More Fantasyland Tales endorsed by Otago Uni

[Perry]

Download your own copy from here.
23 Aug 2017

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Today we launched a powerful report from our People’s Review of Renting. It’s already making waves in the media. Check it out and sign the open letter supporting the recommendations.

The report is based on the personal stories of over 600 people who shared their experience of renting. They paint a heartbreaking picture of the realities that too many face while living in rented homes.

Read the report.

Our bold recommendations aim to address systemic issues with renting which have only got worse as successive governments have chosen to take a hands-off approach to housing.

We’re up against powerful vested interests with this campaign. Many MPs have vast property portfolios and are happy with the status quo. But, by combining the power of our community - our stories, our resources and our voices - we can take on those vested interests and ensure people don’t have to live in homes that make them sick.

I was on Breakfast TV this morning discussing the findings of the report. As I was walking out of the studio someone said she had no idea that people were living in such poor conditions and was shocked how little the government was doing to address it. That’s the power of this report and the hundreds of stories in it.

Stuff story here.

[Wayne]

Unfortunately many try to bring this down to a simple one side or the other at fault.
As always with these things the truth is much more complex.
Sure there are some bad houses.
LL will say they meet a market because people choose to live there - often that is not the case, people live there because there is nothing else.
LL will say it is the tenants and it often is.
So we have good tenants and good landlords and bad tenants and bad landlords all mixed up.

Some LL need to be run out of business and some tenants need serious help to sort their issues - none of this will happen with regulation.

[Perry]

What's the guesstimate figure for the number of rentals in NZ? I've seen it bandied about, but can't recall the figure. My qustion is, what is a survey of 600 as a percentage of residential dwellings in NZ and how reasonable is it to extrapolate those results over NZ's entire residential rental stock?

[Nick G]

If there's anywhere that could use minimum insulation standards it's Dunedin, that's for sure. Cold and wet homes all over the show.

[PC]

If tenants have such an awful time of it - then why are 91% of tribunal applications bought by home providers?

[Wayne]

If tenants have such an awful time of it - then why are 91% of tribunal applications bought by home providers?

General wisdom is that tenants are scared to raise issue in case they get evicted in retaliation.

[Nick G]

Remembering my time as a scarfie... I was barely capable of finding my way to class on time. Knowing my right as a tenant, collecting evidence of an issue, presenting a case... nah. I suspect if a student did press a claim it's because their parents drove it.

[Perry]

General wisdom is that tenants are scared to raise issue in case they get evicted in retaliation.

General what? Gossip, hearsay, scuttlebut, dirt-dishing, rumour-mopnering etc., would be more like it.

[Nick G]

Pretty sure it's more that students are trying to figure out how to make baked beans and (if there's a girlfriend involved) do laundry. I lived in a crappy wet house for a year at uni, it was normal. I'm not saying it was a good situation, but we certainly didn't know anything and there were a lot less houses. That was early 2000's, I hear it's better now.

[PC]

What's the rent now compared to crappy house back then?

[Nick G]

I think it's doubled.

[Bryanw]

I will not be signing the open letter. While I support some points, there are, in my view too many demands that are either polemical or impractical. The cause would be better served by a more balanced approach, I think. In my view, making a lot of noise and using lots of hyperbole doesn't make a case. Let it be noted that I do believe improvements are needed in the rental environment, and some thought is needed on the trend towards more long term rentals.

[Wayne]

And Peter hits back.
Great article - actually quite balanced for a change.
I particularly like this
Lewis doesn't mince his words. "Some people are life incompetent."

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/96067676/landlords-v-tenants-how-to-live-in-a-house

[artemis]

A compulsory rental WoF is a very blunt instrument. The current government has spent a great deal of effort gathering and interpreting data to target funding and intervention where it is actually needed. Not there yet - probably never will be - but it has to be a backward step to force an expensive and invasive bureaucratic process on every landlord in the country, needed or not.

MBIE can now take bad landlords to the Tenancy Tribunal. Looks like two so far, neither what might be expected, but maybe more in the pipeline. A targeted approach has to be better. Plus get the clipboard warriors knocking on doors to teach people how to clean mould off window sills and the bathroom ceiling. (Not serious of course but may well give better and cheaper results.)

- 4071192 - the Molesworth Street commercial building illegally rented to tenants
- 4075674 - EQC payment for accommodation, withdrawn


It will be interesting to see how the Wellington CC voluntary scheme unfolds - takeup, costs, processes, analysis of results - and how the spin to make it mandatory will happen. I don't believe it will happen under a National government but another government a definite maybe. But either way there might be incremental changes like insulation, to close down the incessant media and opposition noise.

[Nick G]

Good article. There is a sensible middle ground which I'm sure will be avoided like the plague.

And Peter hits back.
Great article - actually quite balanced for a change.
I particularly like this
Lewis doesn't mince his words. "Some people are life incompetent."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/mon...ive-in-a-house