Published tribunal order
Tenancy Tribunal case 9074644 — Unit Titles in Auckland Central, Auckland
Decided 17 Dec 2025 · Published 17 Dec 2025 · Application 9074644
- Unit Titles
- Interest
- Costs
Order
[The party] and [The party] must pay Body Corporate 376911 $6,381.17 immediately, calculated as follows: DescriptionsApplicant Interest$833.45 Crockers’ collection costs$1,324.64 Morgan Coakle’s collection costs$3,079.66 Filing fee$500.00 Counsel’s appearance fee$358.80 Crockers BCM attendance costs$284.62 Total award$6,381.17
Reasons
- Christine Ubido, counsel from Morgan Coakle lawyers attended the hearing for the body corporate.
- [The party] attended for the unit owners
- The body corporate originally applied for recovery of unpaid levies, interest, costs and the filing fee from the unit owners. Since the claim was filed, the unit owners have paid all the outstanding levies. Only interest, costs, and the filing fee remain for determination.
Are the unit owners liable for interest?
- If a unit owner fails to pay levies by the due date, interest accrues on the unpaid balance. A body corporate may charge interest up to 10 per cent per annum. 1
- The body corporate has resolved to charge interest at 10 per cent per annum on unpaid levies.
- The calculation of interest for the remedial account did not seem to correlate to when the remedial levy was paid. However, that appears to be because Crockers’ system typically (but not on every occasion) applies debtors’ payments to the debtor’s oldest debt.
- There is authority that if the debtor appropriates a payment to a particular purpose, the creditor must apply the payment as directed. 2 However, it was not necessary to explore that issue in detail today. Importantly, Ms Ubido, Jane Atkin from the body corporate manager, Crockers, and John Pollard, the body corporate committee chairperson, assured the Tribunal that however the payments were applied, the calculation of interest would have been the same. It does not matter greatly that the unit owners’ payments intended to be applied to levies were instead applied to interest and costs for example if the cost impact on the unit owners was neutral.
- I am satisfied that the interest claimed should be ordered. 1 Unit Titles Act 2010 (UTA) s 128. 2 BC 85172 v Fisher [2021] NZTT 9026341
Are the unit owners liable for costs?
- The Body Corporate is entitled to recover any reasonable costs incurred by it in collecting unpaid levies as a debt due by the owners to the body corporate. 3 The costs sought are in accordance with industry practice and do not appear unreasonable.
- Costs are ordered as sought. Filing fee
- The Tribunal must order the unit owners to reimburse the body corporate for the filing fee. 4