What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5487030 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 5487030?

Filing Fee: $28.00 awarded to landlord; Windows, Locks And Stays BY CONSENT: $1,308.31 awarded to landlord; Rubbish Removal: $649.00 awarded to landlord

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5487030?

The primary dispute was Property damage.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5487030?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/13688391-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

What was Tenancy Tribunal case 5487030 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 5487030?

Filing Fee: $28.00 awarded to landlord; Windows, Locks And Stays BY CONSENT: $1,308.31 awarded to landlord; Rubbish Removal: $649.00 awarded to landlord

What type of tenancy dispute was case 5487030?

The primary dispute was Property damage.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 5487030?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/13688391-Tribunal_Order_Redacted.pdf.

New Zealand Tenancy Tribunal Case 5487030 — Property damage

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 5487030 — net $1,185.31 NZD. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Landlord	Reason
Repairs: Windows, locks and stays BY CONSENT	$1,308.31	Repairs: Windows, locks and stays BY CONSENT
Rubbish removal: Labour and skip hire BY CONSENT	$649.00	Rubbish removal: Labour and skip hire BY CONSENT
Filing fee reimbursement	$28.00	Filing fee reimbursement
Net award	$1,185.31
Total payable by Tenant to Landlord	$1,185.31

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 5487030 — net $1,185.31 NZD. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Landlord	Reason
Repairs: Windows, locks and stays BY CONSENT	$1,308.31	Repairs: Windows, locks and stays BY CONSENT
Rubbish removal: Labour and skip hire BY CONSENT	$649.00	Rubbish removal: Labour and skip hire BY CONSENT
Filing fee reimbursement	$28.00	Filing fee reimbursement
Net award	$1,185.31
Total payable by Tenant to Landlord	$1,185.31

Order

An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal orders suppression of the Tenant and Landlord’s name and identifying details.
[The tenant/s] must pay [The landlord/s] $1,985.31 immediately, calculated as shown in table below. 3.
The landlord’s claim to recover methamphetamine testing costs is dismissed.
The landlord has permission to bring an additional application against the tenant for the items identified in paragraph 48.

Reasons

Both parties attended the hearing.
The tenant asked to attend by telephone and given the limited nature of the claims and the fact she is based outside of the region I allowed this for this hearing. The landlord attended in person.
The landlord has applied for compensation, refund of the bond, and reimbursement of the filing fee following the end of the tenancy. Civil burden of proof
A party who brings a claim to the Tenancy Tribunal must prove on the balance of probabilities (more likely than not) that their version of events took place. Independent witnesses, corroborating documents and photographs are an important part of discharging this burden of proof.
The issue of evidence at Tenancy Tribunal hearings was considered by the District Court in Kaipo v Clarke & McCarthy (DC) TT233/02. Judge Mather stated: ...[the applicant] needs to be reminded that like anyone who brings an application before a Tribunal or a 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.
In the decision that follows I may not have referred to all the oral testimony and other evidence presented, but the parties should know it has been considered.

Did the tenant comply with their obligations at the end of the tenancy?

At the end of the tenancy the tenant must leave the premises reasonably clean and tidy including removing all rubbish. See section 40(1)(e)(ii)-(v) Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
The tenant agreed she had not removed all rubbish. She agreed to pay the amount sought by the landlord of $649 being labour and skip hire.
This sum is therefore ordered by consent.

Is the tenant responsible for the damage to the premises?

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 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.
The tenant accepts that the damage listed on the Fernee invoice provided by the landlord is damage for which she is responsible (being front and back lock barrels, panes in back door, living room ranch slider, bathroom and toilet, missing handles and reattached security stays).
The tenant agreed to pay the sum sought by the landlord of $1308.31.
This sum is therefore ordered by consent. Methamphetamine - costs of testing (2 tests)
The landlord wanted the Tribunal to deal with a claim for two invoices for Methamphetamine testing.
The first is a claim for costs of composite testing and the second is a claim for costs of detailed testing. The composite test showed Methamphetamine levels of 6.2μg/100 cm 2 The landlord says that a detailed test showed samples of less than 1.5μg/100 cm 2 .
The landlord says that the insurer would not assess the property for damage unless Methamphetamine testing was first undertaken due to the condition of the property.
To evidence this the landlrod provided an email sent by the insurer to the landlord responding to her frustrations about the time the insurance is taking. The insurer says: “These results were necessary to confirm whether decontamination was required and to determine the safe next steps for the property and associated damage claim. Until that point, our ability to move the claim forward was limited”.
During the hearing, the landlord provided a separate email from her insurer that set out for a Methamphetamine decontamination claim it is the landlord who must first incur the testing costs.
The landlord then told the Tribunal that she had also lodged a specific insurance claim for methamphetamine decontamination.
The tenant says she is anti-Methamphetamine and has not used Methamphetamine in the house she does not know why there would be a reading of Methamphetamine.
The New Zealand Standard 8510:2017 Testing and decontamination of methamphetamine-contaminated properties (“NZS8510:2017”) provides industry guidance on good practice methods in the testing and clean-up of methamphetamine contamination in houses. NZS8510:2017 was released on 29 June 2017. The standard adopts a single level of 1.5μg/100cm² (1.5 micrograms of methamphetamine per 100 square centimetres of surface sampled) that ‘high use areas’ of affected properties should be decontaminated to, regardless of whether the properties were involved in the production or use of methamphetamine. Consider high use areas as those areas that can be easily accessed by the occupants.
On 29 May 2018, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman (the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor at that time) determined that there was little evidence supporting health risks from exposure to residue from methamphetamine consumption (See ‘Methamphetamine contamination in residential properties: Exposures, risk levels, and interpretation of standards’, 29 May 2018).
Professor Sir Peter Gluckman’s report concluded that in the absence of other evidence of manufacture, any levels below 15μg/100cm² are highly unlikely to present adverse effects therefore there should be no need for remediation. Where there is evidence of manufacture the NZS8510:2017 standard is appropriate. There is no such evidence of manufacture in this case.
The Tribunal has generally applied the Gluckman recommendation. This approach was approved by the District Court in Full Circle Real Estate Limited v Piper [2019] NZDC 4947 where it was noted: The Tenancy Tribunal was in a difficult position. The best state of knowledge of risk to human health from methamphetamine contamination available to the adjudicator was the Gluckman Report. It would have been bold for the adjudicator to have ignored that report in favour of the New Zealand Standard given that the Gluckman report represents the current scientific knowledge on the risk to human health from methamphetamine contamination in dwellings.
Further validating are the 2019 comments of the Court of Appeal in Smith v Accessible Properties New Zealand Limited [2019] NZCA 38 where, in paragraph [16], with reference to the Gluckman Report, the decision stated: “We acknowledge that the testing in this case yielded results now considered not to raise any health and safety concerns.”
From 16 April 2026, statutory contamination levels came into effect (see the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) explanation here). The new statutory standard in the Residential Tenancies (Managing Methamphetamine Contamination) Regulations 2026 is that when Methamphetamine residue levels are above 15μg/100cm2, the property is considered contaminated and needs to be decontaminated. The property must be decontaminated until Methamphetamine residue levels are no longer above 15μg/100cm2 (until they are 15μg/100cm2 or less). Contamination will be determined on a room-by- room basis. An example given by HUD is if the bedroom is above 15μg/100cm2 but the kitchen is below 15μg/100cm2, only the bedroom needs to be decontaminated. This new statutory standard is similar to the general approach taken in previous Tribunal determinations regarding Methamphetamine residue levels and appropriate remediation action.
I decline to award the costs of Methamphetamine testing because I am not satisfied that the landlord has sufficiently proven that these are costs that the tenant is liable for.
The difficulty for the landlord here is that the ultimate finding of the tests was that the Methamphetamine levels at the property were so low meaning contamination has not been established at all.
While a composite test revealed that there was some Methamphetamine, it was still a reading well below the 15μg/100cm2 standard described above. Composite samples can artificially inflate contamination levels as they are a potential maximum. Test report provided notes at page 9 that theoretically one swab could hold this full result and so it must be treated as such until further testing is done.
The detailed sampling that was then undertaken found levels under
5μg/100cm2. Such readings are not sufficient to establish the tenant caused any Methamphetamine contamination (on any basis being the original New Zealand standard or the updated standard as per Gluckman and the newer statutory standard).
In addition to this, there is a lack of a pre-tenancy methamphetamine testing. I note two District Court decisions where the Court has confirmed that in the absence of pre-tenancy methamphetamine testing, it would be very difficult for a landlord to prove the tenant contaminated the premises.
In Anthony James Brooking v Colin Imrie [2021] NZDC 16976, Judge Cameron considered a case where the Tenancy Tribunal accepted that contamination was caused by the tenants, in circumstances where there was no pre-tenancy testing performed. The Tribunal had accepted evidence from a witness, who worked in a childcare centre across the road from the Tenancy, who described the windows covered with a film, security cameras having been installed, and strong chemical smells arising from the premises. The witness also described gang members and other “undesirable” people attending the premises regularly, with cars regularly driving in an out of the premises often, as well as regular visits from the police. On appeal the District Court did not accept that evidence was sufficient to prove that methamphetamine had been used or manufactured on the premises during that tenancy, and concluded that the difficulty with the landlords claim is that there was no methamphetamine test conducted at the beginning of the tenancy, and no actual proof of what occurred during the tenancy. The District Court allowed the appeal, overturning the Tribunal’s decision. In short, the Court considered that there was no evidence to support that the tenants in that case caused the contamination.
In the earlier case of Eren Limited v Louise Martin [2021] NZDC 15210, Judge de Ridder also considered a dispute over who caused the contamination. In that case, the Tribunal had declined the claim for the contamination remediation costs, on various grounds, including that the landlord had not established that the tenant contaminated the premises in the first instance. The appeal to the District Court was by the landlord. In that case, the landlord reports finding evidence of drug use in rubbish left by the tenants, and also that the neighbours had reported the tenants using drugs at the premises. The District Court confirmed that was circumstantial evidence that could be considered by the Tribunal. However, the Court found that the circumstantial evidence was not sufficient to get over the problem of no pre-tenancy methamphetamine testing: However, the significant problem for this claim is that there is no evidence of any methamphetamine testing carried out at the start of this tenancy. If there had been such testing and it revealed no methamphetamine then clearly the methamphetamine residue that was found at the end of this tenancy could only have occurred during the tenancy and could only have occurred by either the tenants using methamphetamine or permitting others to use methamphetamine inside the house. The lack of methamphetamine testing at the start of the tenancy significantly weakens the circumstantial case against the tenants to the point where it is not possible to conclude on the balance of probabilities that it was the tenants who were responsible for the methamphetamine residue located at the premises at the end of their tenancy.
Because there is no pre-tenancy Methamphetamine test I find the landlord has not established that any (very limited) Methamphetamine residue that was found at the premises was caused by the tenant (or someone for whom she is liable for the actions of). The landlord said no testing was done because police lived in the property prior to the tenant but this is not a sufficient basis to sufficiently prove the property was free from Methamphetamine (or at a lower level) at the start of the tenancy.
I do not consider that the landlord has proven that the insurer would not have done any other remedial work to any other damage unless Methamphetamine testing was done (the evidence provided is far from clear and points more towards the fact the landlord was also pursuing a Methamphetamine contamination claim). Even if this was the case, such testing costs, where there is no proven contamination, would simply be a condition between the landlord and the insurer. That is not sufficient to make the tenant liable for the testing cost.
While the landlord and/or its insurer may have had a suspicion about Methamphetamine ultimately those suspicions were not founded.
Put simply, a tenant is not liable for a landlord’s or insurer’s decision to investigate risks that turn out not to exist.
Therefore, I consider that the tenant is not liable to pay for the Methamphetamine testing costs incurred. This part of the application is dismissed.
I note that even if the landlord had been successful in establishing tenant liability for Methamphetamine contamination and testing costs, I would have still limited the landlord’s claim for testing costs to the costs of the first test. The landlord did not establish any need for any further detailed testing once the first test was done. That is because the first test did not establish Methamphetamine levels above the decontamination threshold of 15μg/100cm2. Filing fee and suppression
Because [The applicant/s] has succeeded with aspects of the claim (due to the two orders I have made by consent) I have reimbursed the filing fee.
Both parties sought name suppression. The Tribunal must, on the application of a party that has wholly or substantially succeeded in proceedings, order that the party’s name or identifying particulars not be published, unless the Tribunal considers that publication is in the public interest or is justified because of the party’s conduct or any other circumstances of the case (s95A RTA).
The landlord has been successful in relation to two of the three claims but the claim with the most value was the methamphetamine testing and the tenant was successful in relation to that. Therefore, I consider that neither party has been substantially successful in this application.
However, I have granted name suppression to all parties as requested. This is because: a. The tenant willingly consented to two of the claims made allowing the Tribunal to make orders expediently. These issues could have been resolved in a confidential mediation and it is in the public interest that parties can resolve their disputes. b. In relation to the Methamphetamine testing claim the public interest is in knowing how the Tribunal deals with these matters, not in the identities of the parties in this type of application. I consider that the potential negative effects of being associated in an application referring to Methamphetamine for both parties outweighs the public interest in knowing their identity. Additional claims by landlord
The landlord said at the hearing she has additional claims to bring but she is not yet ready to advance those claims because remedial work is yet to be completed. These claims are for a. Damage to walls (holes) b. Damage to doors (holes) c. Damage to carpet d. Damage to HRV system e. Damage to ceilings and floorboards f. Loss of rent claim
Permission is granted for the landlord to bring an additional application for these claims.
The tenant gave an address at which she said she could be served for the next two months (from the date of the hearing). She says she wants future documents sent in the next two months by post to this address and also copied into her email address.

Tenancy Tribunal case 5487030 — Property damage

At a glance

Award balance

Tenancy Tribunal case 5487030 — Property damage

At a glance

Award balance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Did the tenant comply with their obligations at the end of the tenancy?

Is the tenant responsible for the damage to the premises?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

Did the tenant comply with their obligations at the end of the tenancy?

Is the tenant responsible for the damage to the premises?

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Frequently asked questions