Landlords try to thwart act

Press, 3 February 1987, Page 1

Landlords try to thwart act

By

GARY BIRKETT

Many Christchurch landlords appear to have served their tenants one month’s notice on Saturday in an attempt to avoid new legislation brought in by the Residential Tenancies Act.

A spokesman for the

Tenants’ Protection Association, Mr Warren Smith, said it had had a flood of complaints from disgruntled tenants who had been given a month’s notice on Saturday, just hours before the new act became law.

He was unable to put a figure on the number of calls as so many were “stacked up" on the office answering machine. “The phone has been running hot most of the day,” he said. As from midnight on Saturday landlords were required to give 90 days notice, “It is unfortunate for many tenants,” said Mr Smith. “Landlords have overreacted to the new law, probably because of the way information has been presented by the news media. I am not blaming the media — it is more

the people who give them the information; they get tied up with jargon.”

Mr Smith said that .he could not understand the attitude of landlords over the new act and said they were subverting their own cause by evicting tenants.

“It is just added expense and time. They would have been better off as they were.” The president of the Canterbury Property Investors’ Association, Mr Jim Glass, said he was not surprised that landlords were getting out of the rental housing market. “Quite a lot of landlords have said to me that they intend getting out,” he said.

He predicted the new act would create rental housing shortages in New Zealand as had happened when similar legislation was imposed in South Australia and Victoria.

“It will depend a lot on

how the tribunal handles the cases. If it tries to play Robin Hood it will really, cause ..problems.".,. Landlords were angry about having to give up bond money and Irritated about the 90 days notice needed to evict tenants, Mr Smith said. “The act reduces management options. It has been imposed on the market by a lot of liberals who would not put a dollar in the rental market.”

He predicted the labour market would become frozen as people seeking to transfer would not have housing available to rent, as has happened. In Britain.

“We are not totally against the act but it seems imbalanced. Landlords see themselves as being very vulnerable.”

Further report, page 3