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Chapter 1: What are some of the wildest Tenancy Tribunal cases?
Hello and welcome along to the Property Academy podcast by Obus Partners. I'm your host, Steve McKnight. And I'm Andrew Nicholl.
And this is a show that helps Kiwis go from zero to five investment properties so you can be financially free and stick around for the next 15 minutes because you're going to learn the most unhinged Tennessee tribunal cases we could find, the tenant who demanded $10,000 over a missing duvet, and the cat damage that was hidden under a blanket, and why the insurance company refused to pay a cent.
Now, these are some of the worst of the worst cases that we could find where there are disputes between the tenants and the landlords. But I often like sharing them anyway, because they can give us some really important lessons around how the law works and things we need to keep in mind as landlords.
Chapter 2: Why did a tenant demand $10,000 over a missing duvet?
Now, Andrew, what is the first case that we've found?
So this was actually one of our tenants at Opus and the tenant, they were in the property for 18 months and then the tenancy ends and then they demanded $10,000 from the landlord. Now, the main concern, the main reason that they were claiming this $10,000 was a missing duvet and some issues around the oven. And another complaint was that the property didn't have enough car parking.
But here's the thing. The property never had a car park to begin with. It was rented out without a car park. And so the landlord says, no way, I'm not paying any of that money. So this goes to the tribunal.
Now, what was fascinating here is the tenant was clearly just having a bit of a go, right? So they were in the property for 18 months, no issues. And then what happened at the end, because this was a furnished studio apartment, is the property manager did say, hey, look, it looks like there is a missing duvet.
So what must have happened was the landlord would have paid to have a duvet in this furnished apartment. And then the tenant says, actually, that wasn't listed in the chattel list in the tenancy agreement. So no, it's not missing.
Now, I think this must have got up the tenant's goat by the looks of things, because then they started coming back with every little difference between the tenancy agreement and the reality.
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Chapter 3: What lessons can landlords learn from the missing duvet case?
So if we look at the oven, for instance, The tenancy agreement, and this was an administrative mistake by the original property manager, the tenancy agreement said there was an underbench oven, so a standard oven, but there wasn't in the property, and there never was when the tenant viewed it. Instead, there was a countertop convection oven and some hobs.
There was never a full oven, but it said it in the tenancy agreement, so then he's trying to claim for that. The other thing in the tenancy agreement was it said the maximum number of cars at the property will not exceed one. And then he tried to say, the tenant, that, well, that means that there was a car park given with the property. I never got a car park because the property didn't have one.
Chapter 4: What happened in the oven poisoning claim case?
So therefore, I'm going to try and claim some money back because this shows that this property was meant to come with a car park and it didn't come with one. Now, that's despite the fact that on the rental listing, the original one, it said there is no car park, right? Because the property didn't have one. So this ends up going to the tenancy tribunal. And ultimately, they dismissed everything.
And they said, look, the tribunal is not a complaint service. We're not an investigative body. We're here to resolve genuine disputes. And ultimately you got your bond back. I understand that there might've been some administrative issues with the tenancy agreement with it not matching up exactly. Okay. The duvet wasn't on there, but you never complained over 18 months.
It seems like you were pretty happy with this property. So actually we're going to dismiss this all and no, we're not refunding your filing fee to the tenant because it seemed like they were having a go. Now,
In this, there are some good lessons around making sure that the tenancy agreement does exactly line up with the property just to avoid the potential for these kinds of issues in the future, right? It's a very good lesson for property managers and one we're obviously talking to our team about as well. Anything else you're picking up from this one?
One thing I found really interesting is that the tenant applied for name suppression, so a sealed order, so basically this wouldn't go out in the public.
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Chapter 5: How did the tribunal respond to the oven poisoning claim?
And the Tenancy Tribunal actually refused that. Now, what that means is that there is going to be this on record. And so any future landlords, if they do a search and see that tenant, they might think, hmm, I just need to be really careful with this tenant and make sure all my T's are crossed and I's are dotted.
And I suppose the good thing there for tenants as well is if you're going to have a go about something that actually wasn't that much of an issue, but now you're going to give it a go, then ultimately the risk is that it could be published that you did that, right? Talk to us about case number two.
Another oven situation. This one was a bit more severe about the oven. The oven's poisoning me.
Chapter 6: What was the outcome of the cat damage case under a blanket?
And again, this is through our property management team. And Tiffany was telling me about the situation where a tenant noticed the slight residue on the oven and the inside because it had been cleaned. Now, the tenant had been advised to turn the oven on high and burn off any remaining residue. Now, the tenant said, well, that hasn't worked.
And so Tiffany sends a second cleaner out to remove the residue for them. And the tenant thinks, no, not good enough. Files with the tribunal claiming that the team has poisoned her with this oven.
Okay, so what happened?
So the tenant wanted to move out because she said, well, the property no longer complies with healthy home standard because I'm being poisoned. So that's not healthy. And she can't breathe when the oven was on. And now our team said, well, actually, you've signed a 12-month tenancy. We've got the right to remedy something if there is an issue. And we believe we have done that.
You can break the lease, but you have to pay the break lease costs. And the tenants thought, well, no, that's not fair. That's unreasonable. But in the end, they came to a resolution where the tenant ended up paying the Trade Me relisting fee. She moved out. New tenants moved in two days later. No complaints from the new tenants about the oven or anything else.
It's quite interesting because all of these situations are quite nuanced, right? And obviously the oven was not poisoning the tenant, right? That would be a big issue. And this wouldn't even be considered a breach of the healthy home standards either.
I think sometimes people use excuses. Maybe something else was going on and she didn't want to live there and she was just using that as a way of getting out of it.
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Chapter 7: What insights can landlords gain from the meth contamination case?
Whereas, you know, most property managers and landlords are pretty reasonable if you just have a conversation with them.
But I mean, some people in the world are a little bit, I'm going to use the word, unhinged. Like after moving out, the tenant filed another tenancy tribunal claim for a huge amount of compensation. And what she did was she went to Google and she typed in, is oven cleaner poisonous?
And she screenshotted that of Google saying oven cleaner is poisonous, sent that in and the tribunal dismissed it, like didn't even do a hearing. It was like, we're not going to hear this. I've reviewed the evidence just through the case out before it took up any court time. Now, I'll tell you about another case in Papakura in Auckland.
This isn't one of ours, but there was a tenant who left the property with meth contamination. It was at 280 micrograms per 100 square centimetres. Remember, anything over 15 micrograms would be considered contaminated. So this is like 20 times the threshold, more or less, like 19 times the threshold. And the tenant said, well, this must have been my associates.
My associates must have brought meth into the house. And the adjudicator said, well, this is manufacture. You don't get that high most of the time, but just smoking meth. We did a recent podcast about this. It looks like somebody was cooking meth here. You're going to have to pay $73,782 to the landlord for remediation. Now you might think, well, wait a second.
Tenants are usually only responsible for the excess. So usually with meth contamination, the tenant might have to pay $2,500. The insurance company would typically pay out the rest, usually up to 30 grand. That didn't happen here because it turns out that the landlord had not been doing the right inspections and so the insurance company wouldn't pay out.
Ultimately, it did land on the tenant then.
And this is a good case of why we always say you've got to make sure you do your regular inspections, particularly private landlords that manage their own properties, but without the inspection records, the case is just impossible to win. And I think the other learning here is
is consider getting a baseline test before and after the tenancy starts and ends, because if you don't do the baseline test, then there's no way of proving later that the contamination wasn't pre-existing. Even if it's a brand new property, if there isn't that baseline test at the start, you are going to have a hard time attributing that damage to the tenor.
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Chapter 8: What are the common themes in these unhinged tenancy cases?
So the landlord thinks, oh, bugger this, I'm going to claim through insurance. And that gets declined because the landlord, again, couldn't produce those inspection records. And the reason for that is because the tenant refused every inspection. And the landlord just let that slide. They didn't go and say, no, tough luck. That's part of your tenancy agreement.
And if you don't have the records, the insurance will not pay out.
I'll tell you one really interesting one as well is there was a case where a tenant jammed her finger at the property and her fingernail later died, jammed it in a door. She filed a tenancy tribunal claim looking for compensation for ongoing manicures because her damaged fingernail needed cosmetic upkeep.
So she did it herself. She jammed her own finger in there. Yeah.
The tribunal obviously declined that part of the claim. And I like sharing some of these just because not every claim at the tenancy tribunal actually has merit, right? And you as a landlord can have confidence that the tribunal will dismiss claims that don't have a clear legal basis, right?
There are times where they will throw it out, but it also does show you that sometimes tenants will have a go. Now, it doesn't mean that this is going to happen all the time. It doesn't mean it's going to happen to all landlords. Me, myself, I've never been to the tenancy tribunal, even though I've been investing for years and got five rental properties.
I mean, how many times have you been to the tribunal in the 22 years you've been investing across 40 odd houses.
Once. Once. The only time is when I had those tenants in Ringyard that I managed myself. It's the only time.
So other than that, you've never even had a property manager go to it for you?
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