The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) tenancy compliance and investigations team visited more than 50 properties in the student quarter in May, where they found several breaches of healthy homes regulations at the properties in question.
The team’s national manager, Brett Wilson, said these visits generated a number of cases, and the team was actively working to resolve them and take appropriate steps to ensure compliance.
It continued other proactive and reactive work both in Dunedin and nationwide at the same time.
"The team has followed up with all of the properties that were visited and about one-third of the cases have now been closed.
"Over the coming months, the team’s focus is on progressing and resolving as many of the remaining cases as possible."
An MBIE spokesman said issues with properties were varied, but common aspects included heat pumps not working, ventilation issues, repair of wooden cladding and windowsills required, repairing of windows and other "aesthetic matters".
Students appreciated the opportunity to receive advice on their rights and responsibilities from investigations staff, he said.
For example, if mould was present at the start of a tenancy it was a cleanliness issue and the landlord’s responsibility to clean, but if mould appeared during a tenancy the tenants had to ensure it was removed.
The investigations team also observed that recent maintenance/improvement work had been done at several properties, but most properties viewed had required minor work to be done as per the Residential Tenancies Act 1986, the spokesman said.
The investigations team would engage with the relevant landlords to address any issues identified during the visits and reserved the right to take further enforcement action if issues were not addressed.
The spokesman acknowledged the time it was taking but said the MBIE hoped to release a full report on the findings once all the cases were closed.
Otago University Students’ Association president Liam White said it was the first time the MBIE had worked with the Dunedin student population in such a way.
"They reckon they’ll get the current batch done by about November.
"But I mean, with the fact that every property is unique, every tenant-landlord relationship is so unique, I think it is fair to ask the tenancy compliance team, who are relatively small, to deal with these really methodically.
"So, I think, with the level of problems that I imagine there are in those flats, I think taking it slowly and working through them is fair."
His aspiration for a rental warrant of fitness remained a possibility, Mr White said.
"It is becoming a national story. I’ve got MPs and ministers reaching out to me asking what can be done. But now we have to find out where we can translate it."
Last month, Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich wrote to the MBIE requesting "with urgency" a copy of its planned approach to the monitoring and enforcement of the Healthy Homes Standards, as the council had become "greatly concerned with reports from residents of the poor quality of some of the rental properties in our city — particularly (but not limited to) those in the student area".
