Tenantcheck Insights · Case study
Tenancy Tribunal case 5424471 — Cleanliness
Decided 6 Jul 2026 · Published 6 Jul 2026 · Application 5424471
- Cleanliness
Party names are redacted in the official published order. This page summarises the dispute only — not individual identities.
At a glance
Key facts from the published tribunal order.
Adjudicator
R Woodhouse
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 Tribunal orders suppression of the landlords’ and tenants’ names and identifying details.
- The Bond Centre is to pay the bond of $2,000.00 ([Bond number suppressed]) to [The tenant/s] immediately.
Reasons
- The Tribunal must consider an application filed by the tenants at the end of the tenancy, seeking recovery of their bond.
- Section 22B of the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 applies, that provision confirms that: (1) If there is a dispute between the parties as to the payment of a bond, either party may apply to the Tribunal for an order determining to whom the bond, or any part of it, is to be paid. (2) If the tenant applies to the Tribunal and the landlord seeks payment of the bond in whole or in part, the landlord must file an application with the Tribunal that sets out the landlord’s counterclaim.
- The effect of this provision is that when the tenants apply to the Tribunal for release of the bond in whole or in part, if the landlord wishes to argue that it has any call on that bond, then the landlord “must” file a counterclaim for it. In the absence of a counterclaim, then the Tribunal must order that the bond be released to the tenants.
- This means that if the landlord subsequently wished to pursue any claim against the tenant, the landlord could do so, but if the landlord was successful in the claim, there would not be any bond that the Tribunal could order be released to go toward the landlord’s claim.
- In this case there has been a dispute around cleaning costs at the end of the tenancy. While the landlord considered that the cleaning costs should have come out of the bond, he has not filed a claim for that, and without any claim, that is not a matter I can consider today.
- However, following discussion, it was agreed that the tenants would waive an order for the filing fee paid to commence this proceeding, on the basis that the landlord would waive any claim for the cleaning. In short, both parties were happy to bring an end to the dispute.
- Given that the parties have reached a settlement of the dispute at the hearing, I consider this is a case where the Tribunal should order name suppression to apply for both parties, so that is ordered.