A Rotorua landlord who has left tenants living in a leaky and draughty rental property for more than a year has been ordered by the Tenancy Tribunal to repair the house and pay thousands of dollars in damages.
The Ministry for Business, Employment and Innovation’s (MBIE) Tenancy Compliance and Investigations team (TCIT) first visited the house in August 2023 after a complaint by a tenant.
It found several issues including: rotting flooring on a deck, sagging ceiling panels, a hole in the Perspex roofing in the entranceway, missing roof flashing, no extractor fan in one bathroom, and a section of the garage roofing which was loose and would lift with the wind.
The landlord, Aquastar Holdings Ltd, was given an improvement notice in November 2023 over multiple breaches of the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), and a failure to comply with Healthy Homes Standards.
The company’s sole director is Jasu Mati Bhana, but Bhana used her brother Stephen Bhana as an agent for the tenancy.
TCIT took Aquastar Holdings to the Tenancy Tribunal in June 2024, after it failed to act on the improvement notice.
TCIT also included Stephen Bhana as a second respondent, however, the case against him was dismissed, with the adjudicator saying that Aquastar was the sole landlord.
While a hearing was initially scheduled for July, it was delayed until November 2024, after a last minute adjournment requested by the landlord, who said she had an internet outage, an unwell family member, and a conflicting matter in court.
Adjudicator Rex Woodhouse found that the landlord failed to maintain the house, and had breached the Healthy Home Standards for heating and ventilation.
“The effect for the tenants is that they live in a tenancy that leaks and [it] will likely be cold and draughty, and otherwise does not have the features that they [are] paying significant rent to receive.
“…in the circumstances I find it would be just to make an order of exemplary damages, particularly taking into account that the inspector has raised these issues over such a long period of time with the landlord, and the work has not been completed, even as at the day of the hearing [in November 2024],” he said.
The landlord has been ordered to complete repairs by January 28, and pay $6195 in exemplary damages to MBIE, who will be passing the money to the tenant.
The landlord has also been issued with a three-year restraining order.
Woodhouse also raised that the landlord’s agent, Stephen Bhana, has been subject to previous adverse orders around maintenance and other obligations under the RTA and has received restraining orders for his own rental properties, where he is a landlord.
TCIT’s national manager Brett Wilson said Aquastar Holdings owned a number of rental properties in Rotorua and should be aware of what it must provide for each tenancy.
“Jasu Mati Bhana and her agent for this tenancy, Stephen Bhana, consistently ignored multiple requests to address a range of issues with this property.
“As a consequence of these actions, their tenants have been forced to live for an extended period in a property that was badly maintained and described by one investigator as ‘shocking’,” he said.
Aquastar Holdings has applied for a re-hearing in the Tenancy Tribunal and has also appealed the tribunal’s decision in the district court.
rnz.co.nz
