Published tribunal order
Tenancy Tribunal case 5313520 — Tenancy dispute at 506A Oruarangi Road, Mangere, Auckland 2022
Decided 8 Sept 2025 · Published 8 Sept 2025 · Application 5313520
Party names are redacted in the official published order.
Order
- An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal orders suppression of both party’s names and identifying details.
- [The tenant/s] must pay [The landlord/s] $885.00 immediately, being unpaid water invoices.
Reasons
- Both parties attended the hearing.
- The landlord has applied for an order for outstanding water invoices that have arisen at the tenancy.
- The landlord has provided water invoices which prove the amount currently owing for water invoices.
- The tenant has applied for an order reducing the water invoices order as she says the landlord did not provide the bills in a timely manner and she may have been charged for fixed charges.
- The landlord has conceded that “administrative errors” occurred and the tenant was not notified in a timely manner of the amounts outstanding until June 2024. $730 of the total claimed falls into this “administrative error” category.
- The tenant submission that the landlord has incorrectly charged her for fixed charges is not accepted. The evidence provided confirms this is not the case and she has only been charged for actual and metered water. In other words, the landlord has correctly apportioned the invoices.
- A tenant is responsible for all outgoings in respect of the premises that are exclusively attributable to their occupation of the premises or to their use of the facilities (see s 39(3) RTA). Therefore, tenants are only liable for water charges based on consumption (s 39(4) RTA). They are not liable for fixed water charges.
- The Tribunal has applied abatement principles in similar cases. The District Court held in Woollams v Simpson (DC Auckland CIV-2005-004-1583, 16 March 2006), that there was an implied term in the tenancy agreement that the landlord would provide water accounts at regular intervals, and within a reasonable time, to enable payment to be made. The Court determined that, because the landlord had failed to do so, the tenant was only required to pay the last two accounts, which covered a period of just over four months.
- In this case I have reduced the $730 that was not requested in a timely manner, by $500 to take account of the tenant’s submission that she has been stressed by having to pay the large amounts requested and that she is a single mother with a tight budget and paying large amounts in a lump sum is difficult for her.
- In my view, weighing the merits and justice of the situation that is the abatement that is fair given the time that elapsed before the error was noticed and the stress of the situation for the tenant, but also considering that the amount claimed is for water that has actually been consumed.
- As both parties have partially succeeded in their claims, I have not ordered that either is to reimburse the other for the filing fee and have supressed both parties’ names.