However, Conrad Goodger says he is now fully compliant with the Residential Tenancies Act and fire safety requirements, and "100% confident" he will not come to the attention of the authorities again.
A Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) media statement said yesterday the Tenancy Tribunal had found Mr Goodger breached building and health and safety requirements in the properties, affecting 117 tenants.
The MBIE’s tenancy compliance and investigations team began investigating the properties, initially with the Queenstown Lakes District Council and Fire and Emergency NZ, after a fire at his property in Huff St in 2020.
The investigation ended in 2022 with a formal warning, but a second joint investigation was started in 2023 after a former tenant complained.
The MBIE took Mr Goodger to the tribunal last year because of continuing non-compliance.
It found tenants were housed in partitioned rooms, garages, caravans and a bus, often without proper fire safety, ventilation, or sanitation.
Mr Goodger told the ODT he did not deliberately flout the rules, but admitted he had been too slow to make changes after the first investigation.
When the second investigation started in 2023, he had been preoccupied with making his properties fire compliant, dealing with the loss of his property management system after a hacking attack and taking care of his elderly parents, he said.
"I had Tenancy Services busting my ass as I was going through the fire compliance process.
He had failed to include healthy homes information in tenancy agreements, but that information had been displayed in the living areas of all his properties.
Other issues related to having tenants in "cubicles", or partitioned spaces, in some of his properties during the Covid-19 epidemic, something he said many of his tenants wanted at that time.
Mr Goodger said he had been a landlord in the resort town since 1994, and provided relatively affordable accommodation in his eight properties.
Some of his tenants had been with him for six or seven years, and most came through referrals from others.
"I’ve had very few complaints from tenants.
"Obviously, my reputation now is not so great, but if people don’t like it, they put the word around."
In her decision, tribunal adjudicator Kate Lash said Mr Goodger had downplayed his actions with respect to his tenancy agreement failures.
"His defence that the issues are minor because he has never had any real tenant complaint is unsustainable.
"Lack of complaint does not mitigate a breach of the Act."
She placed a restraining order on Mr Goodger and his companies, Rent Ezi Ltd and Nice View Ltd, which prohibits further breaches for three years.
