What was Tenancy Tribunal case 9062484 about?

The tribunal order states: Hovel Investments Limited must pay Body Corporate 57013 the sum of $15,360.40

How much money was awarded in case 9062484?

Filing Fee: $500.00 awarded to landlord; Insurance Charge: $13,615.94 awarded to landlord; Interest: $1,244.46 awarded to landlord

What type of tenancy dispute was case 9062484?

The primary dispute was Unit Titles.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 9062484?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/12292825-Tribunal_Order.pdf.

What was Tenancy Tribunal case 9062484 about?

The tribunal order states: Hovel Investments Limited must pay Body Corporate 57013 the sum of $15,360.40

How much money was awarded in case 9062484?

Filing Fee: $500.00 awarded to landlord; Insurance Charge: $13,615.94 awarded to landlord; Interest: $1,244.46 awarded to landlord

What type of tenancy dispute was case 9062484?

The primary dispute was Unit Titles.

Where can I read the official tribunal order for case 9062484?

The official Ministry of Justice published order is available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/TTV2/PDF/12292825-Tribunal_Order.pdf.

Rongotai, Wellington Tenancy Tribunal Case 9062484 — Unit Titles

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 9062484. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Landlord	Reason
Insurance charge	$13,615.94	Insurance charge
Interest	$1,244.46	Interest
Filing Fee	$500.00	Filing Fee

Claims and awards in Tenancy Tribunal application 9062484. Amounts reconciled from the published order (claims sum and net total). Verify on MoJ.
Claim	Landlord	Reason
Insurance charge	$13,615.94	Insurance charge
Interest	$1,244.46	Interest
Filing Fee	$500.00	Filing Fee

Order

Hovel Investments Limited must pay Body Corporate 57013 the sum of $15,360.40 immediately, calculated as follows: DescriptionsApplicant Insurance charge$13,615.94 Interest$1,244.46 Filing Fee$500.00 Total award$15,360.40
All other applications are dismissed.

Reasons

The Tribunal must consider applications filed by both the Body Corporate, and Unit Owner.
To provide context, the application from the Body Corporate, is that the Unit Owner pay its portion of the insurance charge for the premises. The claim from the Unit Owner, is that the Body Corporate has damaged its radio equipment that was installed on the roof of the complex, and should therefore pay for the repair costs for that, meaning those costs should offset the insurance charge.
I note that this matter has previously been to the Tribunal. It was only an application from the Body Corporate at that time; the hearing was adjourned to allow the Unit Owner to file its own application in relation to the radio equipment damage, and so the matter has returned to the Tribunal to determine both applications. There are some other claims from the parties that I will address below, but that is a broad summary of the primary matters.
At both hearings, Mr Henry appeared for the Unit Owner, and Mr Meyer (the Chair) for the Body Corporate.

BACKGROUND

The premises in question, are a unit titled development in Wellington, of 23 principal units, which I understand are commercial units.
The applicant/respondent unit owner in this case is Hovel Investments Limited, which I will refer to as the Unit Owner in this decision.
The Unit Owner had installed radio equipment on the roof above its unit. I understand that the equipment includes aerials and satellite dishes.
Work was needed to the roof, which comprised maintenance, and that was undertaked by the Body Corporate.
On 14 December 2023, Mr. Meyer emailed the Body Corporate noting that. The roof is going to be rescrewed, flashings repaired and some general tidying up. There appears to be several disused sky dishes and aerials etc. On the roof. Please advise if you have one and if it is still in use or it may be removed when these works are done.
Work on the roof commenced in late December 2023, concluding in January 2024.
The Unit Owner states that after the work had been completed, they found that their radio equipment was not working, and traced the fault back to the items on the roof, which it considered were damaged in the course of the roofing works. The Unit Owner also found that the lights were not working, and the lighting system was also repaired. The Unit Owner believes that a roofing screw had probably caused that damage to the lighting circuit, but accepted that the precise location of the damage could not be identified.
The Unit Owner raised an invoice on 8 March 2024 against the Body Corporate, seeking $12,372.11 in order to reinstall equipment on the roof and to get the equipment operational again. As I understand matters, the Unit Owner also operates a firm of electricians, hence unsurprisingly, undertook the work itself.
The Body Corporate rejected the claim, on the basis that it did not consider that the contractors caused the damage or that it was liable for the repair charges.
The Body Corporate filed an application in the Tribunal seeking an order that the Unit Owner pay the insurance charges, as well as interest and associated costs.
The Body Corporate’s application came to a hearing before myself on 12 June 2025, but was adjourned part heard. At that hearing, the Unit Owner argued that there should be a set off in relation to the costs for repairing the Unit Owner’s radio equipment, that being the case, I determined the appropriate way forward was to adjourn the Body Corporate’s claim, so that the Unit Owner could file his own claim and both matters could be determined together.
The Unit Owner then filed its own claim, and both matters were rescheduled to a hearing today in Wellington, 11 September 2025.

UNIT OWNERS CLAIM

While the Unit Owner’s claim was filed second, I consider it sensible to deal with this claim first. Liability for radio equipment
There is no dispute between the parties that the Unit Owner had radio equipment, I understand aerials and other similar items, on the roof. I accept the evidence of the Unit Owner, that after the roofing works had been completed in January, they found the radio equipment was not working.
It is not entirely clear to me the precise nature of the damage is said to have arisen to that equipment, but I understand that the Unit Owner is concerned that some of the equipment has been unscrewed from the roofing iron and also damaged. Based on the photographs provided, it appears that some of the items had been fixed with screws that would also be used to hold down the roofing material. But beyond that, the damage is not clear to me.
I find for legal reasons the Body Corporate is not liable for that damage.
The outside of the roof is the responsibility of the Body Corporate, and would comprise common property, and the Unit Owner was required to obtain the consent from the Body Corporate in order to install any equipment on the roof. Section 54 of the Unit Titles Act 2010 confirms that the common property is owned by the Body Corporate as a whole.
Section 56 of the UTA relates to the lease or licence of common property. Strictly if the Unit Owner wanted to install equipment on the common property, then it needed to obtain a lease or licence (permission) from the Body Corporate to do that. This provision has the following requirement: The Body Corporate may, after a special resolution to do so, grant a lease or licence over the whole or any part of the common property.
In this case, the Unit Owner accepts that there is no record of any written permission being granted by the Body Corporate to install the radio equipment on common property, and it must therefore follow that there is no evidence that the Body Corporate has approved, by way of a special resolution, to install that equipment.
While I accept that it might well be the situation that the Body Corporate has turned a blind eye to equipment being installed on the roof, that does not translate into a legal right to have equipment there. There are risks that would arise for the common property when equipment is installed, and the purpose of obtaining permission by way of a special resolution is to ensure that those risks are properly considered. As an example in this case, there is evidence that the aerials have caused some rusting to the roofing, and it is those sorts of detriments that the Body Corporate would need to consider and approve.
The onus for establishing any claim before the Tribunal sits with the person who makes it. That means, it is the Unit Owner who must prove that there was a lawful right to have the equipment on the roof in the first instance, and Unit Owner has not established that in this case. For that reason, this claim cannot succeed.
However, even if I were wrong in that assessment, I would have found that this claim has not been established. There is insufficient evidence before the Tribunal to show what damage the roofers had caused to the Unit Owners’ aerials. The best I can see, is that some of the aerials may have been unscrewed, but if that were the case then presumably the remedy would have been to have those items screwed, which would have been a negligible cost, and not consistent with what is claimed here - $12,372.11.
Furthermore, I have received no independent evidence from a suitably qualified person identifying the reason why the radio equipment would not work, or what damage has been caused to it, and how that would be related to the roofing work.
I find, therefore that this claim must be dismissed. Compensation for electrical system damage
The Unit Owners position is that when they returned in January the lights would not work. It was assumed that a screw must have penetrated the cable, but the Unit Owner has fairly accepted that they could not locate any area of damage.
Certainly there is a coincidence in time between the lights not working, and the work on the roof, but again, there is insufficient evidence to prove that the likely cause is something the roofers had caused. It is a possibility, but a claim in the Tenancy Tribunal must be established to the balance of probability, which means that what has claimed is more likely than not. The evidence falls short of establishing the claim to that standard. This claim must therefore be dismissed also. Governance
The Unit Owner seeks various orders in relation to what could broadly be described as governance issues at the Body Corporate.
One of those orders was to order that Mr Meyer be removed as chair. The Tribunal has no authority to make those orders; it is only the Body Corporate that could make the decision to replace a Body Corporate chair, and even then, the circumstances that outcome could be agreed is as found in the UTA.
The Unit Owner has also raised issues in relation to seeking information from the Body Corporate such as when payments were made. Mr Meyer has confirmed that he will assist with that process if information is needed, and that is the appropriate way forward.
Various other matters have been raised in relation to decision-making. Those are also matters that should be directed to the Body Corporate in the usual way. If the Unit Owner is dissatisfied with decisions that have been made, then they need to be raised as an agenda item for an AGM or EGM, The Tribunal would only have jurisdiction to intervene if there was an application for minority relief under the UTA, which is not the case here. Costs
The Unit Owner has applied for costs. Costs are only ever available when a party has been successful in a proceeding, which for the Unit Owner is not the case here. However, even if that were not the case, as I will discuss further below, costs orders in the Tenancy Tribunal are limited, and would not be available in this case in any event.

BODY CORPORATES CLAIM

The primary claim from the Body Corporate is around an order that the Unit Owner pay its share of the insurance premiums.
At the hearing today, the Unit Owner accepted that he was liable to pay the insurance charge. I agree that is the case, the UTA requires that a Body Corporate maintain a policy of insurance for the premises, and of course, the Unit Owners must fund that. Accordingly, the insurance charge is ordered by consent. Interest
The Body Corporate has also claimed interest, but the Unit Owner opposes that.
Section 128 of the UTA relate to interest on money owing to the Body Corporate, and confirms: 128 Interest on money owing to Body Corporate (1) If a Unit Owner owes money to the Body Corporate under section 121, 124, 125, 126, or 127, interest accrues in respect of so much of the debt as remains unpaid. (2) The amount of interest charged by a Body Corporate in relation to any unpaid debt must not exceed 10% per annum.
Insurance is a cost that would ordinarily be paid from levies raised for the operation of the Body Corporate complex, so when the invoice for the insurance charge was raised, that became a charge under section 121 and 124, which means that the Body Corporate can claim interest for any late payment under section 128.
I am satisfied that interest must be ordered, because the invoice was raised, and not paid by the Unit Owner.
It is not a defence for the Unit Owner to say the insurance charge was not paid, because it wanted to bring its own claim in relation to the damage to the radio equipment. What should have occurred, to avoid interest liability, is to have paid the required insurance change under protest, and to then pursue the matter in the Tribunal.
This claim is established and is ordered in full. Costs
The Body Corporate has applied for costs. As I explained at the hearing today, the Tribunal is limited in when costs can be ordered. The criteria for the award of costs are set out in the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (RTA), which restricts the circumstances when the Tribunal can order costs, and in this case it would be when a party is legally represented at the hearing. The application for costs is declined.
However, the RTA confirms that when a party has been successful in its claim, which the Body Corporate has, then the Tribunal must order the filing fee be reimbursed to the successful applicant. The filing fee is therefore ordered.

Tenancy Tribunal case 9062484 — Unit Titles in Rongotai, Wellington

At a glance

Tenancy Tribunal case 9062484 — Unit Titles in Rongotai, Wellington

At a glance

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

BACKGROUND

UNIT OWNERS CLAIM

BODY CORPORATES CLAIM

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Property management

Frequently asked questions

Reduce avoidable tribunal risk with proper tenant checks.

Claims & awards

Order

Reasons

BACKGROUND

UNIT OWNERS CLAIM

BODY CORPORATES CLAIM

Topics & place

Residential Tenancies Act sections

Key findings

Property management

Frequently asked questions

Reduce avoidable tribunal risk with proper tenant checks.