What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5460229 about?

The tribunal order states: [The tenant/s] to pay [The landlord/s] and [The landlord/s] $308.00 from the

How much money was awarded in case 5460229?

Filing Fee: $28.00 awarded to landlord; Property Damage: $100.00 awarded to landlord; Holes In Walls: $180.00 awarded to landlord

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5460229?

The primary dispute was Property damage.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5460229?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/13891879-Tenancy_Tribunal_Order.pdf.

What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5460229 about?

The tribunal order states: [The tenant/s] to pay [The landlord/s] and [The landlord/s] $308.00 from the

How much money was awarded in case 5460229?

Filing Fee: $28.00 awarded to landlord; Property Damage: $100.00 awarded to landlord; Holes In Walls: $180.00 awarded to landlord

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5460229?

The primary dispute was Property damage.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5460229?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/13891879-Tenancy_Tribunal_Order.pdf.

27 Stoke Street, Westown, New Plymouth 4310 Tenancy Tribunal Case 5460229 — Property damage

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 5460229 — net $308.00 NZD. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Landlord	Reason
Repairs: Holes in walls	$180.00	Repairs: Holes in walls
Repairs: Garage door damage	$100.00	Repairs: Garage door damage
Filing fee reimbursement	$28.00	Filing fee reimbursement
Net award	$308.00
Bond	$900.00
Total payable by Tenant to Landlord	$308.00

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 5460229 — net $308.00 NZD. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Landlord	Reason
Repairs: Holes in walls	$180.00	Repairs: Holes in walls
Repairs: Garage door damage	$100.00	Repairs: Garage door damage
Filing fee reimbursement	$28.00	Filing fee reimbursement
Net award	$308.00
Bond	$900.00
Total payable by Tenant to Landlord	$308.00

Order

[The tenant/s] to pay [The landlord/s] and [The landlord/s] $308.00 from the bond, calculated as shown in table below.
The Bond Centre is to pay the bond of $900.00 (BN-17065797) immediately apportioned as follows: [The landlord/s] and [The landlord/s]: $308.00 [The tenant/s]: $592.00
The landlord’s application for rent arrears, damage to the carpet, damage to door handles, damage by writing on the walls and damage to the front door and damage to doors other than the garage door is dismissed.

Reasons

Only the landlord attended the hearing. I am satisfied the tenant has been served and so the hearing proceeded in her absence.
This hearing followed an earlier hearing on 19 May 2026 in which I adjourned this matter to allow the tenant time to be correctly served and for the landlord to provide a full rent summary.
The parties agreed at the earlier hearing that the tenancy began on 8 August 2017 and ended on 27 February 2026. It was therefore a lengthy tenancy.
The landlord set out their application in the earlier hearing as follows and these are the issues I must decide today: a. Rent arrears of $4,455 b. Damage in the sum of $6,000 being the insurance excess for: i. Damage to holes and writing on walls ii. Damage to door handles iii. Damage to carpet iv. Damage to doors (holes) v. Damage to the front door Civil burden of proof
As explained at the hearing the applicant is required to establish the claim to the civil law standard of proof, on the balance of probabilities.
That includes a requirement that the party bringing the claim (the applicant landlord here), establish their claims “on the balance of probabilities”. The balance of probabilities means more likely than unlikely, or in mathematical terms, has a fractionally more than 50% likelihood. The Tribunal does not need to be certain or very sure about any claim, only that what is claimed is likely. It is the applicant that must prove their case.
As noted by the District Court in Kaipo v Clarke & McCarthy (DC) TT233/02, in practical terms this means that: ... [L]ike anyone who brings an application before a Tribunal or Court, it is incumbent upon the applicant to provide the evidence necessary to prove the case. If the applicant fails to do that, then their application will be dismissed whether it has merit or not because it is up to the applicant to provide the necessary evidence. It is not up to the other parties, and it is certainly not up to the Tribunal to extract evidence. Rent arrears
The landlord applied for rent arrears.
The landlord provided a handwritten rent record in support of the claim. However, as explained at the hearing I do not consider the rent summary sufficient to establish the debt claimed.
The record does not begin at the commencement of the tenancy. It also appears that the landlord has used their bank statements as the starting point rather than first identifying the rent that was due under the tenancy agreement on a week-by-week basis and then reconciling those amounts falling due against the payments that were received.
As a result, there is a mismatch between the rental periods and the amounts said to be payable and paid. This difficulty extends to the rent increases said to have occurred during the tenancy. Given date errors and the way the summary was compiled it was far from clear whether, for example, the first rent increase was supposed to take place on 5 or 8 January 2021 (or indeed any another date). The landlord has not produced any records of rent increase notices and, given the lack of conciseness in the rent summary provided and in the oral evidence, I cannot be satisfied as to the correct dates on which any rent increases took effect. The calculations appear to have been based on the dates the tenant began making higher payments, rather than on any date set out in a notice of increase. The landlord suggested no documentation was available and when asked if they needed more time to locate it, they said they could not.
I also note that a secondary rent summary was provided for just part of the tenancy. I am told the Rent Shop managed the property in this period. However, that rent summary does not match the landlord’s rent summary for the same period. This also gives rise to concerns about accuracy.
While such deficiencies might be regarded by the landlord as minor they are nevertheless deficiencies which mean that the evidential burden has not been met. A discrepancy at any stage impacts the final calculation. As explained at the hearing the Tribunal cannot guess how much rent is owed. It simply must be an amount that is proven. The deficiencies affect the calculation of the total rent payable over the whole course of the tenancy and, consequently, the calculation of any rent arrears.
On the evidence before me, I am unable to determine with sufficient confidence the true amount owed by the tenant. Accordingly, the landlord has not discharged the burden of proving this part of the claim, and it is dismissed.
I record here that as well as the landlord having time between the two hearings to produce an accurate rent summary, I also gave the landlord a considerable amount of time and detailed explanation about the issues in the hearing today. I also offered further time to complete the rent summary. The landlord considered they could not do more than what had been produced already. I must decide the case based on the evidence before me. Damage
A landlord must prove that damage to the premises occurred during the tenancy and is more than fair wear and tear. If this is established, to avoid liability, the tenant must prove they did not carelessly or intentionally cause or permit the damage. Tenants are liable for the actions of people at the premises with their permission. See sections 40(2)(a), 41 and 49B Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (RTA).
Where the damage is careless, and occurs after 27 August 2019, section 49B RTA applies. If the landlord becomes aware of the damage after 27 August, the damage is presumed to have occurred after that date unless the tenant proves otherwise.
Where the damage is caused carelessly, and is covered by the landlord's insurance, the tenant's liability is limited to the lesser of the insurance excess or four weeks' rent (or four weeks' market rent in the case of a tenant paying income-related rent). See section 49B(3)(a) RTA.
Where the damage is careless and is not covered by the landlord's insurance, the tenant's liability is limited to four weeks' rent (or market rent). See section 49B(3)(b) RTA. Where insurance money is irrecoverable because of the tenant's conduct, the property is treated as if it is not insured against the damage. See section 49B(3A)(a) RTA.
Tenants are liable for the cost of repairing damage that is intentional or which results from any activity at the premises that is an imprisonable offence. This applies to anything the tenant does and anything done by a person they are responsible for. See section 49B(1) RTA.
Damage is intentional where a person intends to cause damage and takes the necessary steps to achieve that purpose. Damage is also intentional where a person does something, or allows a situation to continue, knowing that damage is a certainty. See Guo v Korck [2019] NZHC 1541.
As explained in the hearing, I must take into account betterment and depreciation where appropriate. The landlord should be returned to the position they would have been in had the tenant not breached their obligations, and should not be better or worse off. In calculating depreciation, relevant factors are the age and condition of the items at the start of the tenancy and their likely useful lifespan. Damage to holes and writing on walls
I am satisfied that the landlord has proven that the tenant damaged the walls causing a number of holes during the course of the tenancy. However, the landlord has only done so to a limited extent based on the photographs provided.
Photographs were limited to just three holes that can be clearly seen and a larger area where the damage is less easily identifiable but where I accept the landlord’s position that it shows a large area where a poor patched job has been done. I have no reason to doubt the landlord’s evidence that the damage was not there at the start of the tenancy. The holes are not of a kind whereby they might be easily missed, and the home was previously the landlord’s mother’s house.
I accept that the damage is more than fair wear and tear, and the tenant has not disproved liability for the damage. However, as stated above the landlord was only able to sufficiently prove the holes as pictured and so the award will be limited. I must now turn to the sum that the landlord seeks for this damage.
The difficulty for the landlord is that they have presented two larger invoices with some itemisation but not a complete breakdown. In other words, there is an overall sum for work done rather than a breakdown of the sums claimed for each item of work. That makes it very difficult for the Tribunal to assess the charges claimed or the costs associated with repair of the different items of claimed damage. Without any more detailed evidence, the Tribunal will have to make a generalised assessment of what appears to be fair compensation for damage proved to have been caused during the tenancy and which is more than fair wear and tear. As this is the landlord’s claim to prove, any areas of doubt must favour the tenant.
I award the landlord $180 in respect of the repairs for these proven holes. This is a sum I consider to be reasonable given the damage and loss as proven.
There is also a claim for painting associated with wall damage but no allowance is made for this. I heard how decorating last occurred some 15 years ago. Any value attributable to the painting/decoration would therefore likely have been fully depreciated and no award would be warranted.
There was insufficient evidence to prove the claim in relation to writing on the walls so this part of the claim is dismissed. Any decoration cost incurred as a result of this claim would in any event have been dismissed in any event due to depreciation given the last time the property was decorated. Carpet
The landlord says that the carpet was damaged in the living room, dining room and “kid’s bedroom”. They say the “parent’s room” was more wear and tear. They have replaced the carpet throughout the whole house and claim for this.
The probative evidence was limited to two pictures of the said damage being before and after pictures of the lounge. The photographs were of such a quality so that it was not possible to make any assessment based on these photographs. The landlord’s insurance has accepted a claim, but it lacked detail – for example no assessor report showing damage was filed. The insurance information filed records the damage as being “accidental”.
I am satisfied that the landlord has proven that some damage occurred to carpet during the course of the tenancy. However, I decline to make an award. This is because I am not satisfied that the evidence sufficiently establishes that the damage was more than fair wear and tear. In any event, I heard that the carpet was new about three years before the tenant moved in and that was in 2017. The carpet is therefore well over 10 years old. Like decoration (considered above) carpet has a finite useful life and depreciates over time through ordinary wear and tear. By the end of its expected useful life, the asset has no remaining compensable value. On the evidence before me, I find it more likely than not that the carpet has exceeded its useful life and any value had been fully depreciated. Accordingly, no award is made for replacement.
The carpet claim is therefore dismissed. Damage to door handles
The landlord says doorhandles were damaged. Insufficient evidence was provided to support this claim, and it is dismissed. Damage to doors
The landlord says doors were damaged.
The landlord provided probative evidence in the form of before and after photographs to support a claim for damage done to a garage door. I accept the damage was done to the door during the course of the tenancy and that it is more than fair wear and tear. Again, the cost of the repair work here forms part of a larger invoice. I refer to the comments at paragraph 26 above in respect of the effect of this and do not repeat this here.
I award the landlord $100 in respect of this damage which is a sum I consider to be reasonable on the basis of the evidence before me.
The landlord says there was damage to 5 other doors. Insufficient evidence was provided to support this claim, and it is therefore dismissed. Damage to the front door
The landlord did not pursue claim for damage to the front door. It is dismissed. Filing fee and suppression
Because the landlord has had some success with the claim I have reimbursed the filing fee.
I do not make any suppression orders as the landlord has not been substantially successful in their application and see no other reason to award suppression of identifying details (see s95A RTA).

Tenancy Tribunal case 5460229 — Property damage at 27 Stoke Street, Westown, New Plymouth 4310

At a glance

Tenancy Tribunal case 5460229 — Property damage at 27 Stoke Street, Westown, New Plymouth 4310

At a glance

Award balance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions

Award balance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions