More money to police property rental laws

The government has allocated $80 million over four years to police the healthy homes standards, fix the bond centre and fund RTA disputes.

Thursday, May 20th 2021, 2:01PM 1 Comment

In this year’s Budget there are four separate allocations to fund many changes introduced to the rental market.

A $16 million allocation has been made to police the Healthy Homes Standards. This will be used to increase the number of pro-active investigations undertaken ensuring the benefits of raising the standards of New Zealand’s rental housing stock are realised.

It will ensure interventions are targeted at the highest risk areas to maximise harm reduction and to support the most vulnerable tenants who do not have the ability or resources to take action against non-compliance.

The government is also allocating an additional $5 million a year to support the Tenancy Tribunal to manage increasing demand from changes to the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act.

Under these changes it is much harder for landlords to end tenancies.

The budget also confirms the Tenancy Bond IT infrastructure is not up to scratch.

In the budget $18 million has been forecast to be spent over four years for operating expenses. It also allocates capital expenditure of $20 million to improve the ICT system.

“This initiative seeks to address significant ICT risks” to ensure the system of managing residential tenancy bond transactions is “stable, secure and supported and meets the service requirements and customer expectations.” 

The budget also acknowledges the low interest rate environment has impacted funding for the Tenancy Bond service.

Previously the centre was funded by interest from bonds lodged by property investors.

The budget allocates $41.4 million over four years to replace “a non-controllable shortfall in bond interest revenue”.

This will ensure services critical to a functioning residential tenancy and unit title sector can be maintained.

The budget says funding will support:

Tags: Budget healthy homes tenancy reform Tenancy Services Tenancy Tribunal

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Comments from our readers

On 21 May 2021 at 12:33 pm Andy the adviser said:
Rather than spending $80m POLICING property rental laws, why not spend $20m EDUCATING tenants on how to look after their homes. Any landlord will tell you that they would reduce rents for a careful and considerate tenant who looks after the property.

Why should a landlord provide a quality home (often better equipped than their own private residence) to a tenant who is going to cause damage and nuisance for neighbours?

And this statements says it all: "The budget allocates $41.4 million over four years to replace “a non-controllable shortfall in bond interest revenue”.". This government is continually making stupid policies and not considering the unintended consequences. Less rental properties, reducing bond amounts, lower interest rates, seeking lower rents (and rent freezes), and a higher cost in bureaucracy - someone has to pay...

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