What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5164832 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 5164832?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5164832?

The dispute type was not classified.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5164832?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/11725266-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5164832 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 5164832?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5164832?

The dispute type was not classified.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5164832?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/11725266-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

29 Fraser Road, Narrow Neck, Auckland 0624 Tenancy Tribunal Case 5164832 — Tenancy dispute

Order

An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal orders suppression of the tenants’ names and identifying details.
The application is dismissed.

Reasons

Ms Willis, representing the landlord, and [The tenant/s], representing both tenants, both attended the teleconference hearing.
The landlord has applied for an order varying the tenancy agreement in a current tenancy.
The landlord is required to establish the claim to the civil law standard of proof, on the balance of probabilities.
The applicant claimed the property was advertised for rent at $795.00 per week in November 2024 and said the tenants knew this was the rent. The landlord said one of their property managers entered the incorrect rent amount of $640.00 per week in their system, which generated a tenancy agreement with a rent of $640.00/week. This tenancy agreement was signed by the tenants. The landlord said the tenants initially agreed to sign a variation of the tenancy agreement but have since reneged on this. The landlord sought to vary the tenancy agreement to specify a weekly rent of $795.00 instead of $640.00 per week.
The landlord said the tenant viewed the property on 8 January 2025 and was booked in by a property manager to do this. The landlord contended that, to see the viewing times, the tenant would have had to have gone in via their website and would have seen the weekly rent advertised at $795.00/week. The landlord said this would have been the case even if the tenant had seen the property on Trade me. The landlord said the tenant’s application to rent the property was approved on 13 January 2025, and the application also contained the weekly rent at $795.00/week. The landlord said the rent amount error was first picked up when the owner received their first statement and noticed the incorrect rent amount. When the landlord issued a draft variation to the tenancy agreement and presented it to the tenant, the tenant apparently told them they were under no obligation to sign this.
The tenant said they had been urgently looking for a rental property, that they did not register for a viewing of the property but just showed up at a viewing of the property. The tenant thought she might have got the property address from a Trade me advertisement or the landlord’s website. The tenant said the property manager, Tina, registered her at the time and so she did not see any advertisement with the weekly rent amount then, nor was any weekly rent amount discussed with the property manager at the viewing. The tenant said they were desperate to find a place to live, as they had seen a lot of properties, and were not too focused on the rent amount at the time. The tenant said they applied to rent the property and were offered the property for rent at $640.00 per week on a fixed-term 12-month contract, in an email from the landlord. The tenant indicated this tenancy agreement was signed by both the tenant and the landlord, that they paid rent in advance plus a bond and that they have been regularly paying their rent at $640.00 per week, as per the tenancy agreement, and have relied on this amount that was agreed with the landlord. The tenant thought that $640.00 was a reasonable rent as the property is just a former state house and was not particularly upmarket.
The tenant said the property manager threatened her with issuing a 90-day notice to terminate their tenancy if they did not sign a variation to the tenancy agreement. The tenant was concerned that their tenancy not be jeopardised by this issue.
The tenant stated that there were a couple of things in the application that were incorrect, namely the level of her income which was grossly overstated, and that she had 4 pets, when she did not. The landlord said only the 2 tenants involved could have changed any information in the application, as the landlord could not access this application online or otherwise. The tenant said she could not remember seeing rent of $795.00 in the application. The tenant provided an email from the property manager dated 13 January 2025 indicating that the weekly rent [the tenant/s] was $640.00/week with a bond of $2560.00, which was 4 weeks’ rent @ $640.00, with a total payable of $3,200.00 (1 week’s rent in advance plus the bond), which she said she paid immediately.
The tenant explained that the property manager called her around 5 February 2025 saying the rent amount was an error and wanting to vary the tenancy agreement.
The landlord reiterated that the tenant must have seen or known about the weekly rent advertised at $795.00 when looking for or at the property, given it was in the advertisements and in the application to rent. Law
A valid contract requires agreement, consideration and intention to create legal relations. In addition, the terms of the agreement must be sufficiently certain and complete, at least as to the contract’s essential elements.
An offer is a communication of a willingness to be legally bound, on certain terms, without further negotiation. The communication may take different forms, such as a letter or email, so long as it communicates the terms on which the offeror is willing to be bound.
Acceptance can be regarded as the communication of complete and unconditional agreement to the terms set out in the offer, which can be taken by explicit agreement, such as that set out in documents such as a tenancy agreement, or can be implied by conduct.
Contracts must be supported by consideration, which here is the payment of rent by the tenant.
Contractual intent is a necessary element in the formation of a contract. It arises both in relation to the question of whether a contract has been formed and the question of when that contract was formed. In many cases the element of intention will be linked to other contractual principles, such as consideration or certainly. For example, the presence of consideration may be sufficient to establish the existence of the requisite intention to create legal relations.
A contract must be sufficiently certain as to its essential terms, or at least upon objective means of sufficient certainty by which those terms may be determined. Here, the parties entered into a written tenancy agreement which set out clear terms.
Given the evidence, I find there was an offer by the landlord of weekly rent of $640.00 in their email to the tenant dated 13 January 2025, to which a copy of the tenancy agreement was attached. The tenant then accepted the offer by signing the tenancy agreement. The tenant then paid weekly rent at $640.00, which was consideration. I find both parties intended to create a contract as the landlord provided a tenancy agreement, which contained specific and certain terms, which was accepted and signed by the tenant, and the tenant paid consideration, weekly rent, as part of the contract. Therefore, I find there was a valid contract between the parties for the tenant to rent the property at $640.00 per week.
As the landlord says an error was made in the contract, I now turn to consider the issue of mistake. Mistake
Relief for contractual mistakes is governed almost entirely by part 2 of the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017 (“CCLA”).
Section 23 of the CCLA defines a mistake for the purposes of the Act broadly as a mistake of fact or a mistake of law.
Section 24(1)(a) of the CCLA sets out the three different kinds of mistake which qualify for relief. They include a unilateral mistake known to the other party (s 24(1)(a)(i)), common or mutual mistake (s 24 (1)(a)(ii)), and different mistakes about the same subject (s 24(1)(a)(iii)). In each case the mistake must have resulted in a substantially unequal exchange of values: (s 24(1)(b)). Unilateral mistake known to the other party – s 24(1)(a)(i) CCLA
A party seeking relief for a unilateral mistake must show that its decision to enter the contract was influenced by a material mistake known to the other party. Unilateral mistakes that are not known to the other party are not remediable under the Act.
To establish a unilateral mistake, the party seeking relief must therefore establish: a. That they were influenced in their decision to enter into the contract by a mistake that was material to them; b. The existence of the mistake was known to the other party; and c. The mistake resulted in a substantially unequal exchange of values.
Actual knowledge is required although it may be proper for a court to infer actual knowledge from proved circumstances even if the party in question denies having that knowledge. 1
Relief under the CCLA is discretionary. Thus, it is possible to prove a qualifying mistake under s 24 but still be denied relief by the courts. Section 28 confers a very broad discretion upon the courts to grant relief both to parties to the contract and any other parties to the proceedings.
Section 27 CCLA provides that, in exercising the discretion, the court must take into account the extent to which the party seeking relief caused the mistake.
The equitable doctrine of rectification may be used as a remedy to correct the terms of a written contract which do not accurately record the agreement of the parties. Although rectification is most commonly sought in relation to contracts, it is capable of applying to any document. As rectification is an equitable remedy it is discretionary and may be withheld according to general equitable principles.
In New Zealand there is authority that rectification is only available in cases of common mistake – that is cases where the parties’ agreement was, by common mistake, wrongly expressed in the relevant document. Thus, the party seeking rectification must show the following: a. that the parties formed and continued to hold a single corresponding intention on the point in question b. that such intention continued to exist in the minds of both or all parties right up to the moment of execution of the document, c. that it is objectively apparent from the words or actions of each party that each party held and continued to hold an intention on the point in question corresponding with the same intention held by each other party. d. that the document sought to be rectified does not reflect that matching intention but would do so if rectified in the manner requested. 2
There was no evidence provided of a common mistake between the parties, namely that both parties were of a single mind that weekly rent was to be $795.00, and that both continued to hold that intention right up to the execution of the tenancy agreement.
In relation to unilateral mistake, the landlord must prove the tenant knew the rent was to be $795.00 per week, either that the tenant had actual knowledge of this, or that any such knowledge on the part of the tenant can be inferred from the circumstances and evidence. 1 Tri-Star Customs and Forwarding Ltd v Denning [1999] 1 NZLR 33 (CA) at 37. 2 Westland Savings Bank v Hancock [1987] 2 NZLR 21 (HC) Tipping J, at [29]-[30].
The tenant denied seeing any weekly rent advertised at $795.00 and said she could not recall seeing the weekly rent in the application for rental form. The tenant said further that she did not discuss the rent at the viewing with the property manager, as she was desperate for a place to live and had seen a lot of places already at that point. Given the evidence provided, I am not persuaded that the tenant likely had knowledge that the weekly rent was $795.00, as there is insufficient evidence provided by the landlord, such as an exchange of emails or texts between the parties discussing weekly rent of $795.00, for example, to show this. In my view, the evidence outlined above does not support an inference from the tenant’s conduct either that she knew the weekly rent was to be $795.00. When the landlord emailed the tenant on 13 January 2025 setting out the offer of a weekly rent at $640.00 and provided a tenancy agreement to this effect, this was not corrected by the landlord as an administrative error either within a short period of time of the email of 13 January 2025, such a day or two later, and was not picked up until the tenant had started paying weekly rent of $640.00 and the owner received their first rent statement.
Section 27 CCLA provides that the Court is to consider to what extent the party seeking relief has caused the mistake. Here, the property manager’s carelessness, ensured the weekly rent was put into their system and a tenancy agreement was generated, at $640.00 per week. The tenant then accepted this offer, signed the tenancy agreement, relied on this, and provided consideration as payment of rent to this effect.
As I have found the tenancy agreement between the parties is a valid contract and that the landlord has not provided sufficient evidence to show the tenant likely had knowledge of a weekly rent at $795.00 to make the mistake a ‘unilateral mistake’ as per the CCLA, and that there is no evidence of any common mistake, and given the landlord’s careless in putting in the incorrect rent amount to the email offer and tenancy agreement sent to the tenant, which I consider here as per section 27 CCLA, the landlord has not satisfied me that it is likely the tenancy agreement should be varied. As such, I dismiss the landlord’s claim. Filing fee
As the landlord has not succeeded with the claim, I do not reimburse the filing fee. Suppression
The landlord did not request name suppression. The tenant requested name suppression.
Section 95A(4) RTA provides that the Tribunal may, on the application of a party to proceedings or on its own initiative, having regard to the interests of the parties and to the public interest, order that all or part of the evidence given or the name or any identifying particulars of any witness or party not be published.
As the landlord has not been successful with the claim, and the tenancy is ongoing, I find the tenant’s interests outweigh the public interest in publishing their names. Therefore, the tenants’ names and identifying details are not to be published.

Reasons

Ms Willis, representing the landlord, and [The tenant/s], representing both tenants, both attended the teleconference hearing.

The landlord has applied for an order varying the tenancy agreement in a current tenancy.

The landlord is required to establish the claim to the civil law standard of proof, on the balance of probabilities.

The applicant claimed the property was advertised for rent at $795.00 per week in November 2024 and said the tenants knew this was the rent. The landlord said one of their property managers entered the incorrect rent amount of $640.00 per week in their system, which generated a tenancy agreement with a rent of $640.00/week. This tenancy agreement was signed by the tenants. The landlord said the tenants initially agreed to sign a variation of the tenancy agreement but have since reneged on this. The landlord sought to vary the tenancy agreement to specify a weekly rent of $795.00 instead of $640.00 per week.

The landlord said the tenant viewed the property on 8 January 2025 and was booked in by a property manager to do this. The landlord contended that, to see the viewing times, the tenant would have had to have gone in via their website and would have seen the weekly rent advertised at $795.00/week. The landlord said this would have been the case even if the tenant had seen the property on Trade me. The landlord said the tenant’s application to rent the property was approved on 13 January 2025, and the application also contained the weekly rent at $795.00/week. The landlord said the rent amount error was first picked up when the owner received their first statement and noticed the incorrect rent amount. When the landlord issued a draft variation to the tenancy agreement and presented it to the tenant, the tenant apparently told them they were under no obligation to sign this.

The tenant said they had been urgently looking for a rental property, that they did not register for a viewing of the property but just showed up at a viewing of the property. The tenant thought she might have got the property address from a Trade me advertisement or the landlord’s website. The tenant said the property manager, Tina, registered her at the time and so she did not see any advertisement with the weekly rent amount then, nor was any weekly rent amount discussed with the property manager at the viewing. The tenant said they were desperate to find a place to live, as they had seen a lot of properties, and were not too focused on the rent amount at the time. The tenant said they applied to rent the property and were offered the property for rent at $640.00 per week on a fixed-term 12-month contract, in an email from the landlord. The tenant indicated this tenancy agreement was signed by both the tenant and the landlord, that they paid rent in advance plus a bond and that they have been regularly paying their rent at $640.00 per week, as per the tenancy agreement, and have relied on this amount that was agreed with the landlord. The tenant thought that $640.00 was a reasonable rent as the property is just a former state house and was not particularly upmarket.

The tenant said the property manager threatened her with issuing a 90-day notice to terminate their tenancy if they did not sign a variation to the tenancy agreement. The tenant was concerned that their tenancy not be jeopardised by this issue.

The tenant stated that there were a couple of things in the application that were incorrect, namely the level of her income which was grossly overstated, and that she had 4 pets, when she did not. The landlord said only the 2 tenants involved could have changed any information in the application, as the landlord could not access this application online or otherwise. The tenant said she could not remember seeing rent of $795.00 in the application. The tenant provided an email from the property manager dated 13 January 2025 indicating that the weekly rent [the tenant/s] was $640.00/week with a bond of $2560.00, which was 4 weeks’ rent @ $640.00, with a total payable of $3,200.00 (1 week’s rent in advance plus the bond), which she said she paid immediately.

The tenant explained that the property manager called her around 5 February 2025 saying the rent amount was an error and wanting to vary the tenancy agreement.

The landlord reiterated that the tenant must have seen or known about the weekly rent advertised at $795.00 when looking for or at the property, given it was in the advertisements and in the application to rent. Law

A valid contract requires agreement, consideration and intention to create legal relations. In addition, the terms of the agreement must be sufficiently certain and complete, at least as to the contract’s essential elements.

An offer is a communication of a willingness to be legally bound, on certain terms, without further negotiation. The communication may take different forms, such as a letter or email, so long as it communicates the terms on which the offeror is willing to be bound.

Acceptance can be regarded as the communication of complete and unconditional agreement to the terms set out in the offer, which can be taken by explicit agreement, such as that set out in documents such as a tenancy agreement, or can be implied by conduct.

Contracts must be supported by consideration, which here is the payment of rent by the tenant.

Contractual intent is a necessary element in the formation of a contract. It arises both in relation to the question of whether a contract has been formed and the question of when that contract was formed. In many cases the element of intention will be linked to other contractual principles, such as consideration or certainly. For example, the presence of consideration may be sufficient to establish the existence of the requisite intention to create legal relations.

A contract must be sufficiently certain as to its essential terms, or at least upon objective means of sufficient certainty by which those terms may be determined. Here, the parties entered into a written tenancy agreement which set out clear terms.

Given the evidence, I find there was an offer by the landlord of weekly rent of $640.00 in their email to the tenant dated 13 January 2025, to which a copy of the tenancy agreement was attached. The tenant then accepted the offer by signing the tenancy agreement. The tenant then paid weekly rent at $640.00, which was consideration. I find both parties intended to create a contract as the landlord provided a tenancy agreement, which contained specific and certain terms, which was accepted and signed by the tenant, and the tenant paid consideration, weekly rent, as part of the contract. Therefore, I find there was a valid contract between the parties for the tenant to rent the property at $640.00 per week.

As the landlord says an error was made in the contract, I now turn to consider the issue of mistake. Mistake

Relief for contractual mistakes is governed almost entirely by part 2 of the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017 (“CCLA”).

Section 23 of the CCLA defines a mistake for the purposes of the Act broadly as a mistake of fact or a mistake of law.

Section 24(1)(a) of the CCLA sets out the three different kinds of mistake which qualify for relief. They include a unilateral mistake known to the other party (s 24(1)(a)(i)), common or mutual mistake (s 24 (1)(a)(ii)), and different mistakes about the same subject (s 24(1)(a)(iii)). In each case the mistake must have resulted in a substantially unequal exchange of values: (s 24(1)(b)). Unilateral mistake known to the other party – s 24(1)(a)(i) CCLA

A party seeking relief for a unilateral mistake must show that its decision to enter the contract was influenced by a material mistake known to the other party. Unilateral mistakes that are not known to the other party are not remediable under the Act.

To establish a unilateral mistake, the party seeking relief must therefore establish: a. That they were influenced in their decision to enter into the contract by a mistake that was material to them; b. The existence of the mistake was known to the other party; and c. The mistake resulted in a substantially unequal exchange of values.

Actual knowledge is required although it may be proper for a court to infer actual knowledge from proved circumstances even if the party in question denies having that knowledge. 1

Relief under the CCLA is discretionary. Thus, it is possible to prove a qualifying mistake under s 24 but still be denied relief by the courts. Section 28 confers a very broad discretion upon the courts to grant relief both to parties to the contract and any other parties to the proceedings.

Section 27 CCLA provides that, in exercising the discretion, the court must take into account the extent to which the party seeking relief caused the mistake.

The equitable doctrine of rectification may be used as a remedy to correct the terms of a written contract which do not accurately record the agreement of the parties. Although rectification is most commonly sought in relation to contracts, it is capable of applying to any document. As rectification is an equitable remedy it is discretionary and may be withheld according to general equitable principles.

In New Zealand there is authority that rectification is only available in cases of common mistake – that is cases where the parties’ agreement was, by common mistake, wrongly expressed in the relevant document. Thus, the party seeking rectification must show the following: a. that the parties formed and continued to hold a single corresponding intention on the point in question b. that such intention continued to exist in the minds of both or all parties right up to the moment of execution of the document, c. that it is objectively apparent from the words or actions of each party that each party held and continued to hold an intention on the point in question corresponding with the same intention held by each other party. d. that the document sought to be rectified does not reflect that matching intention but would do so if rectified in the manner requested. 2

There was no evidence provided of a common mistake between the parties, namely that both parties were of a single mind that weekly rent was to be $795.00, and that both continued to hold that intention right up to the execution of the tenancy agreement.

In relation to unilateral mistake, the landlord must prove the tenant knew the rent was to be $795.00 per week, either that the tenant had actual knowledge of this, or that any such knowledge on the part of the tenant can be inferred from the circumstances and evidence. 1 Tri-Star Customs and Forwarding Ltd v Denning [1999] 1 NZLR 33 (CA) at 37. 2 Westland Savings Bank v Hancock [1987] 2 NZLR 21 (HC) Tipping J, at [29]-[30].

The tenant denied seeing any weekly rent advertised at $795.00 and said she could not recall seeing the weekly rent in the application for rental form. The tenant said further that she did not discuss the rent at the viewing with the property manager, as she was desperate for a place to live and had seen a lot of places already at that point. Given the evidence provided, I am not persuaded that the tenant likely had knowledge that the weekly rent was $795.00, as there is insufficient evidence provided by the landlord, such as an exchange of emails or texts between the parties discussing weekly rent of $795.00, for example, to show this. In my view, the evidence outlined above does not support an inference from the tenant’s conduct either that she knew the weekly rent was to be $795.00. When the landlord emailed the tenant on 13 January 2025 setting out the offer of a weekly rent at $640.00 and provided a tenancy agreement to this effect, this was not corrected by the landlord as an administrative error either within a short period of time of the email of 13 January 2025, such a day or two later, and was not picked up until the tenant had started paying weekly rent of $640.00 and the owner received their first rent statement.

Section 27 CCLA provides that the Court is to consider to what extent the party seeking relief has caused the mistake. Here, the property manager’s carelessness, ensured the weekly rent was put into their system and a tenancy agreement was generated, at $640.00 per week. The tenant then accepted this offer, signed the tenancy agreement, relied on this, and provided consideration as payment of rent to this effect.

As I have found the tenancy agreement between the parties is a valid contract and that the landlord has not provided sufficient evidence to show the tenant likely had knowledge of a weekly rent at $795.00 to make the mistake a ‘unilateral mistake’ as per the CCLA, and that there is no evidence of any common mistake, and given the landlord’s careless in putting in the incorrect rent amount to the email offer and tenancy agreement sent to the tenant, which I consider here as per section 27 CCLA, the landlord has not satisfied me that it is likely the tenancy agreement should be varied. As such, I dismiss the landlord’s claim. Filing fee

As the landlord has not succeeded with the claim, I do not reimburse the filing fee. Suppression

The landlord did not request name suppression. The tenant requested name suppression.

Section 95A(4) RTA provides that the Tribunal may, on the application of a party to proceedings or on its own initiative, having regard to the interests of the parties and to the public interest, order that all or part of the evidence given or the name or any identifying particulars of any witness or party not be published.

As the landlord has not been successful with the claim, and the tenancy is ongoing, I find the tenant’s interests outweigh the public interest in publishing their names. Therefore, the tenants’ names and identifying details are not to be published.

Tenancy Tribunal case 5164832 — Tenancy dispute at 29 Fraser Road, Narrow Neck, Auckland 0624

At a glance

Claims & awards

Tenancy Tribunal case 5164832 — Tenancy dispute at 29 Fraser Road, Narrow Neck, Auckland 0624

At a glance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Frequently asked questions

Order

Reasons

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Frequently asked questions