What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5193192 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 5193192?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5193192?

The primary dispute was Cleanliness.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5193192?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/11595245-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5193192 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 5193192?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5193192?

The primary dispute was Cleanliness.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5193192?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/11595245-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

New Zealand Tenancy Tribunal Case 5193192 — Cleanliness

Order

An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal orders suppression of the Tenant name and identifying details.
By agreement the tenancy of [The tenant/s] at [Tenancy address suppressed] will end, and possession revert to Paul Cheng and Kingdom Home Property Management Limited, at 5pm on Monday 14 April 2025.
[The tenant/s] Kingdom Home Property Management Limited to show prospective tenants around the premises at 2pm on Saturday 29 March, 5 April and 12 April 2025 respectively.
The application by [The tenant/s] for compensation is dismissed.

Reasons

All parties attended the hearing, by telephone.
The tenants wanted a reduction in the term of their fixed term tenancy because of methamphetamine contamination in the premises, and a refund of the rent they had paid since November 2024.
At the hearing the parties agreed on a termination date and the times of viewings for prospective tenants.
An Order has been made reflecting the agreement.
The landlord cross applied for clarification of the law about methamphetamine contamination levels.
The tenancy was for a fixed term from 21/8/2024 to 22/9/2025 at $660.00 rent per week.
Prior to the tenancy beginning the landlord arranged for a methamphetamine test.
On 1/8/2024 Methsafe Ltd provided a report which indicated the premises were contaminated in ten rooms with levels between 1.98ug/100cm2 and
7ug/100cm2.
The landlord arranged for the premises to be decontaminated by Extreme Cleaning Solutions.
In November 2024, the neighbour of the property indicated an interest in purchasing the premises and arranged for a real estate agent and builder to undertake an inspection.
Unbeknown to the landlord or the tenants the builder, Total House Inspections, did methamphetamine testing on 19/11/2024 using 2x field composite testing which produced an average amount of 7.86ug/100cm2 per field test. The reported stated “This gives us a theoretical Maximum result of 15.7ug of methamphetamine detected overall as a collective in all 10 swabs taken throughout the house.”
The report theorized that if the maximum result was spread over the 10 swabs evenly then the result would be 1.57ug/100cms, an amount over the New Zealand Standard level of 1.5ug/100cm2.
As a result, the landlord asked ALS laboratory to undertake a split of the test results, with the readings being 7.27ug/100cm2 and 8.51ug/100cm2.
On further testing Meth Solutions reported on 21/2/2025 readings from 19 samples between 0.02ug/100cm2 and 2.33ug/100cm2.
ALS Food & Environment NZ provided an analysis of the Meth Solutions tests.
The landlord wishes to undertake further decontamination, but the parties have been unable to arrange this to date.

Are the premises contaminated to such an extent as to be not in a habitable state?

Section 45(1)(bd) provides that a landlord must comply with all requirements in respect of contaminates imposed by regulations under section 138C(3).
Unfortunately, no regulations are yet available.
Under subsection (1)(c) a landlord must comply with all requirements of buildings, health and safety under any enactment so far as they apply to the premises.
The New Zealand Standard 8510:2017 Testing and decontamination of methamphetamine-contained properties (“NZS8510”) recommended an acceptable level of methamphetamine contamination in an affected property of
5ug/100cm2 for high use areas. Beyond that level a property was regarded as needing decontamination. If a property needed decontamination, then for the purposes of the Residential Tenancies Act the property is damaged.
On 29 May 2018 the Prime Minister’s then Chief Science Advisor Professor Sir Peter Gluckman released a report “Methamphetamine contamination in residential properties: Exposure, risk levels and interpretation of standards” (“the Gluckman Report”). This concluded that, in the case of third hand contact, exposure to methamphetamine levels below 15ug/100cm2 is unlikely to have an adverse effect.
Since the Gluckman Report many decisions by the Tribunal have found that applicants were unable to prove that methamphetamine contamination below 15ug/100cm2 posed a health risk and amounted to damage.
This position is consistent with the comments of the Court of Appeal in Smith v Accessible Properties New Zealand Limited [2019] NZCA 38. At paragraph [16] in reference to the Gluckman Report the Court stated, “We acknowledge that the testing in this case yielded results now considered not to raise any health issues and safety concerns.”
Moreover, the District Court in Full Circle Real Estate v Piper [2019] NZDC 4947, when considering an appeal of the Tribunal which adopted the Gluckman Report stated at paragraph [36] “the best state of knowledge of risk to human health from methamphetamine contamination available to the adjudicator was the Gluckman report. It would have been bold for the adjudicator to have ignored that report in favour of the New Zealand Standard given that the Gluckman report represents the current scientific knowledge on the risk to human health from methamphetamine contamination in dwellings”.
The District Court in Acme Realty Ltd v Alexander James Hogg, Tuitui Grace Polotu, Leigh Sharyn Coughlin [2021] NZDC 3231 considered the specific question of whether the New Zealand Standard NZS8510 had any force of law given it was the current New Zealand Standard around methamphetamine levels in residential dwellings. His Honour Judge Harrison confirmed there was no force of law with the New Zealand Standard.
The Gluckman Report and several District Court decisions have confirmed that methamphetamine levels below 15ug/100cm2 are not injurious to health.
Although not required by the levels to do so the landlord prudently had extensive cleaning undertaken before the tenancy commenced.
The tenants’ position is understandable because they were unaware of the issues with methamphetamine in the premises before their tenancy began and believed that their health issues were the result of methamphetamine contamination.
However, the toxicology report from one tenant’s GP does not support that methamphetamine residue has entered her system.
Nor is there any objective evidence to support that the landlord had painted over methamphetamine contamination in a bedroom ceiling.
Moreover, there is no legal obligation on a landlord to disclose to prospective tenants that premises have been contaminated and then decontaminated for methamphetamine unless the landlord made a misrepresentation regarding the contamination which induced a tenant to enter into a tenancy agreement.
There is no suggestion this was the case here.
This is a civil jurisdiction, the applicant, in this case the tenants are required to establish the claim to the civil law standard of proof, on the balance of probabilities.
Unfortunate as it may be for the tenants, and based on the Gluckman report which has been preferred by the Tribunal and higher Courts, they have failed to persuade me the premises are not in a safe habitable state.
The claim for compensation fails.
No filing fee is awarded as both parties were partly successful and the fees cancel each other out.
Suppression is granted to the tenants pursuant to section 95A because they were partly successful, and I consider it is in the interests of one tenant in particular to do so.

Order

An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal orders suppression of the Tenant name and identifying details.
By agreement the tenancy of [The tenant/s] at [Tenancy address suppressed] will end, and possession revert to Paul Cheng and Kingdom Home Property Management Limited, at 5pm on Monday 14 April 2025.
[The tenant/s] Kingdom Home Property Management Limited to show prospective tenants around the premises at 2pm on Saturday 29 March, 5 April and 12 April 2025 respectively.
The application by [The tenant/s] for compensation is dismissed.

Reasons

All parties attended the hearing, by telephone.
The tenants wanted a reduction in the term of their fixed term tenancy because of methamphetamine contamination in the premises, and a refund of the rent they had paid since November 2024.
At the hearing the parties agreed on a termination date and the times of viewings for prospective tenants.
An Order has been made reflecting the agreement.
The landlord cross applied for clarification of the law about methamphetamine contamination levels.
The tenancy was for a fixed term from 21/8/2024 to 22/9/2025 at $660.00 rent per week.
Prior to the tenancy beginning the landlord arranged for a methamphetamine test.
On 1/8/2024 Methsafe Ltd provided a report which indicated the premises were contaminated in ten rooms with levels between 1.98ug/100cm2 and
7ug/100cm2.
The landlord arranged for the premises to be decontaminated by Extreme Cleaning Solutions.
In November 2024, the neighbour of the property indicated an interest in purchasing the premises and arranged for a real estate agent and builder to undertake an inspection.
Unbeknown to the landlord or the tenants the builder, Total House Inspections, did methamphetamine testing on 19/11/2024 using 2x field composite testing which produced an average amount of 7.86ug/100cm2 per field test. The reported stated “This gives us a theoretical Maximum result of 15.7ug of methamphetamine detected overall as a collective in all 10 swabs taken throughout the house.”
The report theorized that if the maximum result was spread over the 10 swabs evenly then the result would be 1.57ug/100cms, an amount over the New Zealand Standard level of 1.5ug/100cm2.
As a result, the landlord asked ALS laboratory to undertake a split of the test results, with the readings being 7.27ug/100cm2 and 8.51ug/100cm2.
On further testing Meth Solutions reported on 21/2/2025 readings from 19 samples between 0.02ug/100cm2 and 2.33ug/100cm2.
ALS Food & Environment NZ provided an analysis of the Meth Solutions tests.
The landlord wishes to undertake further decontamination, but the parties have been unable to arrange this to date.

Are the premises contaminated to such an extent as to be not in a habitable state?

Section 45(1)(bd) provides that a landlord must comply with all requirements in respect of contaminates imposed by regulations under section 138C(3).
Unfortunately, no regulations are yet available.
Under subsection (1)(c) a landlord must comply with all requirements of buildings, health and safety under any enactment so far as they apply to the premises.
The New Zealand Standard 8510:2017 Testing and decontamination of methamphetamine-contained properties (“NZS8510”) recommended an acceptable level of methamphetamine contamination in an affected property of
5ug/100cm2 for high use areas. Beyond that level a property was regarded as needing decontamination. If a property needed decontamination, then for the purposes of the Residential Tenancies Act the property is damaged.
On 29 May 2018 the Prime Minister’s then Chief Science Advisor Professor Sir Peter Gluckman released a report “Methamphetamine contamination in residential properties: Exposure, risk levels and interpretation of standards” (“the Gluckman Report”). This concluded that, in the case of third hand contact, exposure to methamphetamine levels below 15ug/100cm2 is unlikely to have an adverse effect.
Since the Gluckman Report many decisions by the Tribunal have found that applicants were unable to prove that methamphetamine contamination below 15ug/100cm2 posed a health risk and amounted to damage.
This position is consistent with the comments of the Court of Appeal in Smith v Accessible Properties New Zealand Limited [2019] NZCA 38. At paragraph [16] in reference to the Gluckman Report the Court stated, “We acknowledge that the testing in this case yielded results now considered not to raise any health issues and safety concerns.”
Moreover, the District Court in Full Circle Real Estate v Piper [2019] NZDC 4947, when considering an appeal of the Tribunal which adopted the Gluckman Report stated at paragraph [36] “the best state of knowledge of risk to human health from methamphetamine contamination available to the adjudicator was the Gluckman report. It would have been bold for the adjudicator to have ignored that report in favour of the New Zealand Standard given that the Gluckman report represents the current scientific knowledge on the risk to human health from methamphetamine contamination in dwellings”.
The District Court in Acme Realty Ltd v Alexander James Hogg, Tuitui Grace Polotu, Leigh Sharyn Coughlin [2021] NZDC 3231 considered the specific question of whether the New Zealand Standard NZS8510 had any force of law given it was the current New Zealand Standard around methamphetamine levels in residential dwellings. His Honour Judge Harrison confirmed there was no force of law with the New Zealand Standard.
The Gluckman Report and several District Court decisions have confirmed that methamphetamine levels below 15ug/100cm2 are not injurious to health.
Although not required by the levels to do so the landlord prudently had extensive cleaning undertaken before the tenancy commenced.
The tenants’ position is understandable because they were unaware of the issues with methamphetamine in the premises before their tenancy began and believed that their health issues were the result of methamphetamine contamination.
However, the toxicology report from one tenant’s GP does not support that methamphetamine residue has entered her system.
Nor is there any objective evidence to support that the landlord had painted over methamphetamine contamination in a bedroom ceiling.
Moreover, there is no legal obligation on a landlord to disclose to prospective tenants that premises have been contaminated and then decontaminated for methamphetamine unless the landlord made a misrepresentation regarding the contamination which induced a tenant to enter into a tenancy agreement.
There is no suggestion this was the case here.
This is a civil jurisdiction, the applicant, in this case the tenants are required to establish the claim to the civil law standard of proof, on the balance of probabilities.
Unfortunate as it may be for the tenants, and based on the Gluckman report which has been preferred by the Tribunal and higher Courts, they have failed to persuade me the premises are not in a safe habitable state.
The claim for compensation fails.
No filing fee is awarded as both parties were partly successful and the fees cancel each other out.
Suppression is granted to the tenants pursuant to section 95A because they were partly successful, and I consider it is in the interests of one tenant in particular to do so.

Tenancy Tribunal case 5193192 — Cleanliness

At a glance

Tenancy Tribunal case 5193192 — Cleanliness

At a glance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Are the premises contaminated to such an extent as to be not in a habitable state?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Are the premises contaminated to such an extent as to be not in a habitable state?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions