Tenantcheck Insights · Case study
Tenancy Tribunal case 5325662 — Rent arrears at Unit/Flat 1, 260 Mount Smart Road, Onehunga, Auckland
Decided 10 February 2026 · Published 10 February 2026 · Application 5325662
Landlord favoured
- Rent arrears
At a glance
Key facts from the published tribunal order.
Outcome
Landlord favoured
From published order
Location
Auckland
Tribunal region
Adjudicator
T Prowse
Claims & awards
What this tenancy cost at tribunal — claim, category, amount, and party awarded, with reconciled net total.
No individual claim amounts were reconciled for this order. View the official Ministry of Justice PDF for full detail.
Order
- The application for a rehearing filed by the tenant on the 21 November 2025 is dismissed.
Reasons
- Both parties attended the hearing.
- The tenant has filed a rehearing application. Today’s hearing was to allow the parties to give evidence and submissions in respect of the application for rehearing.
- The Tribunal has made two orders in relation to the tenant’s claims, these are dated the 1 October 2025 and the 20 November 2025.
- The tenant filed his rehearing application on the 21 November 2025. He seeks a rehearing on the following grounds: a. That I failed to deal with two claims in his original application appropriately: that the upstairs tenant urinated on him, and that his landlord is deducting money from his account without authorisation and for no reason. b. The tenant claims that the compensation awarded was inadequate and that there continues to be further breaches by the landlord. c. That his landlord has failed to make an apology. d. That since the hearing and the order of the 20 November 2025 that the tenant has found a Chorus modem in his property which he believes allowed the sensor camera in his bedroom to be connected. e. That the landlord has further breached the RTA by: a. Not supplying CCTV footage when asked, that would show who tampered with a courier parcel. b. Continuing to deduct $10.00 a fortnight from the tenant’s benefit without authorisation. c. That the landlord gave notice of an inspection, that the landlord did not turn up for. The tenant says that he cancelled an important medical appointment so he could be present at the inspection, as advised in the landlord’s letter of inspection, but that no one came to the property on that day. d. Failing to maintain the lawns of other tenants at the complex – the tenant confirms that the landlord is mowing his lawns, but not other tenants. The law relating to rehearings.
- Section 105(1) Residential Tenancies Act 1986 provides that the Tribunal has the power to order a rehearing where “a substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice has or may have occurred or is likely to occur”.
- The District Court has held that if the Tribunal was simply wrong in its findings of fact, or its application of the law, this is not sufficient to establish a miscarriage of justice a rehearing is not an alternative to an appeal. 1 Furthermore, a rehearing will not be granted just because a party is unhappy with the decision, or to give them a second opportunity to present their case.
- The applicant need not establish an actual miscarriage of justice or substantial wrong, only that it may have occurred. However, in the District Court Judgment of Wellington City Council v McMillan [2003] DCR 50, Judge Tuohy held that the statutory language set a high standard, and that: [18] ... They most obviously apply ... to cases of procedural error eg a hearing which takes place in the absence of a party who has not been given notice of it; the improper admission or rejection of 1 Yogeswaran v Doubletree Properties Ltd [2021] NZDC 15704 evidence; misconduct by the adjudicator or by one of the parties or a witness. The words may also encompass the discovery of new and important evidence not previously available. [19] In my view, however, the words do not cover a complaint that the Tribunal was merely mistaken or wrong in its findings of fact or in its application of the law. There are two reasons for this. First the strength of the language in s 105 is such that something more than a mere wrong decision must be shown. The section does not speak of a decision being wrong, but of a substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice occurring. This implies obvious injustice, not merely an erroneous decision. [20] Secondly, if a mere erroneous decision is enough, whether the error is factual or legal or both, it would enable parties to in effect appeal any decision twice: once to the very Tribunal which made it by way of an application for rehearing, and then again to the District Court against the grant or refusal of the application for rehearing. Not only does that offend the general hierarchical nature of the appeal system, it would also make the time limit for filing notice of appeal against an original decision nugatory.
- A rehearing may also be granted where there is new evidence that was not reasonably available at the first hearing, if it could have affected the outcome. In Jemma Trust v Rutherford (DC North Shore, CIV-2009-044-2056, 11 December 1999), the District Court quoted an extract from the Court of Appeal outlining the relevant considerations: The principles upon which further evidence is admitted are designed to balance the interests of the person seeking to adduce such evidence on the one hand with the interests of the opposite party is on the other. They are also designed to reflect the public interest in ensuring, so far as is possible, that parties put up their best case at trial. Any other approach would be very wasteful of public resources. The conventional requirements are that the further evidence must be fresh, it must be credible and it must be cogent. Evidence is not regarded as fresh if it could with reasonable diligence have been produced at the trial....While the absence of freshness is not an absolute disqualification, the criteria for admission in such circumstances must be very strict. In our view, when the evidence is not fresh it should not be admitted unless the circumstances are exceptional and the grounds compelling.
- As noted by Judge Christiansen in the District Court appeal of Loh v Puri [2019] NZDC. In this Court’s view the Tribunal’s reasons for refusing a rehearing are correct. Rehearings are about challenges to processes and procedures and are not about what the adjudicator found or the decisions the adjudicator made.
Has a substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice occurred?
- For the following reasons the tenant has failed to establish the grounds for a rehearing: a. I have dealt with the tenant’s claim of breaches of quiet enjoyment, that the upstairs tenant urinated on the tenant, (see paragraph 13 of my order of the 1 October 2025). b. The tenant did not claim in his original application that the landlord had taken money from him without authorisation (as he claimed today) but claimed that the landlord had sent him notices seeking payment of arrears when he was not in arrears. The determinations on the rent arrears claim are in the order of 1 October 2025. c. This is not a case that the Tribunal has overlooked one of the claims pleaded in the tenancy application. d. The tenant’s submissions were that the compensation was inadequate. This is challenge to the determination of the Tribunal. If the tenant believes that the amount awarded was incorrect or inadequate, then those are grounds for appeal not rehearing. e. The tenants claim regarding the CCTV and failure to keep an inspection are new claims and therefore cannot be the subject of a rehearing application. If the tenant has new claims he must file a new application. f. The tenant claims that his landlord has ordered MSD to deduct money from his benefit. The landlord says it has not asked MSD to do that, that the tenant could stop this payment at any time. The landlord says this money is to cover a small amount of rent arrears that were incurred as a result of the tenant changing benefits midway through last year. The tenant should stop the payments by telling MSD that it must not deduct these amounts from his superannuation. g. The tenant’s claim that he has discovered a Chorus modem in his property, is not new evidence. The modem has been there since the tenant moved in, if the tenant had wanted to produce this evidence that the previous hearing he could have. There is no evidence that suggests that the Chorus modem was connected to the sensor/camera. It is not up to the Tribunal to obtain this evidence, if the tenant wanted to produce this evidence in support of his claims at the hearing in November 2025, he could have. h. The tenant complains that the landlord is not honouring its obligations (such as lawn mowing) to other tenants in the complex. The tribunal cannot deal with complaints by other tenants against the same landlord in this tenant’s claim
- I acknowledge that my decision, will be upsetting for the tenant. At today’s hearing the tenant made it clear that he was upset and frustrated with his landlord and that he expected the Tribunal to ‘do our job’ and ‘sort it out’. The Tribunal’s role is to determine the claims before it. This means that it can only determine the claims that have been pleaded in a claim. The Tribunal does not have inherent jurisdiction, and no investigate powers. If the tenant has complaints about the way that his landlord conducts its business, then I suggest that he makes complaints to the senior management of the landlord.
- If the landlord has new claims, then he can make a new application to the Tribunal.
Topics & place
Topics are dispute themes across the order (not the same as claim-type money lines).
Residential Tenancies Act sections
s105, s105(1)
Key findings
- Dispute theme: rent arrears
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about this Tenancy Tribunal case.
What was the outcome of Tenancy Tribunal case 5325662?
The tribunal order states: The application for a rehearing filed by the tenant on the 21 November 2025 is
How much money was awarded in case 5325662?
Verified claim lines are listed on this page.
What type of tenancy dispute was case 5325662?
The primary dispute was Rent arrears.
Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5325662?
The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/13093925-Tribunal_Order.pdf.