Dead man's family take on Housing NZ

Tim Morrison claims Housing New Zealand threatened his dying uncle Peter Kipa. Picture / Paul Estcourt

An Orakei family are seeking a rehearing in the Tenancy Tribunal after Housing New Zealand got a sick tenant to sign over his house three weeks before he died.

The family of retired miner and meatworker Peter Kipa, who died last month, aged 74, refused to attend a hearing last week that was called only days after Mr Kipa was buried. The tribunal turned down their request for a deferral.

Neighbouring tenants joined the family outside the house at 103 Kupe St on two days this week when they feared that Mr Kipa's nephew, Tim Morrison, would be evicted. Mr Morrison was ordered to return the keys by last Monday, but has not done so. Instead, he has hung defiant Maori Party banners on the house.

Mr Kipa's two-storey house is one of 69 owned by Housing NZ in the street. The view from upstairs stretches from central Auckland to the Coromandel, and houses nearby have sold for up to $3 million.

Mr Kipa had a chronic bronchial illness that forced him to move into a rest home about four months before he died. But his son, George Manukau, said he did not want to give up his house.

"The old man had thought about moving into one of these places but he wasn't sure he would be able to live in one," he said. "So we were trying to leave it open for him should he decide to move back home."

Mr Morrison, who had been working as a carer at a retirement home, moved into the house to look after Mr Kipa when he visited his old home.

He said a corporation officer visited Mr Kipa three weeks before he died and persuaded him to sign a document relinquishing his tenancy, violating the Maori tikanga (custom) that the family should be involved in such major decisions. "My uncle was illiterate. He couldn't read."

He said that at a mediation hearing on October 14, the officer said she had told Mr Kipa that if he did not sign the document "she was going to take him to court, sue him for money and take the house off him anyway".

Mr Kipa died on October 17. On about October 25, Mr Morrison received a letter addressed to Mr Kipa requiring him to attend a Tenancy Tribunal hearing on November 1. Mr Morrison asked for a deferral and was refused, but has requested a rehearing.

"Our thinking was that if Uncle Peter gets well and comes back, sweet, but if not we would have expected to hand over the house. We would have said okay, and had discussions about it," he said.

"But they just thought, 'We'll go down and threaten this old man and bugger what those people think. They are cattle'."

He accepted that the house would have to revert to the corporation now that Mr Kipa had died, but said he and Mr Manukau were seeking a rehearing on behalf of other tenants in the street to show that Housing NZ had handled the issue insensitively.

"There's a whole heap of people in this street who have grievances against Housing NZ," he said. "Me and George have decided to take this mission on. It will give them not just the knowledge of how to go about things but a bit of faith that they can do it, because they look at Housing NZ as this huge giant that they can't affect.

"If it doesn't stop here, they are just going to railroad everybody."

A Housing NZ spokeswoman denied the corporation threatened to sue Mr Kipa.

"In September Mr Kipa signed a vacation notice at his property, as he had not lived there for three months due to being hospitalised."

He had asked that his family remain living at the property, but staff explained they could not automatically take over the tenancy.