What was Tenancy Tribunal case 4467317 about?

The tribunal order states: CP Lands Limited t/a TCG Agriculture must pay [the tenant] $4,020.44

How much money was awarded in case 4467317?

Compensation: $4,000.00 awarded to tenant; Filing Fee: $20.44 awarded to tenant

What type of tenancy dispute was case 4467317?

The dispute type was not classified.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 4467317?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/9598390-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

What was Tenancy Tribunal case 4467317 about?

The tribunal order states: CP Lands Limited t/a TCG Agriculture must pay [the tenant] $4,020.44

How much money was awarded in case 4467317?

Compensation: $4,000.00 awarded to tenant; Filing Fee: $20.44 awarded to tenant

What type of tenancy dispute was case 4467317?

The dispute type was not classified.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 4467317?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/9598390-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

620 Old Te Aroha Road, Okauia, RD 1, Matamata 3471 Tenancy Tribunal Case 4467317 — Tenancy dispute

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 4467317 — net $4,020.44 NZD. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Tenant	Reason
Compensation	$4,000.00	Compensation
Filing fee reimbursement	$20.44	Filing fee reimbursement
Net award	$4,020.44
Total payable by Landlord to Tenant	$4,020.44

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 4467317 — net $4,020.44 NZD. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Tenant	Reason
Compensation	$4,000.00	Compensation
Filing fee reimbursement	$20.44	Filing fee reimbursement
Net award	$4,020.44
Total payable by Landlord to Tenant	$4,020.44

Order

CP Lands Limited t/a TCG Agriculture must pay [the tenant] $4,020.44 immediately, calculated as shown in table below:

Reasons

Both parties attended the hearing: Mr Allison represented the landlord.
The tenant has applied for compensation and exemplary damages following the termination of his service tenancy. Background
In late November 2022, the tenant signed an employment contact with the landlord, to work as a heard manager on a farm in Matamata. The agreement is dated 22 November, although it may have been signed several days later. The contract included residential accommodation, valued at $15,600.00 per annum ($300.00pw).
The contract did not include a start date. However, on Wednesday 23 November the tenant sent a text to the landlord asking if he could move into the accommodation on that Saturday (26 th ) or Sunday (27 th ). The landlord replied [verbatim]: Hi [suppressed], that should be ok. The kitchen has been put back in after some repairs to the wall so you may have to work in with some workman for a week or so getting the walls re-plastered and painted and properly done. But if thats ok you can move in when you like, contract will be in your inbox later tonight im just doing it now.
On Friday 25 November the tenant advised the landlord he was moving his goods out his accommodation at Turangi the following day and would be at the new accommodation around lunchtime. He asked if the house was unlocked or where he could find the keys. The landlord replied with the location of key and said the kitchen was still a bit of a “worksite”.
The tenant, his partner, and his 4-year old son moved into the premises on 26 November. The tenant says when they moved in the oven and stove hob were missing, there was a hole in the ceiling, the power was off, and there were bare wires exposed.
Sometime after 8:00pm that evening the farm owner entered the house without the tenant’s consent, tried to take the keys off him, and demanded that they leave for insurance and safety reasons.
The landlord arranged for the tenant to stay in a room over a pub at Matamata that night. However, the tenant found the accommodation unsuitable, and he and his family drove back towards Taupo. Eventually he found accommodation for the night at The Bull Ring, near Atiamuri.
The following day, the landlord arranged for the tenant and his family to stay at an Airbnb in Putaruru. In the meantime, most of their chattels and personal effects were still at the premises.
When the tenant started work on 30 November, he found that the locks had been changed and the builders had left windows open at the premises. He sent a text message to the landlord expressing his frustration that his property was left insecure. He also said he needed to retrieve some of his goods from the property. In reply, the landlord gave him the number of the operations manager overseeing the repairs. He said for the tenant to “let him know your frustrations as it’s his job to fix”.
At 10:18am on 1 December, the landlord gave the tenant 12 hours’ notice that his employment contract was terminated. The landlord said he had to remove his belongings from the farmhouse by 5:00pm on Friday 2 December, and vacate the Airbnb by Sunday 4 December.
The tenant says he stayed at the Airbnb for about a week in total, and he recovered his goods from the farmhouse about two weeks after receiving notice. At that time he says he had no money and his family had nowhere to live. For over a month they stayed with various family members, and at times he slept in his car.

When did the tenancy start?

The employment contract did not have a start date for the tenancy (a breach of s 13A(1)(e) RTA). The landlord claims the tenant moved into the house before the tenancy started, and that he was only storing his goods at the property on the Saturday. By inference, the landlord is claiming the events on Saturday 26 th did not occur during the tenancy.
Although the landlord submitted a timeline of messaging between the parties, it did not include the relevant messages in the days before the tenant moved in. It is clear from those messages that the landlord agreed to the tenant moving in on the Saturday, saying he could move in whenever he liked and providing him access to the key.
As the landlord breached the RTA by not providing a written start date in the tenancy agreement, based on the messaging between the parties I find that the tenancy started on 26 November, even though the tenant was not due to start work until the following week.

Did the landlord breach its obligations at the start of the tenancy?

A landlord must ensure there is no legal impediment to occupying the premises for residential purposes at the start of the tenancy (s 36 RTA). The tenant is entitled to have vacant possession on the date they are entitled to enter into occupation of the premises (s 37 RTA). Sections 38(1) and (2) provide: (1) The tenant shall be entitled to have quiet enjoyment of the premises without interruption by the landlord or any person claiming by, through, or under the landlord or having superior title to that of the landlord [emphasis added]. (2) The landlord shall not cause or permit any interference with the reasonable peace, comfort, or privacy of the tenant in the use of the premises by the tenant.
Breaching subs (2) in circumstances that amount to harassment, is an unlawful act, for which exemplary damages up to $3,000.00.
In addition to these obligations, the landlord is required by s 45(1)(b) RTA to provide the premises in a reasonable state of repair. Breaching this obligation is an unlawful act for which exemplary damages can be awarded up to $7,200.00. Although the tenant did not claim exemplary damages for this particular breach, the condition of the house was relevant to the events that occurred on 26 November.
The landlord’s position is that it understood the house repairs would be completed before the start of the contract, it was unaware the tenant would not be able to move in, and it took reasonable steps to find him alternative accommodation (which it says he was happy with).
I do not accept the landlord’s submission. The landlord knew that building work was going on and it had an obligation to ensure that the work did not affect compliance with its obligations and the tenant’s rights. The fact that it failed to make the necessary inquiries is manifested by the events on the Saturday. The landlord cannot shift responsibility for the events that occurred to the property owner, the builder, or the insurer.
I find that the events of 26 November and the following days were highly disruptive for the tenant and his family. They had transported their goods to their new home, they were ejected from their home late in the evening on the day of arrival, they were offered unsuitable accommodation above a pub, they had to drive to find alternative accommodation that night, they were offered alternative accommodation at an Airbnb (which the tenant found unsuitable due to the presence of the owner), they did not have access to their belongings, and the tenant had to travel a considerable distance from his accommodation to his workplace. I do not accept that the tenant was happy with the alternative arrangements the landlord made. He says he adopted that tone in his messages as he did not want to get offside with his employer before he had started work.
The tenant believes these events not only breached his quiet enjoyment, but also amounted to harassment. However, any harassment resulted from the actions of the owner, and I’m not satisfied that the landlord is liable for the actions of the owner under s 38(3) RTA (unlike s 38(1)).

Did the landlord breach its obligations during the tenancy?

Section 46 RTA provides that the landlord shall not alter the locks during the tenancy. Doing so is an unlawful act, for which exemplary damages of $1,500.00 can be awarded. The landlord says this was done without its knowledge. It says the builder took over the building site, and this was outside its control.
I accept that the landlord was not involved with the change of locks, and therefore did not commit an unlawful act. However, by not providing the tenant with a new set of keys, it committed a further breach of its obligation to provide the tenant ‘quiet enjoyment’. Even though this was due to the actions of a third party, this does not affect the landlord’s liability to the tenant. It would be contrary to the intent of the RTA for a landlord to shift risk to a tenant in this way. The landlord could not simply fob the tenant off to the builder, saying it was his obligation to fix the problem. The obligation remained with the landlord.

Did the landlord breach its obligations at the end of the tenancy?

A tenant is entitled to 14 days’ notice to terminate a service tenancy (s 53(1) RTA). A landlord may only give shorter notice if it believes on reasonable grounds that the tenant will cause substantial damage to the premises if allowed to stay for 14 days, or the landlord needs the premises for a replacement employee.
The landlord has failed to prove either ground for shorter termination (s 53(7)(b) RTA). The landlord says the tenant was verbally abusive to the builder and, on that basis, it believed that he could be violent. Even if the tenant was abusive to the builder, that falls well short of proving a risk of substantial damage to the premises. A few days after terminating the tenant’s employment contract, the landlord terminated its contract with the farm owner. Therefore, there is no evidence that it needed the premises for a replacement worker.
It follows from these findings that the landlord breached the minimum requirements for the notice period, and the notice was therefore invalid. The timeframes it gave for the tenant to vacate the alternative premises and remove his goods from the farmhouse were unreasonably short. This is especially so as he had only just incurred the expense of transporting his goods to the property, his employment was terminated after a day on the job, he only received 2 days’ pay, and (at that stage) he had not been reimbursed the cost of accommodation at The Bull Ring.

How much compensation should be awarded?

The unlawful acts of entry, changing the locks, and (possibly) harassment were committed by the farm owner rather than the landlord. As the owner was not acting on behalf of the landlord, the landlord is not liable for exemplary damages.
However, the landlord is responsible for numerous breaches of its obligations which entitle the tenant to a substantial award of compensation. I have already outlined the consequences of these events for the tenant and his family. Breaches occurred at the start of the tenancy, during the tenancy, and at the end.
The tenant has claimed moving costs, although he has not provided supporting evidence of the actual amounts. Because moving costs are something that a tenant will incur anyway whenever a tenancy is lawfully ended, the Tribunal does not necessarily award these costs when it is unlawfully ended. Usually it is just a matter of timing. However, in this case, given the extremely short duration of the tenancy and the multiplicity of breaches, it is reasonable to take the likely moving costs into account in a general way.
The Tribunal can also consider inconvenience and emotional distress resulting from a breach (Rowlands v Collow [1992] 1 NZLR 178). Awards are likely to be modest for emotional distress, and they are more likely to be made where the contract concerns personal, social, and family interests. It is reasonable to take these factors into account in this case, as it was reasonably foreseeable that the landlord’s conduct would cause a high level of distress and inconvenience.
Taking into account the catalogue of breaches, their seriousness, the grave consequences for the tenant and his family, the inconvenience and emotional distress caused, and the likely costs incurred in moving in and out of the farmhouse over such an unreasonably short period, I have awarded compensation of $4,000.00. Filing fee and name suppression
Because the tenant has largely succeeded with the claim, I have reimbursed the filing fee.
Although the tenant did not apply for name suppression, it is appropriate to award it under s 95A(4) RTA. J P Smith 02 November 2023

Tenancy Tribunal case 4467317 — Tenancy dispute at 620 Old Te Aroha Road, Okauia, RD 1, Matamata 3471

At a glance

Tenancy Tribunal case 4467317 — Tenancy dispute at 620 Old Te Aroha Road, Okauia, RD 1, Matamata 3471

At a glance

Award balance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

When did the tenancy start?

Did the landlord breach its obligations at the start of the tenancy?

Did the landlord breach its obligations during the tenancy?

Did the landlord breach its obligations at the end of the tenancy?

How much compensation should be awarded?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions

Award balance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

When did the tenancy start?

Did the landlord breach its obligations at the start of the tenancy?

Did the landlord breach its obligations during the tenancy?

Did the landlord breach its obligations at the end of the tenancy?

How much compensation should be awarded?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions