What was Tenancy Tribunal case 4786999 about?

The tribunal order states: An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal

How much money was awarded in case 4786999?

Property Damage: $4,500.00 awarded to tenant; Filing Fee: $20.44 awarded to tenant

What type of tenancy dispute was case 4786999?

The primary dispute was Exemplary damages.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 4786999?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/10328702-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

What was Tenancy Tribunal case 4786999 about?

The tribunal order states: An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal

How much money was awarded in case 4786999?

Property Damage: $4,500.00 awarded to tenant; Filing Fee: $20.44 awarded to tenant

What type of tenancy dispute was case 4786999?

The primary dispute was Exemplary damages.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 4786999?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/10328702-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

New Zealand Tenancy Tribunal Case 4786999 — Exemplary damages

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 4786999 — net $4,520.44 NZD. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Tenant	Reason
Exemplary damages	$4,500.00	Exemplary damages
Filing fee reimbursement	$20.44	Filing fee reimbursement
Net award	$4,520.44
Total payable by Landlord to Tenant	$4,520.44

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 4786999 — net $4,520.44 NZD. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Tenant	Reason
Exemplary damages	$4,500.00	Exemplary damages
Filing fee reimbursement	$20.44	Filing fee reimbursement
Net award	$4,520.44
Total payable by Landlord to Tenant	$4,520.44

Order

An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal orders suppression of the tenants’ names and identifying details.
Pamela Fey Loader must pay [The tenant/s] $4,520.44 immediately, calculated as shown in the table below.
The tenants’ claims are otherwise dismissed.
The Bond Centre is to pay the bond of $1,400.00 ([Bond number suppressed]) to [The tenant/s] immediately.

Reasons

All parties attended the hearing. The tenants attended in person and the landlord attended by telephone.
The landlord requested an adjournment because she said that she was suffering from migraine. I refused the adjournment, and the hearing proceeded with all parties fully participating. There was no indication that the landlord had any difficulty putting forward her side of things and I am satisfied that she was at no significant disadvantage attending by telephone.
The tenants claim compensation and exemplary damages for various alleged breaches by the landlord of her obligations. Mainly, they concern the condition of the premises.
The landlord indicated that she wanted to claim rent arrears but there is no application and the rent statement she provided after the hearing is not in the correct form and is disputed by the tenants. The landlord can make her own application in due course if she wants to pursue arrears. Background
The premises are a two-bedroom basement flat. The floor above is the landlord’s home. There is another two bedroomed dwelling beside the main house which the landlord said has been unoccupied for some time. She said that she did not want it occupied because it did not comply with the Healthy Homes Standards (HHS).
The premises do not occupy all the space under the landlord’s home. The remaining space is an empty basement. There is a door from the premises into the basement which the landlord keeps locked.
The property was the landlord’s family home from the 1950s. She became responsible for it from 1988. She said that she let the premises from time to time, but this is the first tenancy of them since 2000.
The tenancy began on 3 March 2022, and it ended on 22 March 2024 following a termination notice given by the tenants.
The recent HHS applied to the tenancy 90 days after its commencement, so they applied from 1 June 2022.
The tenants’ complaints concern the following. I.No range hood. II.No extractor fan in the bathroom. III.Unreasonable gaps causing draughts. IV.No insulation. V.No smoke alarms. VI.Inadequate heating. VII.Faulty stove top. VIII.Faulty drainage. IX.Faulty flooring and floor coverings. X.Pests. XI.Bond not lodged in time. XII.Interference with quiet enjoyment. Relevant Law
Under section 45 of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (the Act), a landlord must provide and maintain the premises in a reasonable state of repair, comply with all requirements in respect of smoke alarms and insulation set out in the Residential Tenancies (Smoke Alarms and Insulation) Regulations 2016, and comply with any relevant enactment in relation to buildings, health and safety.
Breaching any of these obligations is an unlawful act for which exemplary damages may be awarded up to a maximum of $7,200.00.
Where a party has committed an unlawful act intentionally, the Tribunal may award exemplary damages where it is satisfied it would be just to do so, having regard to the party’s intent, the effect of the unlawful act, the interests of the other party, and the public interest.
A landlord must not interfere with the reasonable peace, comfort or privacy of the tenant in their use of the premises.
Breaching this obligation in circumstances that amount to harassment is an unlawful act for which exemplary damages may be awarded up to a maximum of $3,000.00.
A landlord must send any bond payment to the Bond Centre within 23 working days after the payment is received.
Breaching this obligation is an unlawful act for which the Tribunal may award exemplary damages up to a maximum of $1,500.00.
From 1 July 2019, all residential premises must be insulated to a minimum standard.
There are exceptions to these requirements, for example, where it is not reasonably practicable, or where there is a habitable space above or below the ceiling or floor that would otherwise have to be insulated.
Landlords must comply with other Healthy Homes Standards from the date that they apply to the tenancy.
The ventilation standard sets out minimum expectations around windows and doors, and in particular the area of doors and windows that are openable. The standard also requires that each kitchen and bathroom have extractor fans installed with a minimum defined extraction capacity.
Breaching this obligation is an unlawful act for which exemplary damages may be awarded up to a maximum of $7,200.00.
The draught stopping standard requires that residential premises be free from unreasonable gaps and holes that are not an intentional part of the building, which allow draughts to arise.
Breaching this obligation is an unlawful act for which exemplary damages may be awarded up to a maximum of $7,200.00.
The moisture ingress and drainage standard require that buildings comprising residential tenancies must have efficient systems to drain storm water, surface water and ground water, and that includes gutters, downpipes and drains. The Standard requires a ground moisture barrier when there is an enclosed subfloor space.
There are exemptions in specific circumstances in relation to all these HHS. Claims Dismissed
I will deal first with the claims that I find should be dismissed. Insulation
There is no insulation under the floor of the premises or in any of the walls apart, according to the landlord, from the wall between the premises and the adjoining basement.
The tenants accept that there is insufficient space under the floor for a person to install insulation there. It follows that the landlord is not required to install insulation there because it is not reasonably practicable to do so.
Insulation is not required in walls.
There is no need for insulation between the premises and the landlord’s home because the landlord’s home is a habitable space.
If follows that there has been no breach of the insulation requirements and the claim must be dismissed. Pests
There is evidence that the tenants suffered infestations of flies, ants and rodents in the premises during the tenancy. They said that there were gaps in the premises that allowed rodents to enter them.
There is nothing in the Act that deals specifically with pests. To the extent that were unreasonable gaps in the premises, I deal with that below. Quiet Enjoyment
The tenants gave evidence that the landlord interfered with their quiet enjoyment of the premises. The landlord denied that she did so, and she made allegations concerning the tenants’ behaviour.
The evidence does not satisfy me that the landlord interfered with the tenants’ quiet enjoyment of the premises or, if she did, that it would warrant the Tribunal providing a remedy for it. This became an unhappy tenancy for the parties and my impression is that both sides behaved inappropriately at one time or another, but it was minor.
This claim is therefore dismissed. Rangehood
There was no rangehood above the stove. The stove was against the wall between the premises and the basement. The landlord said that it was not reasonably practicable to install a range hood because it would have to vent into the basement. The tenants disputed that and said that it was acceptable to vent the extractor fan into the basement.
My instinct is that it should be acceptable to vent an extractor to a basement space because the space in not inside the premises or any other premises. There appears to be no practical difference between a ventilated basement and an outdoor space.
But the regulations refer to the outdoors and it seems unlikely that parliament intended that to mean anything other than true outdoor spaces that are entirely outside a building. A basement is not entirely outside a building. It is incorporated in the building.
I therefore accept that the extractor fan could not be vented into the basement.
The next question is, would it be reasonably practicable to vent it to the outside? To do that would require the ducting to be run through the basement to the outside. I don’t have the evidence to be able to conclude one way or the other whether that is reasonably practicable. It should not be a problem to run ducting through the basement to an outside wall and the question then is, is it reasonably practicable to vent it through the wall to the outside?
If a landlord relies on an exemption, it is for the landlord to prove that the exemption applies. It is not for the tenant to prove that it does not apply. The landlord relies on the exemption, but she has not proved that it applies. To do so, the landlord would need to employ a suitably qualified contractor to assess how a range hood could be stalled in compliance with the HHS and then for the Tribunal to consider whether that was reasonably practicable.
That said, I accept that venting a rangehood to the outside in the circumstances would not be a simple task and the landlord may well have believed that it was not practicable. In the circumstances, I would am not inclined to make an award of exemplary damages. Nor do I think it is appropriate to award compensation. It follows that the claim is dismissed. Bathroom Extractor Fan
The tenant accept that it would be difficult to install an extractor fan in the bathroom due to its location. I find, therefore, that it would not be reasonably practicable to do so. Claims Proved Draughts
There was ample evidence of unreasonable gaps in the premises that created draughts. There were such gaps at windows and doors.
The landlord would have been aware of the gaps when she let the premises to the tenants. There was therefore no need for the tenants to complain about them or to bring them to the landlord’s notice. Smoke Alarms
The landlord accepted that there were no smoke alarms installed in the premises at the start of the tenancy. Fortunately, the tenants were aware of the need for them, and they installed inexpensive alarms themselves. These started to malfunction towards the end of the tenancy until they were left with one working alarm in living area not within three metres of the bedrooms.
The tenants brought that situation to the landlord’s attention, but she took no action. Heating
The source of heating for the living area was a pellet fire. It was not working at the start of the tenancy, but the tenants were able to find the fault and get it working.
Later in the tenancy, it would work only on the highest setting. The tenants informed the landlord, but she took no action. The tenants said that whilst the heater worked, they used more pellets than necessary because they could not turn down the heat. Downpipes
At one corner of the premises, downpipes discharged onto the ground. The landlord was aware of the situation, but she took no action.
Water pooled on the ground below the down pipes. There is no evidence that it affected conditions inside the premises. Flooring
The tenants referred to areas of flooring which were soft, but the more serious issue was joining strips where carpet had been lifted and the strips not removed. The tenants removed some of them for their own safety, but the premises should not have been provided to the tenants in that condition. Stove
The tenants had problems with the two front elements of the stove. They worked intermittently or worked only on the highest setting.
The landlord claimed that there was nothing wrong with them, but I prefer the tenants’ evidence which is supported by the messages between the parties. This was another example of the landlord preferring to avoid her responsibilities. Bond
The landlord lodged the bond on 3 April 2024, two years after it should have been lodged. The landlord sought to explain the lateness, but it does not excuse it. The landlord was aware of the requirement and could have lodged the bond in time if she had been motivated to do so.
She has now lodged the bond which is something and I am willing to make some allowance because she is not technologically adept. But the delay was egregious, and, in my view, it is another example of the landlord’s preparedness to ignore her obligations. Remedy
My overall impression of the landlord’s conduct in this case is that she was aware of her responsibilities but chose to disregard them. She had little concern for the safety or comfort of the tenants, and she was very reluctant to do anything to assist them, presumably because she did not want to incur the expense of doing so.
I am satisfied that she committed the unlawful acts referred to in respect of the claims that have been proved, and that there should be awards to exemplary damages for each of them. I make the following awards. a. The gaps and consequent draughts would cause the premises to be colder, damper and more difficult to heat. They would also allow pests to enter the premises. An award of $1,500 is appropriate. b. A breach of the smoke alarm regulations is always viewed seriously by the Tribunal because it directly affects the safety of the tenants. In this case the tenants saw to it themselves, but it should go without saying that should not have had to do so. Due to their circumstances, there was inadequate protection towards the end of the tenancy. An award of $1,000 is appropriate. c. The heating situation was far from ideal, but it was at the less serious end of the spectrum. An award of $300 is sufficient. d. The downpipes did not cause any significant problem for the tenants, but it was still a deliberate breach. An award of $200 is sufficient. e. The defective flooring created a safety risk, and it would have been unpleasant for the tenants. An award of $500 is warranted. f. The fault with the stove was inconvenient. An award of $500 is appropriate. g. After giving the landlord some credit for lodging the bond and allowing for some lack of technological ability an award of $500 is appropriate.
The total of these awards is $4,500 and that is the award I have made. I have taken into consideration the effect of the breaches on the tenants and so there is no need for separate awards of compensation. Bond
The landlord has made no claim against the bond and so it must be paid to the tenants. Filing Fee
The tenants have had substantial success and so I have awarded them the filing fee. Suppression
For the same reason I have granted the tenants name suppression.

Tenancy Tribunal case 4786999 — Exemplary damages

At a glance

Tenancy Tribunal case 4786999 — Exemplary damages

At a glance

Award balance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions

Award balance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions