A headline today saying “Bay of Plenty landlords pull out of property market over new tenant rights” is evidence of the likely impact of new requirements in tenancy law and standards, Tenancies War spokesman Mike Butler said today.

Proposed changes to tenancy law would:

• take away the owner’s contractual right to end a tenancy,

• ban fixed-term tenancies,

• allow tenants to modify a property,

• allow tenants to keep pets, and

• enable Govt officials to enter boarding houses at any time irrespective of the right to privacy of the occupants.

Additional standards proposal for all 588,700 rental properties in New Zealand include:

• installing heat pumps in every living room, panel heaters in bedrooms,

• re-doing insulation to higher, unjustified standards,

• installing extractor fans in kitchens and bathrooms,

• placing a polythene sheet under floors, and

• placing draught-stopping tape around windows and doors.

Gary Prentice from Rentals BOP said the agency had lost more than 20 properties in the past 12 months as clients sold their properties.

His experience follows that of an Auckland landlord facing a $42,000 bill to repair a damaged rental property - who has questioned whether it’s worth being a property investor under new anti-owner requirements.

Tauranga Rentals owner Dan Lusby said he had advised owners that his company could not manage properties if they failed to meet insulation standards which would kick in on July 1

These standards include the requirement to spend thousands of dollars to install underfloor insulation that only stops 10 percent of heat loss during winter, which is of huge cost to the owner and hardly any benefit to anyone, Mr Butler said.

In a bizarre twist, the Government is setting tenants against property investors, by allowing the Tenancy Tribunal to award damages against property investors of up to $4000 for insulation standards failures.

And that $4000 goes to the tenant who's dobbed in the property investor!

Mr Butler said that was akin to traffic officers pocketing the money from instant fines for speeding tickets and was an alarming glimpse of the current Government's invasive schemes.

Housing Minister Phil Twyford says there is a housing crisis and his changes would fix it but the evidence shows his changes will reduce the availability of private rental property and put even greater pressure on Housing New Zealand, Mr Butler said.

Stop the War on Tenancies aims to empower both owners and tenants in the face of ongoing Government ineptitude with housing.

See Bay of Plenty landlords pull out of property market over new tenant rights at https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12132076

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