The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) compliance and investigation team visited 53 properties in some of the city’s most notorious student areas during May and June this year to check for compliance with the Residential Tenancies Act, including the Healthy Homes standards.
The investigation’s findings were released this week.
They detail a host of issues with the housing stock in the student quarter.
"Recurring issues included mould and dampness in bathrooms and bedrooms, broken or missing window handles, cracked glass, non-openable windows, water leaks, gaps under doors, damaged wall linings, holes in walls, blocked/missing downpipes and gutters, and old/mouldy curtains," the report said.
MBIE team leader Brett Wilson said of the 53 properties that were initially inspected, 52 cases have been closed, with just one case remaining open.
After the initial inspections, 23 warnings and 12 improvement notices were issued to landlords.
Mr Wilson said an improvement notice detailed what was required to improve the property and a timeframe for these improvements to be made, while a warning notice informed the landlord what they had breached in the Residential Tenancies Act.
"It requires no further action, although there is a record [of the breach] in our system."
Four properties received warning notices as well as improvement notices.
No breaches of the Act were identified at 17 of the properties visited.
Mr Wilson said the Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team (TCIT) could not issue fines but could issue an infringement notice with a fee of up to $1000 attached.
"In all cases TCIT carefully considers the level of harm, the behaviour of the landlord and how best to ensure sustained compliance when considering what enforcement tool to use.
"In these cases it was determined that the most proportionate tools to use were warnings and improvement notices."
Mr Wilson said over recent months they had worked with landlords to address any concerns and ensure non-compliant properties were brought up to standard.
"All properties must comply with the Residential Tenancies Act, including the Healthy Homes Standards, and the team ensured properties were fully compliant before closing any cases."
Mr Wilson said among the actions taken by landlords were gutter replacements at 18 properties, two significant bathroom renovations, three new heat pump installations and one new waste unit installation.
All of this had to be paid for by the landlords, he said.
Some landlords offered rent reductions to tenants to reflect the inconvenience and costs incurred during renovations, he said.
"Landlords have responsibilities throughout the life of each rental, including at the start of a new tenancy.
"This includes attending to maintenance and repairs in a timely manner. We were pleased to see that most issues were remedied promptly after intervention, with landlords providing evidence of repairs or work orders."
Otago University Students’ Association residential representative Zoe Eckhoff welcomed the MBIE initiative, but said there was a need to also look at the bigger picture.
"My issue is that with landlords having to agree to have MBIE inspect the property, that obviously raises a huge issue where landlords who aren’t compliant, likely to a significant degree, won’t be agreeing or replying to MBIE’s requests.
"So really, the worst of the worst are left rampant and nothing is being done in those cases."
Miss Eckhoff said it was also a shame those properties which were inspected had lots of basic issues that were not resolved.
"I acknowledge that it can be easy to make basic mistakes and miss things, but lots of these landlords should be educated enough to maintain Healthy Homes standards, an already bare minimum set of standards. It really shows a lack of attention to the student quarter in particular."
She was nonetheless glad MBIE was putting in effort and resources to make changes to the present state of housing stock in the student quarter.
"It’s all a step in the right direction."
