Beach Road Properties Limited has agreed to forward all outstanding bond money to the Bond Centre and to repay any rent paid in advance that exceeded what was permitted.

The landlord has also agreed to a 2-year restraining order from committing the same unlawful acts. This Tenancy Tribunal outcome is the result of investigation work by the Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team (TCIT) in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

TCIT opened an investigation into Beach Road Properties Limited following a nationwide initiative which inspected similar boarding houses after the tragic Loafers Lodge fire in 2023.

TCIT inspected the property at 113 Beach Road in central Auckland, which was referred to as ‘Beach Road Hostel’ by the tenants, and identified a range of issues including a lack of suitable heaters installed. TCIT issued the landlord with an improvement notice to fix these issues, but the landlord failed to comply with this notice and also failed to provide MBIE with relevant documents on multiple occasions.

As a result, TCIT took a case to the Tenancy Tribunal and the Tribunal issued an order by consent following mediation between the parties, where the landlord accepted they had committed the following unlawful acts.

• Not having working qualifying heaters installed
• Entering into tenancy agreements that did not fully comply with the Residential Tenancies Act 1986
• Requiring bond amounts of more than one week’s rent and not lodging these bonds with Tenancy Services.
• Failing to comply with an improvement notice
• Failing to provide specified documents to MBIE on request
• Failing to provide mandatory information in tenancy agreements, including insulation statements, healthy homes statements, or insurance statements.

The adjudicator found that the landlord’s failure to comply with the improvement notice, was an intentional decision which resulted in defects not being addressed.

“In my view, it is a matter of significance when a landlord fails to comply with an improvement notice. It undercuts the protections that are available for vulnerable tenants and consumes public resources chasing up compliance,” noted the adjudicator in the Tribunal order.

TCIT National Manager Brett Wilson said the tenants were placed in a position where they were living in cold rooms and signing agreements that included multiple unlawful clauses.

“Many of the tenants involved were international students, who are more likely to be unaware of their rights or the landlord’s obligations under the Residential Tenancies Act. It was therefore important for TCIT to take action in this case to ensure that the protections in the Act were upheld,” Mr Wilson said.

“The landlord’s actions meant a number of tenants were living in rooms with insufficient heating for long periods with potential detrimental impacts on their health and were further exploited by being charged bond payments in a manner that was contrary to law.

“This decision recognises the real impact non compliance has on people’s lives. Tenants deserve to live in warm, dry and safe homes, and while TCIT seeks to work with landlords, decisive action will be taken when required improvements or requests are ignored, particularly in boarding houses where strong protections are essential.”

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