Changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will have to be dealt with by the next Parliament.
Thursday, September 25th 2008, 1:53PM
by The Landlord
The 2005 Parliament is due to rise later tomorrow for the election with the long awaited legalisation postponed again.
The changes will be carried over. National Housing spokesman Phil Heatley says that if his party forms the next government – as current polling suggests – National will not go back to square one.
However his party plans to remove clauses in the bill which would make landlords have to cover damages made by tenants and tenants’ visitors.
“It just seems wrong to make people responsible for something they have no control over,” Heatley says.
The rest of the bill “has some good stuff in it…we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
The changes to the RTA have been gestating for a long time. Labour promised a review of the act in its 1999 election manifesto. Little was done in the first term but a review was launched just after the 2002 election and the measures from that review have undergone numerous mutations since then.
As it currently stands the bill makes it clearer who is responsible for such outgoings as water rates; increases fines and other penalties for breaches of obligations by both landlords and tenants; and allows the use of advocates in dispute hearings.
