Call for major reform of tenant-landlord law

Press, 27 January 1983, Page 12

Call for major reform of tenant-landlord law

Tenants are becoming a much more stable population. But does the law lag behind this social change?

Attitudes towards renting have changed sharply since the 1960 s but tenancy law. not adjusted accordingly, lags behind. More people are choosing to flat, and for longer periods. The spin-off effect is that tenants are now more likely to regard the places they live in as “home" and to invest more time, money, and affection in them. There has been a minor revolution in sensibility to which the lawmakers have not yet doffed their caps. The chairperson of the Tenants’ Protection Association and a senior law lecturer at the University of Canterbury, Mr Andrew Alston, says that reform is overdue.

A reduction of facilities should also be treated as a rent increase.

Mr Alston recommends that exceptions be allowed when the rent is artificially low and with the consent of the Rent Appeal Board.

Bonds are another source of contention.

They would be less so. he says, if the money was held by an independent authority. He also advocates the tenant having the option of paying an insurance premium instead to cover loss or damage to the landlord.

Another recommendation is that it should be made an offence for the tenant to treat the bond as a credit account by refusing to pay

The existing legislation governing the relationship between landlord and tenant is well-meaning but vague, imcomplete and, in some instances, unenforceable. It is contained within at least five separate acts some of which overlap, and he says that it should be consolidated into one. The present system is confusing and misleading. Mr Alston believes that most of the problems to which tenants are prey could be eased or even eliminated through intelligent and welldrafted legislation. New laws

He has prepared a list of recommendations to be incorporated in the hypothetical act. Many are culled from laws recently introduced in some Australian states.

rent towards the end of the tenancy. To ensure that landlords do not attempt to hoodwink the law, Mr Alston says, a single standard form should be drawn up and used for all tenancy agreements.

They are based on the most common areas of dispute between landlord and tenant. Arbitrary eviction is a major cause of grievance. If the tenancy agreement provides for it, landlords can give notice to quit as short as one week or less.

To give the new act teeth and to ensure that the rights do not exist only on paper, the Small Claims Tribunal — the natural machinery for enforcement — should be extended and made more accessible.

Mr Alston says that the minimum term should be extended to one month except where tenants have not honoured their obligations. Many landlords are slow to repair their premises, often to the inconvenience and discomfort of the occupants.

This might be done by creating more tribunals; increasing the maximum amount that may be ordered to be paid from $5OO to $1500; and expanding the scope of cases that may be heard to include matters at present under the jurisdiction of the District Court.

Mr Alston maintains that to ensure that a habitable standard is maintained, tenants should be required to give only seven days notice of work needed instead of one month as now.

Separate provisions should be made to protect the privacy of the tenant against the intrusion of the landlord, he says.

Rent increases should be subject to more stringent regulation, he says. Landlords should be able to raise rents only once within a six-month period, and then only by a specified amount, and only after 60 days notice has been given.

The Trespass Act can be applied to landlords who enter premises without giving due notice, but it is part of criminal law and is inappropriate to the area of residential tenancies.

In Residence Patricia Herbert

PROPERTY REPORTER

Mr Alston has acquainted the two main political parties with his blueprint for reform. The response has been encouraging. The Opposition spokesman for housing, Mr M. K. Moore, has adopted many of Mr Alston’s ideas, publicly advocating the need for "firm tenancy and landlord guidelines." The reaction of the Minister of Housing. Mr Friedlander, was characteristically more guarded.

"Most tenants would not want to be tied down by having to give four weeks' notice, but without that it would be a pretty one-sided affair." he says.

Mr Alston's recommendation that the length of time available to the landlord to carry out repairs be reduced from one month to seven days received an equally stony reception.

Mr Roberts argues that the proposal is neither needed nor reasonable. For necessary work, the tenant has the’ right under present law to hire a tradesman and charge the bill to the landlord.

Urgent repairs, the mending of a burst water pipe for example, are done immediately anyway. It is in the interests ’of both parties to see that thev are.

He said that he would discuss the proposals with his colleagues "to determine the method, timing and extent of any such review should the Government decide to proceed." Landlords cool However, the president of the Christchurch Landlords’ Association. Mr A. J. Roberts, is cool toward the changes proposed by Mr Alston. He thinks that the existing legislation provides adequate protection for the tenant and that to extend it is to risk over-fussy bureaucratic control. The Property Act provides that, in the absence of a tenancy agreement, the landlord is required to give a month’s notice to quit. However, if it were to be made a statutory obligation overriding any private contractual arrangements, the landlords would insist that the tenant be equally bound.

For maintenance jobs, some leeway should be given, he savs.

Those landlords who do not do the work themselves in their spare time are dependent upon tradesmen and they are often not available "just at the drop of a hat."

Mr Roberts’ reaction to the rent control provisions was also less than enthusiastic.

They are unnecessarily intrusive and would aggravate the rental accommodation shortage by persuading more landlords to quit the business, he says. “What are we? A privateenterprise outfit or a bureau-cratically-run. State-con-trolled organisation?" Rent rises

The Landlords' Association accepts that, by and large, rents should be not raised more than once within a sixmonths period. Its lease rules that they be reviewed on April 1 and October 1.

Members are not required to use the association’s lease. But Mr Roberts says that he knows of very few landlords who raise their rents more frequently than once every six months, except if there is a vacancy and the flat changes hands. He privately supports the recommendation that bonds be held by an independent authority, but says that 80 per cent of the association's members are “strongly opposed” to it. They consider it unnecessarily meddlesome. And the standard tenancy form agreement? Mr Roberts is not impressed. It would be too inflexible. "What is suitable for one person or one property may not be suitable for another." he says.-

Mr Roberts doubts that many would welcome the constraint. i