Tenant Insurance

[Kurlykiwi]

Does anyone include a clause in your tenancy agreements stating tenants are responsible for taking out insurance to cover their possessions while renting the property? Or something that specifically states their contents is not covered by any insurances help by the landlord? Also for a fixed term tenancy, you are required to include a strat and end date, can you add a specific time to the start and end date. i.e. if i would like the tenancy to start at 12pm on the 01/01/19 and end at 12pm on the 01/06/19 do you just add this to standard agreement? Thanks.

[Learning]

Not a clause per say but I do have a note in my agreement that states the LL's insurance does not cover the tenant's possessions and that us is highly recommended the tenant takes out their own insurance.

[Don't believe the Hype]

Is that necessary? Is there some expectation that paying rent includes an insurance component?

[Kurlykiwi]

I see it as just clarifying that the insurance a landlord has does not cover the tenant's possessions. "I was walking with my laptop, it hit your wall and broke the screen, can you please replace the screen as your wall broke it!"

[Perry]

Also, if i would like the tenancy to start at 12pm on the 01/01/19 and end at 12pm on the 01/06/19 do you just add this to standard agreement? Thanks.

As far as I know, that can be done, but I recall some oddity that a day is otherwise measured from midnight to midnight, in the unreal world of the TT Kangaroo Kourts.

[klauster]

For selecting a suitable tenant who meets our letting policy we get this information from the application form.
Otherwise how can you do an informed decision?

Example:
Does your (renter’s) Insurance Policy cover

Liabilities for accidently damage [ NO / if YES how much in NZD ____________________ ]
Your Content [ NO / if YES how much in NZD ____________________ ]
Insurer’s Name is __________________________________ ______Policy #: __________________________

[ ] No, I don’t have liability or specific Renter’s Insurance cover.


Start and end day if not exclusively defined on the TA are a full day.

[Kurlykiwi]

Thanks Klauster, thats another good thing to add to the prospective tenant checks.

[Learning]

"I was walking with my laptop, it hit your wall and broke the screen, can you please replace the screen as your wall broke it!"

Certainly! $300 for the broken screen, less $2,000 for the emotional stress my wall has suffered, means... you owe me $1,700.

[BigWal_v2]

For selecting a suitable tenant who meets our letting policy we get this information from the application form.
Otherwise how can you do an informed decision?

Example:
Does your (renter’s) Insurance Policy cover

Liabilities for accidently damage [ NO / if YES how much in NZD ____________________ ]
Your Content [ NO / if YES how much in NZD ____________________ ]
Insurer’s Name is __________________________________ ______Policy #: __________________________

Somewhat related, and just because I'm walking through this at the moment:

On your tenancy application

If I/we am successful with my application for a tenancy then I/we consent to my/our details provided on this application being used to assist the landlord with the running of the tenancy.

and,

I/we confirm the information in this form is true and correct and that I/we have read the Privacy Act Statement stated above.

On your tenancy agreement

The tenant(s) consent to any of their details provided on their application form for this tenancy, and on this tenancy agreement, being used to assist the landlord with this tenancy, including enforcing any judgement in respect of the tenancy agreement, or in respect of any order made against the tenant(s) by the Tenancy Tribunal or any New Zealand court

Attribution - I can't remember exactly which Tenancy applications / agreements I combined to come up with the above, but I believe most of it was attributable to Keys.

There are a number of wrinkles you need to include in your tenancy _application_ to make full use of the clause quoted above for your tenancy _agreement_, but you're going to have to do that research yourself.

Everything I've derived my clauses from is / was publicly accessible and non copyrighted at the time I looked it up, but if anybody believes that isn't / wasn't the case I'm happy to discuss it.

----

And regardless of what you put in your applications / agreements, best practice seems to be that you have a solid privacy clause in your agreements, although I'm not sure if that's just because 'everybody else does it' or if it's founded in law.

[Keys]

this application being used to assist the landlord with the running of the tenancy

That bit is important. It gives you the right to contact references (for any reason) and referees should the tenant do a runner etc.

[klauster]

The purpose of using an application form & process is to select a suitable tenant and informing a chosen tenant about assumptions linked to the TA.
In most cases it keeps people out of trouble, but enforcing a TA is a case-by-case issue because, as you know, adjudicators are driven by politics rather than evidence that might totally be ignored.