What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5400831 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 5400831?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5400831?

The primary dispute was Exemplary damages.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5400831?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/13161472-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5400831 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 5400831?

Verified claim lines are listed on this page.

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5400831?

The primary dispute was Exemplary damages.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5400831?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/13161472-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

New Zealand Tenancy Tribunal Case 5400831 — Exemplary damages

Order

An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal orders suppression of the names and identifying details of all parties.
[The respondent/s]
The claims for overpaid rent and other compensation are dismissed.
If the parties cannot resolve the issue of Mr N’s bond refund, either party may apply to have that part of his application reopened for me to make a determination. They may also apply to have Company 1 joined to the proceedings.

Reasons

Both parties attended the hearing, the landlord represented by Ms S and Ms R.
Although the application was in the names of four tenants, in fact, the applicant is Mr N. The other tenants did not attend, and the landlord provided a copy of an email from one of them saying that she spoke on behalf of them all and they do not want to be involved. The proceedings have been amended to reflect that.
Mr N seeks compensation and/or exemplary damages for the following: a. overpaid rent b. retaliatory notice c. lack of responses to correspondence d. refund of bond e. reimbursement of filing fee.
In his application, Mr N also referred to a reduction of a fixed-term tenancy, but at the hearing, that aspect was withdrawn.
The Tribunal must determine each dispute according to the general principles of the law relating to the matter and the substantial merits and justice of the case, but shall not be bound to give effect to strict legal rights or obligations or to legal forms or technicalities. 1
The onus of proof is on the tenant. The standard of proof is on the balance of probabilities. Background
On 21 December 2021, the tenant joined a flat. There was an existing tenancy agreement between (Company 1) on behalf of owner A and five named tenants. This agreement started on 1 February 2021. The weekly rent was $500 and the bond was $1,720.00.
Mr N replaced a tenant who moved out. The parties do not have a record of the change of tenant at that time, but they do have one from October 2025 recording the departure of a tenant. This variation records Mr N as a tenant.
Mr N continued as a tenant of the property until 21 December 2025, with various changes of other tenants along the way. He became the head tenant, and he would collect the rent from the others and pay it to the landlord.
In 2025, the property was placed on the market and was sold to Ms Y. Settlement took place on 29 August 2025. The existing landlord had not given notice to the tenants that the tenancy was ending.
The new owner, Ms Y, intended a family member to move into the premises. Before settlement, one of the five flatmates moved out. [property manager 1], the property manager at Company 1 communicated with Mr N asking that the room be kept vacant for the owner. The rent was reduced from $600 a week to $480 a week because there were only four flatmates instead of five.
The rent was returned to $600 a week in September. That adjustment is in contention and is discussed further below.
On 19 November 2025 the landlord gave the tenants a 90-day notice to vacate. Mr N then gave 21 days’ notice and he left the tenancy on 21 December 2025. 1 Section 85(2).
The tenant sought exemplary damages for the landlord’s failure to respond to correspondence.
As explained at the hearing, exemplary damages may be ordered where a landlord is found to have committed an “unlawful act” as defined throughout the Residential Tenancies Act 1986. Not every breach of the Act amounts to an unlawful act. A summary of the unlawful acts can be found in Schedule 1A.
Under the Act, there are some circumstances in an unlawful act may be found such as where a landlord fails to respond to a request for certain information 2 or consent. 3 The tenant’s correspondence regarding the rent does not fall into that category.
The issues to determine are therefore: a. What was the status/terms/conditions of the tenancy when the property was transferred to owner B? b. Was the notice given on 19 November 2025 retaliatory? c. Is the tenant entitled to any compensation or exemplary damages? d. Should the landlord be ordered to reimburse the bond? What was the status/terms/conditions of the tenancy when the property was transferred to owner B [Ms Y]?
Because no notice to terminate the original tenancy was given, the tenancy continued with the new owner under the same terms and conditions.
Mr N says that those terms stipulated a rent of $480 a week.
Ms Y had understood that the weekly rent was $600 and so when she received the first rent of $480, she queried it with Mr N via email, dated 1 September. He replied, saying: Upon the upcoming sale of the house, [property manager 1] 4 had informed me that the buyer (yourself, to my understanding) requested that the back room be emptied and vacated, as the buyer’s daughter would be moving in. We complied with this request, as one of the tenants was planning to move out around this time anyway. While we were asked not to fill the room with another tenant to ensure it remained empty, [property manager 1] and I agreed that the rent would decrease to $480 per week, as a fair arrangement respectful to both parties.
Ms Y replied saying that she had a tenancy agreement with Company 1 that referred to $600 a week rent. She had not been advised of any rent reduction. 2 For example, failure to respond to a request for a copy of an insurance policy under section 45. 3 For example, failing to respond to a written request seeking consent for a fixture under 42A. 4 The property manager at Company 1.
Mr N was able to provide her with an email exchange with the former property manager, in which the property manager confirmed on 19 August: The rent has now decreased to $480 per week for the 4 remaining tenants, as the room is now empty. The room has been left vacant for the potential new owner at this stage.
Ms Y replied to Mr N that she was happy for the rent to continue as $480 a week until her daughter moved into that room on 13 September 2025.
The effect of the reduction to $480 was that liability of each of the four remaining flatmates stayed at $120 a week, whereas if the rent had stayed at $600, they would have owed $150 each a week.
On 13 September, Ms Y’s daughter moved into the property, and around the same time, she engaged a new property manager, Company 2. Her daughter became the head tenant.
The tenants were asked to increase the rent to $600. Mr N objected, noting that they had not been given a timeframe for the rent reduction. However, he recommenced the rent payments of $600 on or about 20 September 2025.
On 22 October, the tenants were given notice of a rent increase to $700, taking effect from 21 December 2025. This was from their property manager, [property manager B].
Mr N replied that day, stating that this increase was only one month since the rent had been increased to $600. He followed this up with an email on 30 October.
Ms R replied on Company 2’s behalf disputing his interpretation. After further email correspondence, Ms R advised in an email dated 4 November, that the notice of rent increase to $700 could be ignored. In that email she also said that the $600 rent from September was not an increase, but a reinstatement.
There were further exchanges between Ms R and Mr N regarding the change from $480 to $600, in which Mr N asserted that this constituted a rent increase under the Act. He therefore required 60 days’ notice.
Mr N was alluding to section 24 of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 which says that any increase in rent must be in writing and give no less than 60 days’ notice. Discussion
On occasion landlords will reduce rent temporarily, usually to accommodate an inconvenience such as disruptive repairs or maintenance. It is a form of compensation. The date on which usual rent payments will resume is not always known in advance. Once the event or circumstance that warranted the rent reduction has passed, the agreed rent reverts. Landlords are not then required to give the tenants 60 days’ notice that the rent will revert to the usual amount. It is not a rent increase. As Ms R said, it was a reinstatement.
Although Mr N is correct that the email from the previous property manager does not specify a date on which the rent would revert to $480, it is evident that the reduction was because a room was empty and the room was being “left vacant for the new potential owner”. It is implicit that once the room was occupied again, the rent would revert to $600. Mr N could have been under no illusion that the rent had been permanently reduced.
The reason for the rent reduction was so that the remaining tenants did not suffer any loss. They were being compensated for agreeing not to find a flatmate to occupy the room that Ms Y wanted for her daughter.
Their respective shares of the rent remained $120. That continued once the room was occupied and the overall rent was returned to $600.
Mr N said that he did not know that Ms Y’s daughter would contribute to the $600, but he acknowledged that is exactly did happen. There was never any suggestion that she would live there rent-free, and be subsidised by the other tenants paying the full rental.
I find that at the time of transfer of the property, there was a temporary reduction in rent to $480 pending occupation of the fifth room and that the base rent was $600.
I do not find that the reinstatement of the rent to $600 once the fifth room was occupied was an increase in rent.
The tenant has not overpaid any rent and is not entitled to any refund or any other damages arising from the changes in rent.

Was the 90-day notice retaliatory?

On 19 November 2025, Mr N emailed [property manager B] asking for a 60-day written notice for the “backdated rent increase” that began on 22 September 2025. This email was sent at 12.38pm.
On 19 November 2025 at 3.20pm, a property manager, [property manager C] sent the tenants a 90-day notice ending the tenancy on 17 February 2026. Mr N claims this notice is retaliatory.
For a notice to be declared retaliatory, the tenant must prove that in terminating the tenancy, the landlord was motivated wholly or partly by the tenant exercising a right under the tenancy agreement or any Act, or by any complaint against the landlord. See section 54(1) Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
Mr N points to the email he had sent earlier in the day asking for the 60-day written notice and says that this was what prompted the notice.
Ms R says that she had arranged for the 90-day notice to be sent, without being aware of the email that was sent to [property manager B] at 12.38.
Ms S said that from the time the owner took over the property, she had found it stressful and it was probably a bit of a catalyst for the owner. Discussion
It is regrettable that before the property changed hands, no notice to terminate was given to the tenants.
Given that Ms Y was proposing that her daughter live in the premises, there was a further opportunity to give a 42-day notice once the property had been transferred to her.
I find that if Mr N had not repeatedly queried the $600 rent reinstatement, it is unlikely that the 90-day notice would have been issued. Between 3 October and 19 November, Mr N sent 8 emails arguing that the reversion to $600 was a rent increase. The tone was at all times courteous, but the emails were no doubt trying.
I find it is more likely than not that the landlord was motivated at least partly by the tenant attempting to exercise a right under the Act, albeit mistakenly. It is not necessary for the tenant to have been correct in their understanding of their rights for a finding of retaliatory notice to be made. The relevant consideration is whether the landlord’s notice was motivated by the tenant’s attempt to exercise a right under the Act.
I find therefore find the landlord has committed an unlawful act.

Is the tenant entitled to any compensation or exemplary damages?

Giving a termination notice which is declared to be retaliatory is an unlawful act for which exemplary damages may be awarded, up to a maximum of $6,500.00. See section 54(2), (3) and Schedule 1A Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
The Tribunal may award exemplary damages where it is satisfied it would be just to do so taking into account: a. the effect of the unlawful act, b. the interests of the other party (in this case, the landlord), c. and the public interest.
Giving of a retaliatory notice does not have to be intentional to award exemplary damages for a breach. See section 109(3) and (3A) Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
By trying to argue that the rent for the entire property should be $480 divided by 5, Mr N was trying to reduce his rent from $120 per week to $96.00. He was in no way disadvantaged by the rent continuing to be $600 a week and so the right he was trying to assert, was essentially trying to reduce the landlord’s entitlement to rent for no reason other than his mistaken interpretation of the law.
However, the effect of the termination is significant. Mr N had to find another home, having lived at the premises for four years.
Ms Y and Company 2 found themselves in a difficult position because the documentation around the $480 decrease was poor; nor had it been communicated to Ms Y by Company 1, who had handled the property management and the sale for the previous owner. The situation would have been alleviated if notice had been given by the previous owner.
That said, Ms Y also could have issued a 42-day notice at the end of August, on the basis that her daughter was moving in.
In all the circumstances, I consider a modest order of exemplary damages is warranted and order $650.
I make no other order for compensation. Mr N has provided no evidence of his moving costs, and the impact on him of moving is captured in the order for exemplary damages.

Should an order be made for refund of the bond?

Mr N says that he paid $500 bond when he moved in. He believes he paid it to departing tenant, Niamh, but has no corroborative evidence of the amount of bond he has paid.
Usually the transfer of tenant forms record how much bond has been paid by each tenant. The amounts are not always uniform.
All documentation regarding the change of tenants and bond should be with the former landlord, Company 1.
Company 2 do not intend to bring any claim against the bond and do not object to organising a bond refund. The challenge is with the paperwork.
Company 2 have been communicating with Company 1 and with the Bond Centre and have been told that their records show 9 current tenants.
Through no fault of either party, I do not have sufficient evidence to make an order to the Bond Centre to refund the bond of $500.
Company 2 are hoping to meet with Company 1 and make contact with the former tenant so that they can get to the bottom of the matter.
I have decided to mark this aspect of the claim as “Closed unless”. That means that if the parties cannot resolve the issue of Mr N’s bond refund, they can apply to have this part reopened for me to make a determination. No further filing fee is required. They should simply contact Tenancy Services quoting this file number.
They may also apply to have Company 1 joined to the proceedings. Conclusion
Mr N has not had substantial success, and so there is no order for reimbursement of the filing fee.
Because most of the confusion and dispute before the Tribunal is through no fault of the parties, there is name suppression of all parties.
Because Company 1 has not been heard on this matter, the suppression extends to them.

Tenancy Tribunal case 5400831 — Exemplary damages

At a glance

Claims & awards

Tenancy Tribunal case 5400831 — Exemplary damages

At a glance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Was the 90-day notice retaliatory?

Is the tenant entitled to any compensation or exemplary damages?

Should an order be made for refund of the bond?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions

Order

Reasons

Was the 90-day notice retaliatory?

Is the tenant entitled to any compensation or exemplary damages?

Should an order be made for refund of the bond?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions