Does your rental property have damage caused by a natural disaster?
Kiwis, and Aucklanders in particular, are reeling from the recent and current weather events and as a landlord you are most likely wondering whether this affects you and if yes, what are your responsibilities towards your tenant.
The first thing to be done is to establish if your property is deemed “uninhabitable”. If your property has been assessed and it has been given a yellow or red sticker, then it is clearly “uninhabitable” meaning your tenant can stop paying rent and leave with 2-days’ notice.
However, it gets a little trickier if the property has not yet been assessed. In this instance we need to understand what is meant by the term “uninhabitable”.
The Tenancy Tribunal cite two examples to clarify this definition.
Example one: Following the Canterbury earthquakes, a tenant’s home did not have power or water and there was damage to the toilet. One would think the tenants could not live without power or water. However, the judge ruled that the property was still habitable as the term uninhabitable should be interpreted according to the post-quake expectations of the community. It was ruled that the landlord reduce the rent for a period but the tenant could not leave with only 2-days’ notice.
A second example: a property was damaged and there were leaks into one of the bedrooms. The tenant could not use the bedroom and had to move their bed into another room. The tenant tried to end their fixed-term tenancy, but the adjudicator noted that the tenants could still live in part of the property. The landlord had to reduce the rent and the tenant could not leave with only 2-days’ notice.
The common factor in both these instances is that the properties were only regarded as having suffered partial damage as they were not structurally unsound and there was no danger posed for the tenants to remain in the property, and the tenants could still use the property, albeit not all the rooms.
Following the recent floods, and the damage that may result from Cyclone Gabrielle, we need to ask the following questions:
“Has the property been damaged?”
If yes, “Is the damage to a part or the whole property? Does the damage render the property structurally unsound/ dangerous?”
If no, the landlord should do the following 2 things:
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Try to fix the property as soon as possible, and
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Negotiate with the tenants to reduce the rent to compensate them for not having access to all the rooms.
This is a very brief overview and should you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us directly.
Auckland – Bronwyn Brown on 021 841 089
Hawkes Bay – Lindie Thomas on 021 284 1089
Head Office – Chantel de Vos on 021341089
Warm regards,