Scott Healey and his daughter were tenants in an unconsented building in the Napier suburb of Onekawa for months, experiencing leaks which peaked during Cyclone Gabrielle.
Video / Scott Healey
When Scott Healey realised he had rented a badly leaking property in the Napier suburb of Onekawa, he decided to take his landlord to the Tenancy Tribunal.
The tribunal ordered Leyland Properties Ltd’s Darrell Paul Ross to pay him $9000 in compensation and noted the industrial zone property that Ross rented out, which housed several others, was likely unlawful.
Ross says he’s housed people for 30 years without a single complaint. He told Hawke’s Bay Today that he now had to make 20 people homeless and Healey had “made himself a lot of enemies that boy”.
Napier City Council says it has decided not to issue an infringement fine against Leyland Properties despite an investigation confirming that unconsented building work had been carried out and that people were living at the property.
Water flows in through the shut windows of Scott Healey’s rental unit, dripping through the ceiling, falling onto electrical sockets and seeping up through the grouting of the floor tiles.
This place, in the middle of Onekawa’s industrial zone, was supposed to be the escape from emergency housing that Healeyand his daughter needed.
But the leaks are too much. Healey picks up his phone and starts filming.
The videos are the catalyst for a protracted dispute between tenant and landlord that continues to cause bitterness to this day.
Scott Healey with his daughter in front of the leaky Onekawa industrial area accommodation they lived in for months. Photo / Warren Buckland
He claimed it wasn’t long before he started noticing problems with the property.
“It was quite rundown when I moved in, but I was in emergency housing and needed a house.
“We had walked around the property and I pointed out a few things that were wrong like the light fixtures and he said, ‘I am going to get them sorted out, just give me some time.’
“Time went past, he never got anything sorted out and I kept asking him.”
Healey said Ross lived in the adjacent property so most of his requests were made verbally.
As a result, he did not have adequate evidence in email or text that he had notified his landlord to give to the tribunal.
“When we had heavy rain, the water would come up through the grouting in the lounge,” Healey said.
“The front door used to just fall off when I moved in so I had to prop it up with a couple of blocks.”
Healey said he sank into depression because of the situation.
“I stopped asking in the end because I was too worried about getting kicked out.”
Cyclone Gabrielle in February was the nadir - his interior drenched by leaks. He decided enough was enough and requested a Healthy Homes Assessment.
This was never carried out and Healey claims he was issued an eviction notice three weeks later, which spurred him to take Ross to the Tribunal.
A Tenancy Tribunal hearing in August finally gave Healey legal confirmation that many of the concerns he had about his former home were not misguided.
Tribunal adjudicator Aneterea Andrew Aiolupotea ordered Leyland Properties to pay a partial rent refund of $7980 as compensation for unlawful premises and $1000 in compensation for reduced oven capacity and an incorrectly installed water system.
It was not a complete victory - Healey had sought compensation for several other issues, but they were each dismissed for lack of evidence or not enough evidence that the landlord had been notified of the issues.
Aiolupotea’s decision says the last consent given to the property was to erect a commercial building in 2001.
“The landlord did not take all reasonable steps to check there was no legal impediment to the occupation by the tenant.”
The decision said that because Healey had been living at the property for 16 months before bringing a complaint, it indicated his stay was “not entirely uncomfortable”, however the property appeared to be unlawful.
“The purpose of section 78A [of the Residential Tenancies Act] is to prevent landlords from unfairly profiting from renting out unlawful premises. It would appear that this property fits that category,” he wrote.
“For these reasons, I find the appropriate amount to award to the tenant is 30 per cent of the total rent paid.”
He noted the Tribunal had attempted to contact Ross for three tribunal hearing dates before it went ahead in August and dismissed an application by Ross for a rehearing on October 30.
“The landlord submitted that he was in Asia from 19 April 2023 for three months and did not receive notification of the hearing date,” Aiolupotea wrote.
“I find the landlord was aware that a hearing would be allocated at some stage before they left the country on 19 April 2023.”
“At that stage, they should have alerted the person they left behind to manage their affairs so they could either attend the hearing on their behalf, seek an adjournment or arrange a representative.”
As well as going to the tribunal Healey also notified Napier City Council. He said he did it because he felt the operation Ross was running out of the building amounted to the behaviour of a “slumlord”.
Council’s investigation: What it uncovered
Healey complained in March to the council about the building and inspectors visited Leyland St on April 11.
“The investigation confirmed that unconsented building work had been carried out and that people were living there,” a council spokeswoman told Hawke’s Bay Today.
But nothing further was done.
“Issuing infringements is discretionary. In this situation, it wasn’t pursued because the tenants had moved out,” the council spokeswoman said.
Healey says that’s not good enough. At least one tenant had been living at the property for two decades, he claims,
And he claims all of the tenants were kicked out by Ross between March and the April 11 visit.
“It is the fact that he has done something wrong and the council didn’t follow up on it. I gave them all the information - what more did the council need?” Healey said.
“If it was a person like ourselves with no money renting a house with a problem like that, we would get fined.”
Landlord hits out, says tenant’s complaints have made ‘a lot of people homeless’
Ross has paid the $9000 to Healey, but he’s still frustrated at the way things went down earlier this year.
He told Hawke’s Bay Today he’d housed people in Hawke’s Bay for 30 years.
“People move in - you can’t stop them staying there,” Ross said.
“In 30-odd years we have had not one complaint, not one ever.”
He said he would be evicting people from another property he owns as a result of this case.
“What we are looking at here is a lot of people being homeless as a result of what [Healey] has done.
“There are probably 20 people affected. He has made himself a lot of enemies, that boy.
“There are people who have been in there for maybe 24 years.”
When asked if people living in industrial areas should be entitled to better living standards and legal protection he said: “I think it is better than being homeless.”
“There are people living in cars or washed-out caravans all over the city. There are people living in tents. You can put a small sleepout outside and that is ok.”
Regarding his application for a rehearing being dismissed, he said he wasn’t surprised.
“They always bat for the so-called victim in these cases.”
He claimed he had tried to remove Healey from the property for six months with no help from the council or police, and that Healey did not pay rent during that time.
“If it was that bad, why did he stay there?”
Regarding Healey’s claim he did not address issues with the property that were raised, Ross said he had bigger priorities.
“The bulk of those issues were leakage with the cyclone. We had multiple properties - some people were underwater.
“A damp floor and a couple of wet towels - that was the least of our concerns at the time. We had a lot more serious issues at other places so we were dealing with the worst stuff first.
“All over Napier and Hastings, hundreds and thousands are [living in unconsented buildings] and I am being singled out.”
He said the property was not even advertised as housing, but as an industrial workshop.
“As an example, there was a painter there and he lives up in Tūtira. He’d stay there overnight if he had too much to drink, and I don’t have a problem with that. That is up to him, at the end of the day.”
He said people staying in the units would build the unconsented kitchenettes or bathroom facilities in the units themselves.
When asked if the sale of the building was related to the tribunal ruling he said “yes and no”, and they had an interested party who had been trying to buy it for five years.
He said he was now getting out of the industrial property business by “basically selling the whole lot”.
James Pocock joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2021 and writes breaking news and features, with a focus on environment, local government and post-cyclone issues in the region. He has a keen interest in finding the bigger picture in research and making it more accessible to audiences. He lives in Napier. james.pocock@nzme.co.nz
