who complain the law gives too much protection to the tenants, it is there so that tenants are not subject to the fickle whim of landlords who are often just out to maximise their wealth. If you want to get into the renting game, you really have to accept the risks.
Neville May
It is about time this happened. Up till now some tenants have created havoc for landlords. Non payment of rent, trashing the house,and non compliance of rental conditions, such as animals and numbers of people living in the house. Ssome landlords go to great lengths to determine the character of prospective tenants but with false names etc, they can sometimes be taken for a ride. Now landlords (and tenants) can check on the suitability of tenants and landlords for each other.
Fiona Reid
I think this is a good idea, however when you have tenants that trash the place or do not pay their rent they have no shame anyhow. I have a tenants name just waiting to go on such a list, Tribunal Orders, Baycorp, all a bit of a laugh really no wonder people get their own debt collectors in, just not enough done for landlords in these situations. Bring it on!
Jimmy P
This should have happened ages ago. Its about time we teach bad tenants a lesson and save property getting trashed.
Ian
I do think that this is fair. I am owed close to four thousand dollars from a bad tenant damaging my house. We went though all of the tenancy tribunal hearings and was awarded costs, but to date all we have received is $20.00 and this is three years ago. She has since re married and her family will not tell the debt collectors where she lives so that we can recover financially. Three years on and living in a new town we are still suffering financially because of her and what she did to our house when we rented it out. The tenancy tribunal does not seem to have the enforcement required to make people pay what is owed to the landlords. I am sick of how one person can affect others like this and get away with it.
Soo Sek Khoo
I support the move 100 per cent. Not only publishing their names but they should be charged in court and ask to pay all the damages to the landlord, to the Crown and everyone else every time they commit the crime (as far as I am concerned, it is a crime).
Evelien Gilbert
Just before Christmas we moved house. We had lived there for 10 months and found it too small, to hard to keep clean and above all we could not have the workshops that we needed. We steamed the carpets, washed the windows, took the stove and the refrigerator out of their places and cleaned behind them (something I do every three months anyway). We washed the covers of the couches and left nothing on the premise that would cause extra work for our landlords with whom we had a pleasant relationship up until we left. We had never missed a payment and we only left because we found a house that suited us better (it was much bigger and had workshop spaces we desperately needed). The house we left was an extended old batch with carpets, judging by the colour scheme, at least 20 years old with furniture to match and it was for sale, which collided with our intensive use of the place. (Uncluttered showroom pristineness as opposed to marketstall cookery demands and general indoor creative exploites varying from machine knitting to fishing fly making). The expectation was that the interior (if not the whole batch) would probably be demolished and renewed, but we took care to leave it as clean as we found it never the less. We took the representative of the owner for a tour of the place and asked if there was anything else he wanted done, and he answered that he was satisfied. When I came back after the New Years break to collect some plants and a hot pool(as per agreed) We found that the plants had been removed and the same person that up until than had been satisfied had made a 180 degree turn and found now that the whole house had been a mess and that nothing we did to leave it clean had been sufficient. The reason: they had found fly droppings on the ceiling, and some mouse droppings and they had the habit of cleaning the ceiling every month, and we obviously hadn’t.We were shattered. I tell you this story because I think that a lot of the times expectations of both tenants and landlords are very different and it takes practice and experience as both a landlord and a tenant to reach a mature end to a contract. I come from a country were most people rent (Holland) and I find that the amount of control that landlords can exert here (to the point of deciding whether you should live on carpet or not, or what colour the walls have to be) takes away from the responsibility and care that tenants will want feel towards a property. This shows up in dereliction of gardens, lack of maintenance indoors of the property and a general lack of love for their environment. After all why would you take care of the garden if you cannot in any way shape it to your liking, or why would you take care of the carpet if you’d rather live on wood flooring. In Holland were most people rent from housing cooperations people are allowed to paint the indoors in any colour they like. Painting your new abode makes you bond with the property and makes you want to take care of it. It also relieves the landlord from keeping the indoors painted. because the new tenants will want to paint it themselves anyway. Fashions change after all. You are free to shape (if you are lucky enough to get a garden) your rented garden. Again this makes you want to take care of it and maintain it. There is only two rules: You have to leave the house in the same shape or improved in value when you leave, and you can not take out support walls or cause structural damage to the property. It is also considered polite to inform your landlord if you want to take out non support separation walls. Usually the deal is that the next tenants can decide whether they want them to be restored by the previous tenants or not.(You can be sued if you don’t keep to these rules, and held responsible for damage or diminishing value) this gives an incentive to at least maintain the value of the property that you live in. I find that people in New Zealand have the tendency to see a tenant as someone who has failed to become a "home owner" therefore he/she is a "loser".
He/she has therefore lost the right to self determination as to how he/she wants to live. This shows up in the relation landlord/tenant as that of a disgruntled parent versus an angry adolescent. It is unhealthy and unnecessary. This contrary to the Dutch system, were after the war there was a desperate shortage of housing, renting was considered a financial affordable and sensible solution to house all citizens and to allow everybody to function properly (I.e. no homeleness etc). After the war everybody was in more or less the same situation and organising cooperations to build housing estates was a way of minimising the effort and the cost of rebuilding entire bombed cities, like Rotterdam for example.I think that exposure of failed situations and the ensuing stigmatisation of the tenant or the landlord will only serve to enforce that unhealthy parent/child relationship and is draconian in its impact on both parties. I would advocate education as to what it entails to be a good landlord as well as a good tenant. I think that is much more important. It can be good situation for both after all. Neither needs to be a victim. As more people will choose to rent because house prices have risen to the point of no longer really reflecting the value of properties and can represent a real threat to young starting families and over extended borrowers who try to live within their means, or just plain people like us who think it is ridiculous to build something new when there is some fantastic old place just needing to be lived in, this relationship is both dangerous and counterproductive. In the new age of fighting global warming, the need for recycling and revaluing our real needs it is of paramount importance to stop stigmatising tenants, and for landlords and tenants to engage in a more mature relation for the sake of the property they share. The owner by owning it and the tenant by using it.
Abs
I think its ridiculous given that some people are badly treated by landlords but the tenant always looks the bad one and some people can fall into difficulty over rent payments. What will start to happen is we will have more people either on the streets because of it or more people taking up houses through housing NZ this they cant cater for now and we as taxpayers are left to fit the bill for their housing.
Madeleien Ware
I think it is a good idea. It will not mean tenants can not get properties at all, but that they are asked to pay significantly higher bonds, which is understandable and reasonable. However, issues may arise if false names are given or from innocent people having the same name as someone infamous.
.
Shoba Charan
In respect of privacy with all persons involved, I think that the Tenancy Tribunal would need to inspect or view the damaged property maybe even photos to sight the extent of the damage done as claimed by the Landlords. There should be set procedures put in place and followed by both the landlord and the Tribunal. A decision should be made in respect of the whole picture. I being a tenant myself take pride where I reside and would hate to be put through such circumstances as some landlords endure. In saying this I also understand that some landlords are nothing but liars and cheats. So its both ways really but as human beings (grown up adults), we must learn to take responsibility for our actions. If you feel the landlord has breached rules or regulations make him beware of it and take it further if need be, however trashing or livings filthy is really a reflection of oneself.
John Wilson
This idea of publishing names I feel is an invasion of privacy. What happens if the wrong results are put on the net. I agree there are some shocking tenants out there. But there are also a lot of shonky landlords who still don’t pay the bond to Housing New Zealand or who ever the bond gets payed to these days. I’m glad to have left the renting game 15 years ago and good riddance to it.
Richard Croucher
It is very easily for some tenants to move from house to house,trashing them and not paying the rent as they go. Listing these people will help prevent this and hopefully it will make them more accountable for their actions and less likely to offend.
Gayle P Bruce
As a long standing tenant and the recipient of increased rentals so landlords can cover previous losses due to damaged properties or non payment of rents, I think this is a great concept. It will give landlords the opportunity to vet tenants through another source.
Sharon
About time!!
David Brydon
I am fully behind this idea as long it is controlled properly. There must be proof that the state of a property after a renting term is in a worse condition than before. Photos must be key to the success of the programme. There must be an agreement with the landlord in writing with photographic evidence of any problems before hand. If this works this will also help to mature our student and criminal population. I am not saying for there to be no parties, I’m just saying that there should be a greater level of responsibility in home care, especially if it does not belong to you.
Chris Brazendale
A website for bad tenants is a good idea. But to balance things up we should also have one for bad landlords. There are plenty of those as well.
Rena Linde
I am a tenant myself. I approve of the publication, but only if it is for both; tenant and landlords. And the criteria for being published should be equal for both. There are too many landlords that renting out houses where a decent person would not let a dog live in.
Oxford
There should be a list of good tenants too.
Paula Folkard
After having to cut my holiday short and come home because our tenant has done a runner and left a mess for us to clean up, I am in full agreement of publicly naming bad tenants. With the clean up, rubbish removal, water rates and loss of rent we are looking at a bill of over $500 for the week. Most of our tenants are great but the odd bad one leaves a sour taste.
Paul Keohane