What was Tenancy Tribunal case 4948413 about?

The tribunal order states: The application is dismissed.

How much money was awarded in case 4948413?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 4948413?

The primary dispute was 14-day notice. Related themes: Harassment.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 4948413?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/10944826-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

What was Tenancy Tribunal case 4948413 about?

The tribunal order states: The application is dismissed.

How much money was awarded in case 4948413?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 4948413?

The primary dispute was 14-day notice. Related themes: Harassment.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 4948413?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/10944826-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

New Zealand Tenancy Tribunal Case 4948413 — 14-day notice

Order

The application is dismissed.

Reasons

Both parties attended the hearing which was heard over two days (9 August 2024 and 20 September 2024).
Ms Eder attended on behalf of the landlord.
The tenant attended along with his daughter, Ms [HP] (the tenant representative) who was authorised by the Tribunal to represent her father at the hearing.
The tenant requested the presence of a Māori language interpreter for the second day of the hearing. The interpreter was booked by the Tribunal but did not attend on the date requested for reasons unknown. The tenant acknowledged that the interpreter was not available but chose to go ahead with the hearing. As it transpired, the interpreter was not required.
A number of witnesses attended for both parties.
Some of the witnesses preferred not to be named in any written order and I agree that naming them is unnecessary for the Tribunal’s purposes.
The tenant referred to a cross application in the written submissions. No cross application was received, and the tenant confirmed that no such application had been filed at the date of the hearing. The tenant accepted that if there were other matters to come before the Tribunal unrelated to the claims now before me, these could be addressed in a separate application.
The landlord has applied for termination of the tenancy under s56 of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (the Act) for breach of the tenant’s obligations and s55(1)(c) of the Act for threats to assault agents of the landlord. Background
Much evidence was provided by both parties which could be described as background information. Although it is useful to have a picture of the parties and the tenancy, it is not necessary to review that information here. I have considered all of the material provided by parties and witnesses before making this order.
The tenancy began on 16 March 2020.
The tenancy has not been an easy one for the landlord. Many witnesses gave evidence of incidents of aggressive language and intimidating behaviour by the tenant most of which was not directly linked with the claims now before the Tribunal.
Given the number of incidents referred to in the evidence it is unsurprising that there may be some confusion about what occurred when.
I note that the landlord refers to an incident on 24 June 2024 as “Second Threat to Assault”. During the hearing it was clear from witness statements and other evidence provided that the incident referred to in this section of the landlord’s submissions actually occurred on 24 April 2024 and was therefore, the first alleged threat to assault.
There was a significant incident on 24 June 2024. After that incident, both the tenant and agents of the landlord made police complaints against the other and an anti-social behaviour notice was served on the tenant under s55A of the Act.
A lot of detailed information was provided in relation to the 24 June incident which was recalled clearly by the tenant and the witnesses involved but that incident is not before me as an alleged threat to assault which could lead to termination of the tenancy under section 55(1)(c)(iii) of the Act.
Very limited information was provided in relation to the 24 April incident.

Should the tenancy be terminated under section 56?

The Tribunal may terminate a tenancy for breach where, due to the nature or extent of the breach, it would be inequitable to refuse to terminate under section 56(1) of the Act.
Where the breach is not capable of remedy, the landlord is not expressly required to serve a 14-day breach notice on the tenant. A breach is not capable to remedy where the thing done, or its effect, cannot be undone.
However, unless the breach is serious, the Tribunal usually requires the landlord to have warned the tenant about the likely consequences of continued breach before it will exercise its discretion to terminate.
The landlord initially intended to provide statements from a number of the tenant’s neighbours but, at the hearing, only one neighbour was willing to act as a witness for the landlord in this matter and the other statements were withdrawn.
I refer to that neighbour, who gave evidence at the hearing and provided a written statement, as “the complainant” to distinguish her from other neighbours and witnesses.
Under section 40(2)(c) of the Act a tenant shall not, “cause or permit any interference with the reasonable peace, comfort or privacy of any of the landlord’s other tenants, or with the reasonable peace, comfort or privacy of any other person residing in the neighbourhood.”
The complainant gave evidence that she became intimidated and scared of the tenant after an initially friendly relationship soured.
She was concerned that he could look into her property from his garden, and she erected a higher fence to prevent that from occurring.
The tenant had installed security cameras, including one quite high up on his unit which the compliment felt could look into her garden and home.
The complainant said that the tenant had “destroyed the peaceful enjoyment of [her] home and the complex”.
Another neighbour acted as a witness for the tenant and corroborated the view of an independent witness (who appeared in support of both landlord and tenant) who said that both the tenant and the complainant were “as bad as each other”.
The evidence showed that the relationship had been positive until a dispute arose over payment for some painting work the tenant had agreed to complete for the complainant.
Prior to this the tenant had looked after the complainant’s dog when she was away, and they had generally got along well.
Following the disagreement, the relationship had deteriorated and both parties had installed security cameras (although the complainant had recently lowered her cameras) and generally got on very badly.
Given that two witnesses provided evidence to the Tribunal to confirm that this is a mutual dispute between neighbours rather than a completely one-sided breach on the part of this tenant, I cannot find that it would be inequitable to refuse to terminate the tenancy under section 56 of the Act in relation to this alleged breach.
During the hearing, the tenant said that he would lower the higher of his security cameras if asked to do so by the landlord. He also said that he had shown the complainant the live feed from the camera to put her mind at rest, but she remained concerned about the placement of the camera.
Although no request had been made by the landlord at the time of this hearing, it would seem a sensible gesture of good faith if the tenant were to lower the camera that he knows is causing such distress to his neighbour. Should the tenancy be terminated under section 55(1)(c)(iii)?
The relevant part of section 55(1) of the Act states: (1) Subject to subsection (2), on any application made to it under this section by the landlord, the Tribunal shall make an order terminating the tenancy if the Tribunal is satisfied that – ... (c) The tenant has assaulted, or has threatened to assault, or has caused or permitted any person to assault, or to threaten to assault, any of the following persons: i.the landlord or any member of the landlord’s family: ii.the owner of the premises or any member of the owner’s family: iii.any agent of the landlord: iv.any occupier of any building of which the premises constitute a part: v.any neighbour of the premises or of any building of which the premises constitute a part.
The landlord identified two separate situations where it alleged the tenant had threatened to assault an agent of the landlord.
The applicant is required to establish the claim to the civil law standard of proof, on the balance of probabilities.
In assessing whether the standard is satisfied, the Tribunal must determine whether the evidence provided to support the allegations is strong enough given the seriousness of those allegations and the consequences of accepting them as true.
In Collins v Housing New Zealand Ltd HC Christchurch, CIV-2004-409-717, 2 July 2004, Justice Keane said that; To “threaten to assault” means just what it says: it is an expression of an intent to do harm to another person by use of force.
One alleged threat to assault related to events on 17 June 2024 when agents of the landlord thought the tenant was encouraging his dog to attack them by saying, “hissssss hisssss...good boy, get ‘em”.
The contractors gave evidence that they had felt threatened by this and had left the site for the day following this incident.
The tenant gave evidence that he had awoken from sleep on that date to hear his dog barking. He had gone to the door and noticed through the peephole that his gate was open, and his dog was alert and continuing to bark.
The tenant said he believed someone was threatening his, or his dog’s, safety.
He said he did not know who or what his dog was barking at, but he was concerned and went out the door using the words quoted above or similar.
He was then told by a neighbour that the dog was barking at the landlord’s agents who were walking past to go on a break.
The tenant said he did not know who had caused the dog to bark at the time he said the words to his dog and did not direct the threatening words to the landlord’s agents knowingly.
The dog was clearly encouraged to bark aggressively but this was not necessarily directed intentionally or specifically at agents of the landlord.
There is insufficient evidence for the Tribunal to be satisfied that the tenant threatened to assault the landlord’s agents on this occasion.
The other incident was on 24 April 2024 when the landlord alleges that the tenant threatened to assault another agent of the landlord.
The tenant had allegedly gone out to the street and was having a verbal interaction with agents of the landlord when he went towards another agent’s car and threated that person.
That witness (the alleged victim) gave evidence that the tenant said, ‘if I entered the flat he would drop me.”
The tenant claimed to have no specific recollection of this incident. He said that in April he had issues with the roofing contractors damaging tenants’ aerials during the course of their work (this aerial damage was confirmed by another neighbour who gave evidence on behalf of the tenant) and had exchanged words with various people about this.
Although I acknowledge that there were a number of difficult incidents between the alleged victim and the tenant, I cannot be certain on the balance of probabilities that the tenant said these words on this occasion.
Matters had come to more of a head as the roofing contract continued and the incident on 24 June was clearly of some significance with another landlord witness saying, “[a] minor collusion occurs, and [the alleged victim] retreats.”
As mentioned above, police complaints were filed by both parties in relation to this June incident and an anti-social behaviour notice was issued to the tenant.
There was no evidence provided that any action was taken in relation to the 24 April incident at the time or that there was any written record of the alleged threat. Much had happened between that time and the Tribunal application.
Whereas the tenant frequently accepted that he likely said something when that was put to him in relation to other incidents of poor language, he specifically said he did not believe he would have said these words (“drop you”).
Given the significance of the accusation, I cannot find on the balance of probabilities, with the limited evidence before me in relation to this specific incident, that the tenant made the alleged threat.
The applicant has not satisfied me that it is more likely than not that the tenant threatened to assault an agent of the landlord on either occasion.
The tenancy cannot therefore be terminated under section 55(1)(c)(iii). Moving forward
Although this application for termination has been unsuccessful, the tenant is now on clear notice that aggressive or intimidating behaviour is likely to lead to applications for termination either for anti-social behaviour or under other options available to the landlord under the Act.
There is no doubt that the tenant’s behaviour towards landlord’s staff and contractors has been extremely poor.
The landlord’s Operations Manager gave evidence that his staff have been “traumatised” by the tenant’s behaviour. This is clearly unacceptable, and the landlord’s staff should not have to suffer like this when engaged in their day-to- day mahi.
The Tribunal has some confidence that this hearing process may be a catalyst for change in the relationship between the parties for the following reasons: a. The tenant has whanau support for first time in some years (possibly decades). This reengagement with whanau (and hapu) is providing previously unavailable stability and a supportive framework for future interactions with the landlord and others. b. The tenant’s daughter is now acting as a liaison person with the landlord and providing a buffer between the tenant and landlord contractors. There is evidence that this has already been useful for both parties. c. No problems arose between the first hearing of this matter and the second hearing (6 weeks), and work was completed by contractors on the tenant’s property during this period without issue. d. Much evidence was provided by the tenant in relation to the landlord’s in- house guidelines for engagement with Māori and its adherence to those guidelines. It is not for this Tribunal to retrospectively review the landlord’s adherence, or otherwise, to its guidelines, but I acknowledge that both parties are now aware of the relevant options and processes available, and both are better able to make use of those resources. e. The tenant has engaged with the landlord’s Reginal Manager (Māori Response) and that engagement has been of benefit to the tenant and is likely to be helpful to both parties going forward. f. Matters came to a significant head during reroofing of complex and this work is now complete. g. The tenant maintained a calm demeanour during hearing even when sensitive and difficult personal issues were raised. h. The tenant gave evidence that he had self-referred to a programme to assist him to manage his emotions in a more acceptable way. He has started attendance at that programme and evidence was provided to confirm that he was positively engaged in it. i. The tenant plans to attend a communications course with his daughter. j. The tenant has physical health issues which cause him pain, and these are now being addressed in a more productive way which should result in reduced pain leading to a more relaxed demeanour. k. The tenant expressed insight into certain triggers for his inappropriate behaviour including, disputes over money owed, damage to food crops (lemon tree and rhubarb) and perceived breaches of his privacy. He is working on ways to respond to these triggers more appropriately. l. He accepts his language is frequently unacceptable and now appreciates the impact this has on others. He has expressed a willingness to change his behaviour. m. During the hearing it was clearly explained to the tenant that it is not a breach of the Act or a trespass for the landlord’s kaimahi or contractors (or anyone else) to approach his door without notice.
Both parties should continue to engage with each other in good faith.
The parties should ensure that the tenant is made fully aware of what parts of the premises are for his exclusive use under the tenancy agreement and what areas are common areas where he may (for example) be able to hang washing or plant crops. This clarification will minimise any future misunderstandings of this nature.
Some consideration should be given to the tenant’s request to be moved to a property more suitable for him and where there are no preexisting negative relationships. Suppression
Name suppression was requested by the tenant at the hearing. As the tenant has been successful name suppression is granted.

Tenancy Tribunal case 4948413 — 14-day notice

At a glance

Claims & awards

Tenancy Tribunal case 4948413 — 14-day notice

At a glance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Should the tenancy be terminated under section 56?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Property management

Frequently asked questions

Order

Reasons

Should the tenancy be terminated under section 56?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Property management

Frequently asked questions