NZ needs more rental properties, not more bureaucracy, says industry body
The NZ Property Investors Federation has slammed the Green Party’s proposal for a warrant of fitness for rental homes, saying this will likely hit renters with an unnecessary cost of around $90 million a year.
The Green Party recently placed a Rental Warrant of Fitness Bill in the member’s ballot, in a bid “to ensure homes are certified warm and dry” and to ensure “everyone’s home is healthy and affordable,” said Chlöe Swarbrick, Green Party renters’ rights spokesperson.
“The NZPIF is highly supportive of steps to improve the living standards of rental properties in New Zealand,” said Sue Harrison (pictured above), president of the NZ Property Investors Federation. “However, as tenants ultimately pay, these improvements need to be genuinely beneficial and cost-effective.”
NZPIF said that amidst a cost-of-living crisis, it’s tough for rental property owners to cover the cost of mortgage interest increases and higher taxes for rental properties, plus the proposed extra cost of the proposed certification every four years, without increasing rents.
Peter Lewis, NZPIF vice president, pointed out that tenants and rental property owners were unlikely to want another visit to their home by inspectors.
“They already don’t especially like the existing inspections of their homes required by insurance companies.” Lewis said. “While most insurers insist on three monthly inspections, the NZPIF has obtained agreement for inspections at four monthly intervals for members whose properties are insured with Initio Insurance.”
NZPIF said “the need for a rental property warrant of fitness simply isn’t there,” as it would duplicate the laws NZ already has in place to cover the quality of rental properties and to ensure there is compliance.
The industry body noted that rental property owners are required to make legal declarations that their rentals comply with all aspects of the Healthy Homes regulations and face large fines if these declarations are false. Tenants, on the other hand, will know if their homes have problems and can raise these issues to the Tenancy Tribunal, where they can be awarded large amounts of money in exemplary damages from their non-compliant landlords if their complaints are valid.
Tenants also have what is known as retaliatory action, which protects them from bad landlords who end the tenancy of tenants who raise legitimate issues about their rental homes. Such behaviour has seen tenants awarded up to $4,000.
There’s also the Tenancy Compliance Division set up by the government to undertake its own inspections of rental properties and hold poorly behaving rental property owners to account, even without a tenant’s involvement.
“We need more rental properties in New Zealand, and we have seen too many laws that stop this from happening,” NZFIP said. “Tenants and rental property providers do not need more of these well-intentioned but misguided measures.”
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